V Cox go Warn tor and his Wife. 




America’s Greatest Problem : 

THE NEGRO 


BY 


R. W. SHUFELDT, M. D., 


Major, medical Corps, United States Army. 


Membr. Assn, of American Anatomists; Cor. Membr. Academy of Sciences of 
Chicago; Cor. Membr. Biological Soc. of Colorado; Member and Trustee 
of the Medico-Legal Soc. of New York; Cor. Membr. Linnaean Soc. 

N. Y.; Cor. Membr. Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia; 

Cor. Membr. Soc. Italiana d’Antropologia, Ethniologia e Psicologia 
Comparata, Florence, Italy; Cor. Membr. Zoological Soc. of 
London; Fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union; 

Membr. Nat. Geogr. Soc.; Medical Soc. New Or¬ 
leans; Membr. l’Alliance Scientif. Universelle de 
France; Hon. Membr. Royal Australasian 
Ornith. Union (Melbourne); 

Membr. Cooper’s Ornith. Club; Membr. Wilson’s Ornith. Club; Art Workers’ 
Club, N. Y.; Hon. Membr. British Soc. Psychical Research (London); Membr. 
Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, etc. Formerly Membr. Cosmos 
Club of Washington, D. C.; Philosophical Soc.; Biological Soc.; Anthropological 
Soc. Washington; Soc. Nat. Eastern U. S.; Amer. Soc. Psych. Research; 
Hon. Associate in Zoology Smithsonian Institution; Membr. Internat. Copyright 
League; Authors’ League of America, etc., etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 



/ 


PHILADELPHIA 


F. A. DAVIS COMPANY, Publishers 







’J 



COPYRIGHT, 1915 

BY 

F. A. DAVIS COMPANY 


All Rights Reserved. 


Philadelphia, Pa., U. S. A. 
Press of F. A. Davis Company 
1914-16 Cherry Street 














TO THE MEMORY 


OF MY 

LEARNED AND HONORED COLLEAGUE 

THE LATE 

EDWARD DRINKER COPE 

This Little Volume is Dedicated 

A SLIGHT TRIBUTE TO THE NAME OF ONE OF AMERICA’S PROFOUNDEST 
PHILOSOPHERS, AND AS AN EXPRESSION OF MY HIGH APPRECIATION 
OF HIS VOLUMINOUS WORK IN BIOLOGY, AND OF THE 
SINCERE EFFORT HE ONCE MADE TO MAINTAIN 
THE PURITY OF THE RACE, OF WHICH 
HE WAS SO DISTINGUISHED 
A REPRESENTATIVE. 












































PREFACE. 


To me, there seems to be but little need for a fore¬ 
word to the present work, inasmuch as nearly all that 
is usually said along such lines occurs in my Intro¬ 
duction, which here follows next in order. The reader 
will not have proceeded very far in his or her perusal 
of the volume ere the fact will be appreciated that, in 
so far as the work may be considered an historical one, 
it is squarely up to date in all particulars, even to hap¬ 
penings that occurred but a few weeks prior to the 
completion of the presswork upon it and the manu¬ 
facture of the volume. 

This is due to the truly marvelous rapidity, associ¬ 
ated with expertness and accuracy of the highest 
order, evinced by my publishers, the F. A. Davis 
Company, in passing the work through their reading- 
rooms and press. It is with pleasure that I extend 
to them my thanks for all this, and for their uniform 
courtesy throughout while the book was in course of 
manufacture. 

Moreover, I am deeply indebted to many friends 
who have, from time to time, encouraged me to under¬ 
take and complete this task, while to others my ac¬ 
knowledgments are doubly due, for they have not 
only brought inspiration to my researches, but directly 
furnished contributions to various chapters in the 
volume. For such timely and appropriate assistance 
it affords me especial pleasure to express my gratitude 
to Dr. William Lee Howard, the eminent alienist and 

(v) 



VI 


Preface. 


psychologist ; to Dr. James Bardin, of the University 
of Virginia, a distinguished expounder of the negro 
question in this country and a valuable contributor to 
various allied subjects; to Mrs. Annie Riley Hale—a 
widely known lecturer and writer from the South, and 
an authority on the conditions existing in the Black 
Belt—for a thoughtful letter which occurs in an appro¬ 
priate place beyond; to Prof. A. H. Iveane, the very 
eminent British anthropologist, for his active interest 
throughout in my studies of this national question; to 
Dr. Edward A. Balloch, of Washington, for the use of 
his original manuscript on certain points in the my¬ 
ology of negroes; to Dr. Havelock Ellis, of England, 
the renowned authority on all matters sexual and the 
author of many most valuable works on the subject; 
to Col. Walter D. McCaw, Medical Corps United 
States Army and the late Dr. Robert Fletcher for 
the loan of valuable works from the library of the 
Army Medical Museum; to Dr. Robert Wilson, Jr., 
of Charleston, S. C., for furnishing valuable statistics 
on public hygiene in the South, as affected by the 
presence of the negro, and to not a few others who 
have, either directly or indirectly, assisted me in the 
present volume, by means of which it is to be hoped 
that this question of all questions at the present time 
may be brought before the people in a form by means 
of which it may be comprehended and fully appre¬ 
ciated. 

Finally, I have reserved my most pleasant duty 
for this last paragraph, written but a few hours prior 
to the volume passing on to the press: to once more 
thank my wife, Alfhild, for the indomitable way in 
which she has lent her aid throughout the entire prep- 




Preface. 


Vll 


aration of this my second formal attempt to preserve 
the unmixed purity of the blood of the Caucasian 
people in this country. She has very materially aided 
me in the reading' of proof matter. The entire work, 
from title-page to Index inclusive, was typewritten by 
her in the most accurate manner possible; and finally, 
with but hasty instruction from me, she prepared the 
Index for the volume in a way that but few experts 
could equal. This valuable assistance, so persistently 
and cheerfully rendered, allowed me to complete a 
large quantity of scientific work I had on hand, which 
would otherwise have been delayed by being per¬ 
formed at irregular intervals. 

R. W. S. 


Washington, D. C., 
March 1, 1915. 











CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Introduction . 1 

CHAPTER I. 

Man’s Place in Nature from a Biological Standpoint. 9 

CHAPTER II. 

The Ethnological Status of the Negro. 23 

CHAPTER III. 

Further Comparative Ethnological Data . 40 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Introduction of the Negro into the United States. The 

African Slave Trade. 61 

CHAPTER V. 

Biological Principles of Interbreeding . 78 

CHAPTER VI. 

Hybridization, Atavism, and Heredity. 107 

CHAPTER VII. 

Effects of Fraternization upon Morals, Ethics, and Material 

Progress . 125 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Criminality of the Negro: Lynch Law . 145 












X 


Contents . 


CHAPTER IX. 

Some Views and Opinions by the Way .. 


page 

163 


CHAPTER X. 

Amplification of Some Previously Discussed Questions . 213 


The Remedy 


CHAPTER XI. 


282 


Glossary 


337 


Index 


357 


i 








LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


FIG. 


PAGE 


Congo Warrior and his Wife . Frontispiece 

1. The Man of Sussex. 12 

2. Study of the Cranium and Jaw of the Sussex Man. 16 

3. A Male Gorilla. 20 

4. Negro Boy and Apes. 24 

5. A Spider Monkey in Erect Attitude . 32 

6. 7, 8. Skulls of Caucasian and Negro Children . 35 

9. A Kruman: West African Negro . 36 

10. Young Mende Girl ... 40 

11. Type of Congo Native . 44 

i 

12. Comparison of the Physiognomy of a Congo Negro and Caesar 48 

13. A Steatopygous Hottentot Woman . 52 

14. 15. Anterior (Fig. 14) and Lateral (Fig. 15) Views of the 

Skull of a Negro from the Congo . 56 

16, 17. The Prognathous Skull . 60 

18, 19. Skull of Hybrid . 64 

20. Skull of European . 68 

21, 22. Skull of Ancient Roman . 72 

23, 24, 25. The Facial Angle in the Gorilla (Fig. 23), the Negro 
(Fig. 24), and in the Intellectual Representative of the 
White Race (Fig. 25) . 75 

26. Skeletons of Man and Gorilla . 80 

27. Type of Young Male Negro. 88 

28. 29, 30. Lateral Views of the Brains of a Rabbit (Fig. 28), 

a Pig (Fig. 29), and a Chimpanzee (Fig. 30). 96 

31, 32. Brains of Orang-utan ( Simia satyrus) (Fig. 32) and 
Chimpanzee ( Troglodytes niger) (Fig. 31). Superior 

Views; Considerably Reduced .. 104 

(xi) 
























xii List of Illustrations . 

FIG. PAGE 

33, 34. Brains of Male Negro and Bosjes Woman . 112 

35, 36. Muscles of the Foot in Gorilla (Fig. 35) and Man (Fig. 

36). Plantar Aspect and Much Reduced . 120 

37. Right Lateral View of the Calvarium of Pithecanthropus 

erectus, with Facial Parts of the Skull and Lower Jaw 
Restored in Outline . 128 

38. Pan chimpanse . 136 

39. Pure African Negro (New York City) ; Male . 144 

40. Same Subject as in Fig. 39; Profile . 152 

41. Same Subject as Shown in Figs. 39 and 40. 160 

42. Pan Kooloo-Kamba . 168 

43. Right Lateral View of the Skull of Pan Kooloo-Kamba. 176 

44. Same Skull as Shown in Fig. 43 . 184 

45. Type of Northern Mulatto; Female . 192 

46. Same Subject as Shown in Fig. 45; Full Face . 200 

47. Percentage of Negroes in the Total Population: 1910.234 

48. Population per Square Mile by States: 1910 .236 

49. Same Subject as Shown in Figs. 45 and 46; Semi-profile.264 

50. A Type of English Beauty . 272 

51. Type of the American Anglo-Saxon; Photo from Life by the 

Author . 280 



















INTRODUCTION. 


In years gone by I have written a number of 
articles on the negro question in this country, and 
they have been published in various magazines and 
medical journals. Appearing in this way, their effect, 
though good as far as it goes, has but a transitory 
influence over the public mind, and such efforts are 
soon forgotten. It is my hope that the present work 
will be of a more enduring character, and at least 
demonstrate to the people of this nation that we have 
a condition on our hands urgently demanding a 
prompt solution, and not a “problem,” as it has been 
termed by many who appear to be incapable of grasp¬ 
ing the nature of the terrible state of affairs, represent¬ 
ing this question as a whole, which now constitutes a 
veritable menace to our much boasted-of civilization. 

When the material that makes up the present 
volume had all been collected together and gone over 
by me, I submitted it to several of my friends for a 
final revision, both with respect to facts and to 
other matters. Among these I may name the dis¬ 
tinguished historian, Alexander Del Mar, of New 
York City, an American author of great renown; 
Professor A. H. Keane, LL.D., then Vice-President 
of the Royal Anthropological Institute of England, 
and others, several being well-informed students of 
the conditions with respect to this question, and 
residents of different States in the South. 

As already pointed out elsewhere, I had, and have 
now, but one object in view in publishing a book on the 
negro in this country: to point out, from scientific 

1 (1): 


2 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


premises, the effect that that race has had and will 
continue to have upon the progress and civilization 
created and established by the white population of the 
United States—morally, physically, and otherwise. 
Personally, I have no prejudice whatever against the 
negro race on account of its color; the very thought 
of such a thing would be absurd. I have no prejudice 
against the natives of India or Arabia, and many of 
these are as black as negroes. 

One might as well charge a naturalist with preju¬ 
dice against a vulture and with favoring a blackbird. 
Both are black; but what a vulture stands for in nature, 
and what a blackbird stands for, are two entirely dif¬ 
ferent things. The habits of the first-named are 
repulsive, while the charms of such a gentle and 
refined songster as the blackbird captivate all who 
come within his influence. 

As I say, I have no color-prejudice against the 
negro; but what that color stands for in him is most 
repulsive to me. 

This book presents a truthful account of what I 
know about the negro, and what effect his presence 
among our people involves—the presentation of my 
observations in all cases being molded by such infor¬ 
mation as I possess of the sciences of anatomy, physi¬ 
ology, anthropology, ethnology, psychology, medicine, 
and organic evolution. 

Some of my critics have averred that, as a North¬ 
ern man and a member of the medical corps of the 
army, I have never enjoyed the proper opportunities to 
study the negro, and therefore am not competent to 
pass upon the influence he has as an ethnic factor in 
the conglomerate population of this country. 





Introduction. 


3 


In reply to this I may say that I have been a stu¬ 
dent of the various sciences named in a previous 
paragraph for over half a century. As long ago as 
1862 I became familiar with the lives of the slaves of 
Cuba and of the free negroes in Hayti. I was for a 
long time on the first-named island, and I was in Cape 
Haytien during the revolution. I have seen the 
“slaver” ofif the coast of Cuba, when the dead bodies 
of the captured negroes were being tossed overboard, 
prior to the entry of the vessel into the harbor of 
Havana. At different times I have been in every 
Southern State of the Union, and I have lived two 
years in New Orleans. I have intimate knowledge of 
the employment of negroes in the army and navy and 
many other government departments; of what they 
have accomplished in business, the trades, and the pro¬ 
fessions ; of the terrible influence their immense hordes 
are having upon our people in Southern cities, and of 
their crimes and diseases. I have dissected males, 
females, and young of both negroes and mulattoes. 
Further, I have studied the literature of the subject, 
and these people, as a whole, in the United States, in 
connection with the influence they are exerting upon 
our morals, our natures, our politics, and our general 
welfare for over fifty years. 

As previously stated, the bringing of the negro to 
our shores requires no special comment other than 
what I have given in its proper place in the body of the 
work, beyond inviting the attention of the reader to 
the fact that the taking of Africans out of Africa and 
settling them in this country by no means makes 
Americans of them. It would be quite as reasonable to 
expect zebras to become horses when similarly trans- 









4 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


ported. Nature cares not a straw for human laws and 
politics, and the passing of a race into any new political 
area does not make another race of it. Profound and 
comparatively rapid changes can be effected only 
through crossing with other races, and this is what 
is happening in the case of the African in the United 
States. It is, therefore, only to the hybrids thus pro¬ 
duced that the recently much-used appellation “Afro- 
American” can be truthfully applied. The unmixed 
African in this country is just as much of a negro 
today as his ancestors in Africa were before him. 
He simply stands upon our soil, in every individual 
case, as a potential ethnic factor, threatening at any 
and at all times to do his share toward debasing the 
blood of the white race in America. There is no 
greater danger assailing American civilization than 
this; there can be no greater danger than the pres¬ 
ence of anything that tends toward the degradation 
of a race. It is the presence of this danger which 
has compelled me to write this book. I desire to add 
my voice to the voices of others who have pointed out 
this danger—perhaps more potently than I have here 
—as well as to lend encouragement to those who will 
raise their voices in a similar manner in the future. 

With respect to the matter of lynching it scarcely 
devolves upon me to say that I am opposed to all foi ms 
of lynch law, but the negro is with us; savagery and 
barbarous acts beget savagery and barbarous acts. 


Religion has no more to do with it, has no more con¬ 
trol over it than the bursting of a soap-bubble has to 
do with an earthquake. In spite of everything, lynch- 


ings will continue to occur in the United States of 
America just so long as there is a negro left here. He 



Introduction. 


5 


can no more help his instincts than he is responsible 
for the color of his skin. 

So far as transporting any considerable number 
of the most undesirable class of negroes—a few mil¬ 
lions, for example—out of this country is concerned, I 
have little to add beyond what I have said in Chaptei 
XI of this volume. The National Academy of 
Sciences might recommend such a step to Congress; 
but the Academy, as a rule, does not make such use of 
its knowledge of ethnology, history, or biology. 

There is not a negro or mulatto in the United 
States today that can trace any part of his or her 
African pedigree in Africa; they know absolutely 
nothing of their transatlantic genealogy; they cannot 
trace their pedigree to that of the Old World stock, 
in the case of any individual, as well as we can for 
many of our blooded dogs and horses. They are ab¬ 
solutely lacking in pride of country, these negroes; 
and had they been a white race instead of a black one, 
and been subjected to all that they have up to the 
present hour, the innate instinct of race alone would 
have risen within them as a people, and, through senti¬ 
ments of indignation, been the cause of their uprising 
and the representation of their right to be returned to 
their own land, the land of their forefathers! 

The constant irritation they cause in the majority 
of the whites, in centers where they equal—or nearly 
equal—the latter in number, has, of itself, a most bane¬ 
ful influence upon the temper and upon the formation 
of our character as a nation, standing for all that the 
human race has attained in the matter of progressive 
civilization. What is true of the individual is true of 
the race, and the psychologist well knows what it 




6 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


means to a refined person to be forced to associate and 
live with a non-moral, diseased, and objectionable one. 
In time, but one of two things can happen: either 
complete segregation or else assimilation to the detri¬ 
ment of the person of refinement and the very ques¬ 
tionable improvement of the undesirable one. 

Here in Washington, as well as in other Eastern 
cities, we take great pride in safeguarding the morals 
of our citizens. Every audience that faces a motion- 
picture reel must first be assured on the screen that 
the reel has been passed upon by “The National Board 
of Censorship.” This assurance is flashed in the faces 
of hundreds of thousands of our people every evening 
of the week; but these same authorities and the people 
utterly ignore the ever-present object-lesson they left 
on the street, as they entered the building where the 
aforesaid moral, elevating and permissible picture-reel 
was to be seen. 

Upon the aforesaid street, lighted as it is by the 
brilliant glare of hundreds of arc-lights, there is to be 
observed a perambulating crowd of human beings, 
made up of the representatives of our own civilization, 
of an equal number of the descendants of an imported 
black race from the cannibal tribes of Africa, and an 
army of light-colored hybrids that represent the off¬ 
spring of hundreds of couples of the two first-named 
races. What each of these hybrids stands for in all, 
things is now fairly well known to most intelligent 
people in this country; so it is to the moral lesson that 
we turn. 

Almost without exception, every one of these have 
been born out of wedlock, the offspring of a white man 
and a negress,—a phase of immorality sufficient to 



Introduction. 


7 


damn any nation and degrade it to the level of any 
group of animals below man! These bastards consti¬ 
tute the group representing the improved Afro-Ameri¬ 
cans; they stand for the stock upon which the poli¬ 
ticians in power draw, in order to have “the race” 
represented in places of power and preferment. 
Their ancestors have been and are the great dissemi¬ 
nators of the venereal and other diseases in the 
United States, as statistics have long ago proven to be 
the case. It is this mixed, rapidly increasing, bastard 
stock for whom we have paved the way to represent 
the white race of the United States for all ensuing 
generations! 

The time is certain to come, however far off it may 
be,—if stronger and cleaner nations of futurity allow 
it to arrive,—when the admixture will result in the 
complete rotting of the old Anglo-Saxon stock in this 
country, and when no one of our descendants can trace 
an unsullied pedigree back to the grand old civiliza¬ 
tions of the Old World, with all that that means and 
all that that has accomplished. This is what we are 
passing down to posterity. 

It is to help avert such a degradation of our 
Anglo-Saxon stock in this country that this book has 
been written. 






















CHAPTER I. 


Man’s Place in Nature from a Biological 

Standpoint. 

There never has been but one certain way to 
decide man’s position in the system of nature; it con¬ 
sists in examining man anatomically, physiologically, 
and psychologically, and comparing the information 
thus obtained with the corresponding data, secured 
through similar methods from other living forms now 
existing upon the earth. Man and his career in the 
world, up to the present time, may also be examined 
historically, palaeontologically, and anthropologically, 
as far as the discovered data will permit us to carry 
the investigation. In fact—in order to establish cor¬ 
rectly the place man holds in nature—it becomes 
necessary to compare and intercompare every possible 
thing we can find out about him, both in past and 
present time, with a similar knowledge—as far as we 
have mastered it—of all other animals in the world, 
and' with especial care in regard to those forms which 
are universally conceded to—and do—most resemble 
him; such an investigation should, as far as possible, 
be exhaustive. Science has done this, and has come to 
a finding based upon the evidence secured. This evi¬ 
dence has been accumulating since the dawn of his¬ 
tory, and in amount and number of established facts 
is absolutely overwhelming. As a whole, as well as in 
part, it has passed through the test-crucible of time; 
at each step in its history, its refinement has been 
secured through the most intense fire in the furnace of 

( 9 ) 




10 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


criticism, and we thus have the solution of this long- 
debated question in our possession and settled forever. 
The comments of the ignorant upon the findings of 
science in this matter are no longer regarded by the 
intelligent; the fire, the protest, and the ridicule that 
followed this investigation, step by step, throughout 
its entire course, from its birth to its final solution, 
have died out. 

Man’s place in nature is now as thoroughly known 
and established as is the fact that the earth is en¬ 
veloped in the sea of its own atmosphere. And it was 
by no means altogether through the pen, the brains, 
and the philosophy of Charles Darwin that science was 
enabled to arrive at the truth of the question,—for the 
matter of that, his grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, 
years before him had foreshadowed the finding (“The 
Temple of Nature,” 1804, pp. 67, 68). This finding 
has been the outcome of the labor and investigation of 
a great army of workers, and the minds, the scalpels, 
the microscopes, and the pens of the individual re¬ 
searchers have each and all, directly or indirectly, 
knowingly or unconsciously, contributed to the result. 
As an anthropological fact, it has passed out of the 
realm of mere hypothesis into the full blaze of estab¬ 
lished fact. In touching upon the question of man’s 
place in nature, a rational writer of the present would 
no more think of introducing the subject to his readers 
in an argumentative way than he would were he called 
upon to write about the atomic theory, the law of 
gravitation, or the form of the earth, for it is a fact 
far better established than any of these. Moreover, 
we can actually handle the material upon which the 
evidence is based; and the new evidence that is com- 




Man’s Place in Nature. 


11 


mg' to light in ever-increasing masses, as each day 
rolls by, brings but solid confirmation to science’s ver¬ 
dict,—not only as to the place occupied by man and 
mankind in nature, but exactly as to how he came to 
be there. 

One can enter any public or private library today 
and pick the works of the time where one will, from 
school-book to lexicon, from fact to fiction; history 
will have but one thing to say on this particular point. 
We find it tersely epitomized for us in the great dic¬ 
tionaries of the time; for example, in the Century 
Dictionary we find “man” defined as “a featherless, 
plantigrade, biped mammal of the genus Homo; Homo 
sapiens of the family Hominidce or A nthropidcc, order 
Primates, class Mammalia, of which there are several 
geographical races or varieties.” (Vol. v, p. 3601.) 
There is no question what is meant by this definition. 

Again, in the same authoritative work, we find 
Hominidce defined in the following words: “A family 
of mammals, represented by the single genus Homo, 
man, of the suborder Anthropoidea and order Pri¬ 
mates; mankind. It is characterized by the complete 
withdrawal of the fore-limbs from the office of locomo¬ 
tion, and consequently the habitually erect attitude 
except in infancy; the perfection of the hand as a pre¬ 
hensile organ, and the specialization of the foot as a 
locomotory organ; the regular curvature of the line of 

the teeth, which are of the same length and in unin- 

* 

terrupted series, without diastemata; the nakedness of 
most of the body; and the large facial angle. These 
are the principal zoological characters by which the 
Hominidce are distinguished from the Simiidce or an¬ 
thropoid apes. Physiologically, mankind is peculiar 




12 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


chiefly in the capacity of civilization, or the ability to 
create progressive institutions (including the forma¬ 
tion and use of speech). Psychologically, man is 
separated by a very wide interval from the nearest 
Shniidcc. The family is the same as Antliropidce; it is 
conterminous with its single genus Homo, with the 
order Bimana, and with the subclass Archencephala.” 
(Century Dictionary, vol. iv, p. 2866.) This is clear 
enough, and certainly amply good enough for a dic¬ 
tionary definition; however, as a generic diagnosis it 
offers us some exceptions. In the first place, negroes 
are to be found that possess the upper and lower 
canines—especially the former—much lengthened. 
Again, both men and women have been found, and 
exist at the present time, in whom the body (including 
the head sometimes) is completely covered with a thick 
and heavy growth of hair. In a Burmese family, 
every member, some eight or ten individuals, was so 
covered, even including the entire face. It is more 
frequently seen in the white than in the black-skinned 
races. Finally, there is a great variance in the open¬ 
ness—or the reverse—of the facial angle. 

With these and a few other slight exceptions, there 
is not a biologist in the world today who will not 
fully indorse the definition of man and the family 
Hominidce 1 as quoted above from the Century Dic¬ 
tionary. So far as man’s place in nature is concerned, 
it epitomizes the case as stated by anatomists the world 
over for the last half-century or more, and it obviates 
the necessity of pointing out what Sir Richard Owen 

1 It would seem that Carl Linnaeus, the great Swedish naturalist, in 
his classification of the various races of mankind, referred the negroes 
to one species, namely, to the species Homo afer (10th ed., p. 22, 1758). 
In my opinion, this view is a thoroughly untenable one. 








Fig. i.—Thf. Man of Sussex. 

This is from the reconstruction made by Mr. A. borestier, 
of the art staff of The Illustrated London Xews, who was 
assisted by Dr. A. Smith Woodward, of the British Museum. 


i 













Man’s Place in Nature. 


13 


has said on the subject, or Professor Huxley, or Dar¬ 
win, or Gegenbaur, or hundreds of other biologists 
who have personally and exhaustively examined for 
years the material upon which such an opinion is based. 
It puts man and mankind squarely in the group Mam¬ 
malia and classifies him accordingly. His speech, his 
civilization (whatever that may mean), his present 
progress—if in reality man is progressing mentally, 
morally, and physically—and all that separates him 
from any other animal in general, and from the higher 
apes in particular, are included. Anatomically and 
structurally he is no better fitted to do what he is doing 
in the world than is the gorilla in the forests of dark¬ 
est Africa physically qualified to lead its particular 
life. Furthermore, man is subject to the same diseases 
and injuries that the simians are, or even, in some 
cases, the mammals below them; he will eat and live 
upon anything that any other animal will eat, be it 
cooked or uncooked. He is insectivorous, carnivorous. 
—indeed, omnivorous. He will thrive upon insects, 
snails, corn, the slain animals—young and old—of 
other genera than his own, as well as upon those of 
his own species. His young are born just as the 
young of many other mammals are, and for many 
weeks, in utero, they cannot be with certainty distin¬ 
guished from foetal gorillas. In fact, and taken as a 
whole, man’s reproduction offers nothing different 
from what we see among many other mammals. 

Man experiences pain and pleasure just as other 
mammals do, and the same may be said for the other 
emotions and feelings, as anger, fear, grief, spite, 
hatred, selfishness, greed, cowardice, bravery, and 
every other qualification of the kind known. The sen- 



14 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


sations experienced on the part of a frightened man 
and a frightened monkey are identical in every par¬ 
ticular, and in many instances the behavior is the same 
under the same circumstances. As for grief, spite, 
and other passions, I have seen monkeys, dogs, and 
many other animals that possessed just as keen a 
sense of right and wrong as the average of mankind 
does; and as for the refinements of cruelty of all kinds 
toward their fellow-species, man outclasses any other 
group of animals in the known world. Indeed, man is 
the most cruel animal in existence, and by no means, as 
a rule, always the most cleanly. Men steal and murder, 
—so do other animals; men deceive in no end of ways, 
—and so do other animals; men slay their own 
fathers, mothers, mates, children, and friends,—and 
so do other animals, though, in proportion, not as fre¬ 
quently. Men cohabit with their own relatives,—so 
do other animals. Auto-erotism in all its forms is 
practised by both sexes. Homosexuality is common 
in mankind, and far more so than among other ani¬ 
mals ; it is met with in both sexes. As a matter of fact, 
whether induced by disease or indulged in by the nor¬ 
mal man or woman, there is no animal—or group of 
animals—on earth, outside of man, that practises a 
wider range of sexual perversions, psychopathia sex- 
ualis, and the most inconceivable departures from 
normal coition to a natural end than does the genus 
Homo; he actually out-animals,—yes, out-beasts the 
bestiality of the very beasts themselves. Along these 
lines no other animal can compete with him, nor rival 
him in the contraction of disease as a consequence. 

With respect to instinct and reason, they differ but 
in degree, while typical instinct and the ordinary in- 




Man’s Place in Nature. 


15 


stincts are the same everywhere and in all organiza¬ 
tions. Reason has been brought to a higher plane only 
in the best of mankind: those enjoying the most ex¬ 
alted intellectual development; while thousands of men 
and women exist in all parts of the world, in whom the 
reasoning faculties are no keener than in intelligent 
foxes, dogs, and elephants; ethnologists have proven 
this fact over and over again. 

Man is the most conceited being in the entire 
world’s menagerie, and on what account, pray? 
Surely not because of his shape or his anatomy! No, 
only in consequence of his higher reasoning powers, 
which, in the course of his psychological evolution and 
his morphological and physiological adaptation, have 
advanced him to a stage in which he is fitted to utterly 
annihilate every other animal on the face of the globe, 
—an operation he is accomplishing with a rapidity and 
swiftness truly interesting to contemplate. His civil¬ 
ization consists in replacing much that formerly ex¬ 
isted in nature with his machines, his habitations and 
places of pleasure, his improved passage-ways, and 
other contrivances that subserve the ends of education 
and the acquisition of knowledge. He is nevertheless 
a Primate, and ever will be, with all that this word 
means. His place in nature is as fixed as is the fact 
that if his head be cut off he will die. 

That man has a place in nature there is no manner 
of doubt, and the truth has been told when we admit 
that in reality it is in nature, and that he has risen to 
this place in time and along developmental lines in 
every way similar to the lines followed by all other 
animals in nature in their evolution, starting, as they 
have, and as we all have, in common from the simplest 



16 


America<?s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


animals known to us and which existed in the world 
whh the first manifestations of life of any kind. 

In commenting upon this fact in his “Evidences 
as to Man’s Place in Nature,” Mr. Huxley said: 

Science has fulfilled her function when she has as¬ 
certained and enunciated truth; and were these pages 
addressed to men of science only, I should now close 
this essay, knowing that my colleagues have learned 
to respect nothing but evidence, and to believe that 
t eir highest duty lies in submitting to it, however it 
may jar against their inclinations. But desiring, as I 
do, to reach the wider circle of the intelligent public, 
it would be unworthy cowardice were I to ignore the 
repugnance with which the majority of my readers are 
likely to meet the conclusions to which the most care¬ 
ful and conscientious study I have been able to give to 
this matter has led me. 

“On all sides I shall hear the cry—‘We are men 
and women, and not a mere better sort of apes, a little 
longer in the leg, more compact in the foot, and bigger 
in brain than your brutal Chimpanzees and Gorillas 
The power of knowledge—the conscience of good and 
evil—the pitiful tenderness of human affections, raise 
us out of all real fellowship with the brutes, however 
closely they may seem to approximate us.’ 

“To this I can only reply that the exclamation 
would be most just and would have my own entire 
sympathy, if it were only relevant. But it is not I who 
seek to base Man’s dignity upon his great toe, or in¬ 
sinuate that we are lost if an Ape has a hippocampus 
minor. On the contrary, I have done my best to 
sweep away this vanity. I have endeavored to show 
that no absolute structural line of demarcation, wider 




Fig. 2.—Study of the Cranium and Jaw of the Sussex Man. 

i (dotted line), outline of the cranium of highly developed 
Indo-European—white man; 2 , including all the light shaded 
area, the cranium of the Sussex man (solid line) ; 3 , the lower 
jaw of the Sussex man, and 4 , two of his molar teeth; 5 
(dotted line), the lower jaw of the Indo-European skull; 6 , the 
projecting chin of the latter; 7 (solid line), the prognathous 
or projecting teeth and jaws of the Sussex man, as in apes and 
many negroes. Drawn by the author. 























Man’s Place in Nature. 


17 


k " 

than that between the animals which immediately suc¬ 
ceed us in the scale, can be drawn between the animal 
world and ourselves; and I may add the expression of 
my belief that the attempt to draw a physical distinc¬ 
tion is equally futile, and that even the highest facul¬ 
ties of feeling and of intellect begin to germinate in 
lower forms of life. At the same time no one is more 
strongly convinced than I am of the vastness of the 
gulf between civilized man and the brutes; or is more 
certain that whether from them or not, he is assuredly 
not of them. No one is less disposed to think lightly 
of the present dignity, or despairingly of the future 
hopes, of the only consciously intelligent denizens of 
this world. 

“We are indeed told, by those who assume author¬ 
ity in these matters, that the two sets of opinions are 
incompatible, and that the belief in the unity of origin 
of man and brutes involves the brutalization and deg¬ 
radation of the former. But is this really so ? Could 
not a sensible child confute, by obvious arguments, the 
shallow rhetoricians who would force this conclusion 
upon us? Is it, indeed, true, that the Poet, or the 
Philosopher, or the Artist whose genius is the glory 
of his age, is degraded from his high estate by the un¬ 
doubted historical probability, not to say certainty, 
that he is the direct descendant of some naked and 
bestial savage, whose intelligence was just sufficient 
to make him a little more cunning than the Fox, and 
by so much more dangerous than the Tiger? Or is he 
bound to howl and grovel on all fours because of the 
wholly unquestionable fact that he was once an egg, 
which no ordinary power of discrimination could dis¬ 
tinguish from that of a Dog? Or is the philanthropist 



18 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


or the saint to give up his endeavors to lead a noble 
life, because the simplest study of man’s nature re¬ 
veals, at its foundations, all the selfish passions and 
fierce appetites of the merest quadruped? Is mother- 
love vile because a hen shows it, or fidelity base be¬ 
cause dogs possess it?” (Pp. 128-131.) 

In the work from which these rather long quota¬ 
tions have been taken, Professor Huxley answers 
these questions himself, and in a manner which leaves 
not the slightest doubt in the mind of any reasonable 
person as to their correctness. There are still, how¬ 
ever, unnumbered thousands of people in the world 
who can afford to read his words with advantage; 
they are as true and as logical as any of the demon¬ 
strations in Euclid’s geometry. 

No thoughtful, reading, and intelligent man or 
woman today believes that the beginning of mankind 
was in a miraculously created pair, in no way differing 
from representatives of the human race of the present 
day, or that the man was the result of a separate act 
of creation, and the woman the outcome of a miracle. 
That fable has had its day, and those who still profess 
to believe it are either simply hypocrites or ignorant as 
a native Hottentot. It is not at all necessary to enter 
further upon this question. 

As we shall see in a later chapter, there is no doubt 
as to the existence of vast differences that in many 
ways distinguish the various races of men now 
peopling the earth; yet this truth is no better estab¬ 
lished than is the fact that the entire family of man¬ 
kind has, in common with all other existing mammals, 
descended from a common progenitor, and that at the 
present time the genus Homo, and the various genera 




Man’s Place in Nature. 


19 


of the higher simians, are all members of the same 
group. 

In line with the facts set forth above, now comes 
the important discovery of the “Man of Sussex” 
(England),—an ape-like being, with characteristics 
which place him squarely in the homo-simian pedigree; 
more man than ape, to be sure, but nearer, very much 
nearer, the latter than any form heretofore known to 
us. The discovery of his remains, which consist of the 
vault of his cranium and the imperfect lower jaw, took 
place in December, 1911, and science at once recog¬ 
nized the important light it shed upon the history of 
the human race. Mr. W. P. Pycraft, of the British 
Museum, has this to say, in The Illustrated London 
News, with reference to these remains (Dec. 28) :— 

“The evidence for the interpretation which has 
been placed on them is incontrovertible. In the first 
place, the lower jaw is unmistakably ape-like, while 
presenting other features indubitably human. It is 
ape-like in its massiveness, in the absence of a chin, 
and in the absence of a peculiar ridge along the inner 
surface which in the typical human jaw is extremely 
well marked, and serves for the attachment of muscles 
concerned with the act of swallowing. Another 
simian feature is the shortness and great breadth of 
the upper branch whereby the jaw is hinged to the 
skull. As to the teeth of this ancient Briton, it will 
suffice to remark that they resemble those of the cele¬ 
brated Heidelberg jaw, and in so far are of the human 
type; but they are ape-like in the greater length of 
their grinding surfaces. But there is reason to sus¬ 
pect that the canine or ‘eye’ teeth projected, at any 
rate slightly, above the level of the rest,—an ape-like 



20 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


character met with in savage races today, tho’ never 
to the same extent as in apes. 

“Another ape-like character is afforded by the 
trend of the grinders, which shows that the teeth in 
the complete jaw must have run in a straight, parallel 
series,—not in a horseshoe curve, as in modern 
men. 

“Happily, enough of the skull has been found to 
allow of the restoration of the whole of the cranial por¬ 
tion, which encloses the brain. And this shows us 
that the beetling brows so excessively developed in the 
celebrated fossil man of Java, discovered some years 
ago, were in the Sussex man far less developed; while 
the brain capacity of this ancient man had just under 
two pints, which is nearly twice as much as that of the 
highest apes, tho’ considerably less than that of the 
average European, which is, roughly, about two pints 
and a half.” 

This man was in existence some hundred thousand 
years ago—possibly a million—and it is quite probable 
that either he or his immediate forbears lived during 
the latter part of the Pliocene age. 

“As to his personal appearance one would not like 
to dogmatize,” says Mr. Pycraft, “but, with the help 
of Mr. Forestier, I have been enabled to make what is 
probably a near approximation to the truth. He was a 
man of low stature, very muscular, and had not yet 
attained that graceful poise of the body which is so 
characteristic of the human race today. But he was 
by no means lacking in intelligence. Living in a genial 
climate amid a luxurious vegetation, and surrounded 
by an abundance of game, he may be said to have led a 
life of comparative ease. Of clothing he had no need; 




Fig. 3.— A Male Gorilla. 


This photograph of the largest gorilla known was taken 
immediately after death by Herr Paschen, of Yaunde, and gives 
an excellent idea of the size of these animals as compared with 
negroes. The animal weighed 400 pounds. 






























Man’s Place in Nature. 


21 


nor was there any reason to bother much about hous¬ 
ing accommodation; tho’, for safety’s sake, he may 
have been forced to devise some kind of shelter by 
night. Elephants and rhinoceroses, of species long 
since extinct, roamed in herds all around him. These 
and the hippopotamus no doubt he killed for food, and. 
besides, he must have hunted a species of horse long 
since extinct, while the lion, bear, and saber-toothed 
tiger afforded him plenty of opportunities for hair¬ 
breadth escapes. He had probably inherited the use 
of fire from his forbears, and this useful ally served to 
harden the ends of his wooden spears, and perhaps to 
cook his food. His only other tools were furnished by 
flint stones chipped to the rough semblance of an ax. 
but used in the hand, not wielded by a shaft. From 
the peculiar character in which it was flaked from the 
rough nodule selected, this implement is known as the 
‘Chellean’ type, and tho’ one of the more primitive 
types of Paleolithic weapons, it showed better work¬ 
manship than is displayed by the still earlier ‘Strepyea’ 
and ‘Mesvinian’ types, and a great advance on the 
much-discust ’eoliths.’ These earlier weapons, it may 
be remarked, are the only evidence we have of the 
existence of men older than the makers of the ‘Chel¬ 
lean’ implements, but they speak as surely as did the 
footprints found by Robinson Crusoe. 

“Finally, these fragments of man from the Sussex 
gravel tell us that already at this early period the 
human race had begun to split up into different peoples, 
which had spread far over the earth’s surface, as is 
witnessed by the remains found in Java and at Heidel¬ 
berg. And these three, we must point out, belong, 
roughly, to the same period of time in the world’s his- 



22 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


tory; these three, more than any others, bear witness 
to man’s kinship with the apes.” 

In the London Sphere (Dec. 28), we read the fol¬ 
lowing account of the discovery of the remains of this 
man. It is given by Mr. Charles Dawson, who, with 
Dr. Smith Woodward, described them at a meeting of 
the Geological Society (Dec. 18), Mr. Dawson being 
the spokesman. In the course of his remarks he said: 
‘‘Water filled the gravel-pit until the end of May, but 
excavation was begun early in June, and by the end of 
September had resulted in the finding of sufficient 
fragments of the skull to restore the whole and also in 
the recovery of half the lower jaw. At the same time 
the diggings revealed fragments of two primitive ele¬ 
phants, a hippopotamus, the common red deer and 
horse, and a beaver. Numerous flint implements of a 
very primitive type were also found. While the dig¬ 
gings were in progress he examined thoroughly the 
geology of the whole neighborhood, and came to the 
conclusion that the position of the gravel and its nature 
proved great antiquity. Since the gravel was de¬ 
posited, the Ouse itself has cut down its channel to a 
depth of eighty feet.” 



CHAPTER II. 


The Ethnological Status of the Negro. 

Indiscriminating people speak of the inhabitants 
of the great continent of Africa in the loosest possible 
manner, designating them collectively as negroes; this 

. [ a *****"**** 1 

is, however, as every well-informed person knows, by 
no means the case. In the first place, all the northern 
tier of countries bordering upon the Mediterranean 
are inhabited by races of an entirely different descrip¬ 
tion and possessing important histories. So it is with 
the most of the east side of the continent and south¬ 
ward for some considerable distance. In the extreme 
southwest, too, we have the Bosjesmen and the Hot¬ 
tentots, neither of which belong to the negro or ne¬ 
groid races; their stock is quite different. Apart from 
the inhabitants of Africa just indicated, and those who 
have made Africa their home, coming from divers 
countries of Europe and other continents, there still re¬ 
mains to be taken into consideration some hundred and 
thirty-odd millions of others; then there are the negro 
or negroid races, composed either of pure and original 
stock, or those produced by hybridization or inter¬ 
breeding with the foreigners or with other African 
nations. 

This enormous mass of people occupy four great 
regions on the continent of Africa, namely, the region 
of West Soudan and Guinea; of Central Soudan and 
the Chad Basin; of East Soudan and Upper Nile; and 
of South Africa, where the Bantu family resides. 
These four regions contain from four to eight great 

( 23 ) 


24 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


groups of black or dark-colored people, often represent¬ 
ing very widely different races, speaking dissimilar 
languages, entirely different in their appearances and 
customs, and having altogether separate histories. 
Some of these races we know a good deal about; some 
of them w r e know but very little about, and of the great 
mass of them—many millions in number—we know 
almost nothing. We do know, however, that some 
twenty-five millions of negroes and their descendants 
are living in other parts of the world besides Africa. 
Their descendants are either true negroes or else hy¬ 
brids resulting from the former’s crossing with the 
whites, with Indians, or with other nationalities. 
Many of these negroes and half-castes are to be found 
in North and South America and the West Indies, 
having been forcibly introduced there through the 
slave-hunters of by-gone years. It is reckoned that 
there are some ten millions of negroes and half-breed 
descendants in the United States alone, and in some 
sections these are increasing with great rapidity, espe¬ 
cially in the Southern States, where the climate, food, 
and other conditions are favorable to their propa¬ 
gation. 

As this book is chiefly devoted to a consideration 
of the negroes and their descendants in this country, 
I shall not attempt to pay attention to the major part 
of the great hordes of those peoples to be found in 
Africa, but only incidentally refer to those on the west 
coast—the Gold or Slave coast of the African conti¬ 
nent—and to the other tribes or races as occasion re¬ 
quires, for the purpose of drawing upon them for 
additional illustrations in the matter of their histories, 
their mental, moral, and physical characters, or any- 





Fig. 4.—Negro Boy and Apes. 

On the left side of the figure there is a young Chimpanzee, 
and on the right a young Orang-utan. This is a wonderfully 
interesting comparison. 












The Ethnological Status of the Negro. 


25 


thing that may shed light upon the special subject with 
which I am dealing. 

In Chapter I, the position of the genus Homo — 
man and mankind—in the animal world was briefly set 
forth. Man is an animal and belongs directly in the 
mammalian series. ’ To this law there has never been 
found an exception or a single departure since the 
earth became a planet. It applies just as rigidly to the 
men and women of the present day as it did to the 
earliest forms of men that were evolved from the pris¬ 
tine simian stock thousands of years ago. It applies 
with just as much truth to one individual as to an¬ 
other, and to the world’s anthropofauna as a whole, 
both past and present. It is as true of the highest as 
of the lowest, in every and all particulars, of men 
everywhere; and, finally, it is as true of the population 
of Africa, severally and individually, as it is of the 
population of the United States, severally and in¬ 
dividually. But then, when we come to the mental, 
moral, intellectual, and psychological attributes of 
man—of men, mankind—the existing differences in 
these respects among various representatives of the 
genus Homo, in all parts of the world, as applied to 
the individual or to the race or group, are simply, in 
many instances, immeasurable. 

Throughout the entire history of the world, both 
men and women have exhibited vast differences in re¬ 
gard to culture, refinement, knowledge, and mental 
capacity. They have also exhibited similar differences 
with respect to their philosophical caliber, and the 
ability to employ the reasoning faculty in its varied 
fields, as applied to logical ends, and to the solutions 
of practical and theoretical questions. Linnaeus, von 



26 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


Humboldt, Huxley, Darwin, and other great men were 
just as much of the animal world as the lowest Yoru- 
bas, Bushmen, or Australian natives; but the gulf that 
separated them is marked by an enormous period of 
evolution. 

We are now in position to consider the mental, 
moral, and physical characters of the negroes and 
negroids, especially the tribes found in the West Sou¬ 
dan, the Congo Basin, the Slave and Gold coasts of 
Africa,—in fact the stock from which was derived the 
negroes that were brought to the United States as 
slaves. These are the negroes, and the descendants 
of them are of the race or races that interest us here 
in this country. It is these we have upon our hands, 
and it is these we have to deal with in the condition of 
affairs widely known as the “negro problem.” 

The word negro seems to be of Spanish origin, and 
is derived originally from the Latin niger, meaning 
black. Anthropologically, it distinctly characterizes 
the race of negroes to be described in the present vol¬ 
ume. All others are of negroid or even sub-negroid 
blood, and it has been advanced that the original stock 
came from the land of Lemuria, that hypothetical 
region now submerged beneath the waters of the 
Indian Ocean. These were the lands that constituted 
the cradle of the negro stock which is now found in a 
pure state only in the Benua and Shari basins; in the 
Gaboon; on the coast of Guinea, and along the lower 
Zambesi River. Here are located the villages of the 
unnumbered hordes of blacks that occupy the lowest 
position in the scale of'evolution of the genus Homo. 
Among them are the relatives of many of the negroes 
in the United States, and, indeed, large numbers of the 



The Ethnological Status of the Negro. 


27 


latter are no further removed from the most degraded 
standard of savagery than the former are. Typical 
representatives of these true negroes anywhere are 
markedly uniform with respect to their moral and 
physical characters,—more so, in fact, than any other 
people of whatever nationality they may be. For this 
reason they offer us material for comparison—mor¬ 
ally, socially, and morphologically—with not only the 
higher forms of existing apes and their allies, but with 
human races standing above them in the evolutionary 
scale. 

Taking up first some of their external characters, 
it will be seen that the hair is short, black, and frizzly, 
—in fact, distinctly woolly. On section, a single hair 
is elliptical or quite flat. As compared with the 
simians, the negroes differ in this particular, the for¬ 
mer having coats of true hair and not wool as on the 
heads and other parts of the latter. Keane states that 
P. U. Brown, in his Classification of Mankind by the 
Hair , “shows conclusively that, unlike true hair, but 
like true wool, the negro hair is flat, issues from the 
epidermis at a right angle, is spirally twisted or 
crisped, has no central duct, the coloring matter being 
disseminated through the cortex and intermediate 
fibers, while the cortex itself is covered with numerous 
rough, pointed filaments adhering loosely to the shaft; 
lastly, the negro pile will felt, like wool, whereas true 
hair cannot be felted. Observing that the negro 
domain is also the habitat of the most anthropoid apes 
—gorilla and chimpanzee—and that these bimanous 
and quadrumanous species are both of a pronounced 
dolichocephalic type (index nos. 72-75), some anthro¬ 
pologists have suggested the direct descent of the for- 



28 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


mer from the latter. But against this view may be 
urged the different texture of the pile, which, although 
black in both, is woolly in the negro, but true hair in 
the ape.” 

The negro has a large black eye, with the sclerotic 
coat tinged with yellow,—a distinctive character fre¬ 
quently noticed in the typical west-coast negroes. The 
jaws exhibit decided prognathism, or projection for¬ 
ward, the facial angle being seventy degrees against 
the eighty-two of the average white man. Another 
marked feature is the nose, which is broad and flat, 
with dilated nostrils, and with the ridge concaved, 
often showing the red inner surface of the mucous 
membrane. The lips are very large, protruding and 
heavy. Sometimes they are everted, displaying the 
red mucous membrane of the mouth. The malar bones 
and zygomatic arches being prominent, the cheeks are 
made equally so. These full-blooded negroes have 
black skins, or a deep brownish tint. Climate has 
nothing whatever to do with this, nor has any special 
pigment. It is due to a superabundance of coloring 
matter between the true and the scarf skins. Soft and 
velvety to the touch, the negro epidermis is, for the 
most part, quite free from hair, and would be interest¬ 
ing were it not for the outrageous odor it emits, 
especially under heat and excitement. This is some¬ 
times so strong that I have known persons of our own 
race brought almost to the stage of emesis when 
compelled to inhale it for any length of time. 

Usually the negro is of but average height, and by 
no means always erect, presenting curves due to the 
prominence of the back of the head, the shape of the 
spine and pelvis, and the general morphology of his 



The Ethnological Status of the Negro. 


29 


frame. The anterior pair of limbs are long as in the 
apes, and frequently slender; while the pelvic extremi¬ 
ties may be weak, deficient in calves, and with a low 
instep to the feet, which are broad and flat. The heel 
projects backward, and the hallux or big toe is slightly 
independent and tends to become prehensile. As an 
example of this it has been noted that negro and mixed 
breeds ride with the great toe in the stirrup-iron. 
Again, the hand of the typical negro often has much 
about it to remind us of the manus in the gorilla. In 
two instances I met with very black negroes in the 
South, both men, in whom the ears were conspicuously 
pointed at their upper margins as in many Quad- 
rumana. The projecting point on the helix, as de¬ 
scribed by Darwin, I have noticed far more frequently 
in negroes than in the white races. It is undoubtedly 
a vestigial character, indicating that man arose from a 
pointed-eared animal. The ear in the foetal orang is 
likewise pointed. Certain external organs are enor¬ 
mously developed in the negro, and the hair is coarse 
and kinky as it is on the head. I dissected an old negro 
man at the National Medical College in Washington, 
D. C. As a subject, he was particularly simian in his 
organization, and one thing noticed about him more 
than anything else was the structure of his toe-nails. 
These were, on all toes—but especially on the great 
toes—marvelously thickened and curved, reminding 
one of the claws on certain animals. Those peculiar 
structures were over twenty times as thick as the ordi¬ 
nary toe-nail, and evidently had not been trimmed for 
years. 

The same winter I dissected a rather light- 
colored negress who had double breasts,—one above 



30 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


the other. All four were fully developed and func¬ 
tional in life. 

The development of a tail—that is, a free, movable 
caudal appendage, with rudimentary vertebrae in it— 
is very rare. In the skull of the negro the cranial 
capacity and the brain itself are much under size. On 
the average, the former will measure thirty-five ounces 
as against forty-five for the Caucasian skull. In the 
negro the cranial bones are dense and unusually thick, 
converting his head into a veritable battering-ram; 
moreover, the cranial sutures unite very early in life. 
This checks the development of the brain long before 
the same takes place in other races, and this fact 
accounts to some extent for the more or less sudden 
stunting of the negro intellect shortly after arriving 
at puberty. Filippo Manetta has pointed out that “the 
negro children [on the plantations in the South] were 
sharp, intelligent, and full of vivacity, but on ap¬ 
proaching the adult period a gradual change sets in. 
The intellect seems to become clouded, animation giv¬ 
ing place to a sort of lethargy, briskness yielding to 
indolence. We must necessarily suppose that the de¬ 
velopment of the Negro and White proceeds on differ¬ 
ent lines; while with the latter the volume of the brain 
grows with the expansion of the brain-pan, in the 
former the growth of the brain is, on the contrary, 
arrested by the premature closing of the cranial 
sutures and lateral pressure of the frontal bone.” 
(La Razza Negra nel suo stato selvaggio, etc., Turin, 
^ 1864, p. 20.) 

In his internal anatomy the negro exhibits a much 
closer approach to the anthropoid apes than does any 
other race of the genus Homo. Perhaps it would be 



The Ethnological Status of the Negro. 


31 


nearer the truth to say that he has not been so com¬ 
pletely differentiated from the simian stock as have the 
other races of mankind. 

Many vestigial or rudimentary organs and struc¬ 
tures that are constant in the case of the animals be¬ 
low man appear far more frequently in the negro than 
in the white race. It will not be necessary to enumer¬ 
ate all of these when a few will answer our purpose, 
especially when taken in connection with the external 
characters already given above. I believe that it will 
be found that the supracondyloid foramen of the 
humerus (feline carnivora, gorilla) is more frequently 
present in the negro, and I am quite sure the psoas 
parvus muscle is. Dr. Edward A. Ballock was inter¬ 
ested in this subject a number of years ago (Septem¬ 
ber, 1891), and read a paper upon it before the Wash¬ 
ington Medical Society (D. C.), he being a resident of 
that city. He has sent me the original MS. of this 
paper, and as it is short and to the point, I find it use¬ 
ful to include in the present chapter. It is entitled 
“On the Relative Frequency of the Psoas parvus 
Muscle in the Colored Race,” and I may say that what 
its author found to be the case is confirmed by my own 
experience, on the dissecting table as well as in my 
reading. Dr. Ballock says:— 

“For a long time I have been impressed with the 
fact that American anatomists were neglecting a field 
fertile in promise, rich in opportunity, and certain to 
yield fruitful results to careful cultivation. I refer 
to the investigation of the anatomical peculiarities 
of the negro, including in that term both those of 
pure and mixed blood. This field is peculiarly our 
own, and, from the necessity of the case, must long 



32 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


continue to be so. We owe it to ourselves no less 
than to our science to investigate it thoroughly. We 
should not let slip this opportunity to make and record 
careful observations. 

“A recent search through the literature bearing 
on this point, made in another connection, enables me 
to say that, by the European anatomist, an oppor¬ 
tunity to study a negro subject is an especial privilege. 
Each organ and structure is carefully examined and 
all anomalies noted. Thus Turner in England and 
Chudzinski in France have put on record detailed 
accounts of dissections of this character, and evi¬ 
dently they are regarded as of high scientific value. 
With us the very abundance of such material leads to 
its neglect. Were negro subjects so much of a rarity 
with us as they are abroad, we may easily imagine 
with what care each one would be dissected. 

“It seems to me that we have here a remarkable 
chance to make solid additions to our science, partic¬ 
ularly in the line of comparative anatomy, which, to 
my mind, is the only scientific anatomy. 

“In isolated instances this has been done, and 
the literature of medicine and anthropology contains 
not a few allusions to this matter. Among others, 
Parker has noted important differences between negro 
and Caucasian brains, and Baker has recorded many 
myological differences; but, so far as I am aware, 
the matter has never received the careful and sys¬ 
tematic investigation it deserves. 

“I have thought it opportune to bring it to the 
notice of the Society at this time, in the hope of stim¬ 
ulating interest in it and leading to its further de¬ 
velopment. The isolated fact of today may become 




p lG —A Spider Monkey in Erect Attitude. 

(Courtesy of Mr. F. Ashman Carpenter, of San Diego, California.) 

















The Ethnological Status of the Negro. 


33 


the generalization of tomorrow, and if each will con¬ 
tribute his mite we shall soon have a body of facts 
sufficient to warrant us in deducing the laws of agree¬ 
ment and difference, if such there be. 

“During a somewhat extended service as demon¬ 
strator of anatomy in one of our local medical schools, 
using negro subjects entirely, one myological peculi¬ 
arity of the race was forcibly impressed upon my 
attention. I refer to the almost invariable presence of 
the psoas parvus muscle, on both sides and well de¬ 
veloped. I regret that I kept no exact record, but 
I feel warranted in saying that the presence of this 
muscle is the rule, and its absence a noteworthy ex¬ 
ception. It was equally present in the two sexes. 

“This muscle occurs constantly in the lower 
animals and serves an important purpose; but as we 
ascend in the scale it grows smaller and more rudi¬ 
mentary until in man it is generally stated to be absent f 
or a mere fasciculus. 

“Meckel is the only authority who regards this 
as a constantly present muscle. He states that it is 
sometimes absent, but that this is rare. Every other 
anatomist is against him. Theile’s language is espe¬ 
cially emphatic; he says: ‘I consider the absence of 
the small psoas as the normal condition in man. In 
over twenty bodies, where I have searched especially 
for it, I have only found it a single time.’ 

“Holden gives its frequency of occurrence as one 
in eight or ten subjects; while Wilson, Quain, 
Cruveilhier, and others state in general terms that it 
is more frequently absent than present. Allen re¬ 
gards it as an accessory bundle to the great psoas. 
This may be true in the white, but I hardly think it 


3 




3 







34 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


will hold true of the negro. The muscle is invariably 
fairly developed, with entirely separate and well- 
defined points of attachment and having its own 
aponeurosis. 

“I am inclined to regard the presence of this 
muscle in the colored race as a reversion toward the 
lower type of mammals, especially when taken in con¬ 
nection with other equally striking myological peculi¬ 
arities, and I trust that I may be able, by this note, 
to cause someone, whose opportunities will permit, 
to study carefully the comparative myology of the 
two races. From my own limited experience, I am 
positive that a mine of information lies awaiting the 
explorer who shall uncover it, and I hope that its 
treasures may soon be added to the literature of our 
science.” 

Darwin has said that “we have seen that the men¬ 
tal powers of the higher animals do not differ in kind, 
though greatly in degree, from the corresponding 
powers of man, especially of the lower and barbarous 
races; and it would appear that even their taste for 
the beautiful is not widely different from that of the 
Quadrumana. As the negro of Africa raises the flesh 
on his face into parallel ridges ‘or cicatrices, high 
above the natural’ surface, which unsightly defor¬ 
mities 'are considered great personal attractions; 1 

as negroes and savages in many parts of 
the world paint their faces with red, blue, white, or 
black bars, so the male mandrill of Africa appears 
to have acquired his deeply furrowed and gaudily 


1 Sir Samuel Baker: 


“The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,” 1867 . 




The Ethnological Status of the Negro . 


35 



Figs. 6, 7, and 8.—Skulls of Caucasian and Negro Children. 

Fig. 6 represents the skull of an average white child at the 
time of birth, left lateral view. Here the lateral fontanelles and 
cranial sutures are plainly seen; being far from closed up, they 
admit of the general expansion of the brain-mass for a long 
time during the growth of the individual. 

Figs. 7 and 8 are partly diagrammatic representations of 
vertical aspects of the skulls of two children at about the time 
of puberty. It will be observed that in the white child (Fig. 7) 
the cranial sutures in this region still remain unclosed, thus 
allowing brain-growth and development; while in the negro 
(Fig. 8) they have coossified, thus preventing any further brain 
expansion and the results that naturally follow. (Drawn by 
the author.) 









36 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


colored face from having been thus rendered attract¬ 
ive to the female.” 2 

And again: “In regard to Colour, the new-born 
negro-child is reddish nut-brown, which soon becomes 
slaty-grey; the black colour being fully developed 
within a year in the Soudan, but not until three years 
in Egypt. The eyes of the negro are at first blue, and 
the hair chestnut-brown rather than black, being 
curly only at the ends.” 3 

In short, as has long been known, whether living 
in Africa or living in America, the typical west-coast 
negro is, in his physical organization, as near the 
anthropoid apes as are any of the savage races of 
mankind,—perhaps the nearest. He is untold ages 
nearer than is the typical representative of the best 
in the white race. 

We may say the same thing of his mental and 
V moral qualifications. Further along in the present 
work I shall touch more fully upon these points. 
Professor Keane states that the mental and moral 
differences between the negro and the white races are 
quite as well marked as the physical ones, “and as 
both are the gradual outcome of external conditions, 
fixed by heredity, it follows that the attempt to sud¬ 
denly transform the negro mind by foreign culture 
must be, as it has proved to be, as futile as the attempt 
L would be to suddenly transform his physical type,” 

2 Darwin, Charles: “The Descent of Man,” pp. 540, 541. The 
comparison made here is an especially good one, and will be appreciated 
by anyone who has had the opportunity to see, as I have, the native 
Africans paint up their faces, wrinkling them up in the manner above 
described, and also to study the face of the African mandrill, a most 
remarkable simian. 

3 Loc. cit p. 557. 






Fig. 9.—A Kruman : West African Negro. 


(Photo by Sir Harry Johnston.) 













The Ethnological Status of the Negro. 


37 


—a point that the untutored masses in the United 
States fail to see. The negro has, in fact, no morals, 
and it is therefore out of the question for him to be 
immoral; in other words, he is non-moral rather than 
immoral. 

In speaking of the condition of the blacks in the 
Southern States in 1883, the Rev. Dr. Tucker is 
quoted as having said, at the American Church Con¬ 
gress for that year, that he knew of whole neighbor¬ 
hoods “where there is not one single negro couple, 
whether legally married or not, who are faithful tq 
each other beyond a few weeks. In the midst of a 
prayer-meeting I have known negroes to steal [money] 
from each other, and on the way home they will rob 
any henroost that lies conveniently at hand. The 
most pious negro that I know is confined in a peniten¬ 
tiary for an atrocious murder, and he persists in say¬ 
ing he can see no offence against God in his crime, 
though he acknowledges an offence against man.” 

Mention was further made of negro missionaries 
guilty of the grossest immorality, living in concubi¬ 
nage, addicted to thieving, lying, and every imaginary 
crime, yet all “earnest and successful preachers, and 
wholly unconscious of hypocricy. Their sins, uni¬ 
versally known, did not diminish their influence with 
their race. It was impossible to doubt their absolute 
sincerity.” 

“A much darker picture,” says Keane, in his work 
on the negro, “is presented by the independent negro 
commonwealth of Hayti, for eighty years the scene 
of almost uninterrupted fratricidal strife.” 

Throughout the entire historic period of man’s 
career upon the earth, the chapter on the negro is 



38 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


practically a record of the lowest savagery, soon 
lapsing back into the mere tradition of wild and un¬ 
tutored tribes, whose social institutions are at the 
lowest possible level, with fetichism for religion, 
coupled with torture, cruelty, slavery, cannibalism, 
and a common belief in sorcery. Where not checked 
by the presence of the European, the native shambles 
in the middle Congo Basin are still hung with choice 
cuts of human bodies, and these continue to be sold 
in the open marketplace. In Africa they even barter 
their dead relatives, and those securing the corpses 
in this way eat them. (Stanley, “Heart of Africa,” 
vol. ii, pp. 18, 19.) They will even disinter them for 
the same purpose and eat them after decomposition 
has set in. The negroes who still practise this in 
Africa are several millions in number, and close blood 
relations of the race in the United States. 

To quote Professor Keane once more on the state 
of the African negro, he says: “When visited in 1879 
by Dr. Buchver, this potentate [the Muata Yanvo of 
Ulunda], to impress his guest with his power, caused 
one of his subjects to assume the part of a chief just 
arrived from a remote province of the empire. The 
sham cortege of soldiers and women advanced to the 
throne thickly plastered with mud from head to foot, 
and the ‘chief/ approaching on all fours, deliberately 
rolled himself in the sand at his majesty’s feet as a 
proof of his respect. 

“The administration of justice is regulated not 
by any sense of right or wrong, but by the caprice 
of the king, who is himself often in the power of 
the navumbala, or witch-detector. Beyond what has 
been acquired from without, of letters there is abso- 



The Ethnological Status of the Negro. 


39 


lutely no knowledge, unless an exception be made in 
favour of the invention or adaptation of a rude 
syllabic system some years ago by a native of the 
Vei tribe. Hence literature is purely oral and 
limited to a few tribal legends, some folk-lore, 
proverbs, and songs of the simplest kind. The arts 
also are exclusively of an industrial character, re¬ 
stricted mainly to coarse weaving, pottery, and the 
smelting and working of copper and iron. Architec¬ 
ture has no existence, nor are there any monumental 
ruins or stone structures of any sort in Negroland 

proper. 

“No full-blooded negro has ever,” says Keane, 
“been distinguished as a man of science, a poet, or 
an artist, and the fundamental equality claimed for 
him by ignorant philanthropists is belied by the whole 
history of the race throughout the historic period.” 
Professor Keane says “no full-blooded negro” has 
ever thus distinguished himself, a fact that cannot 
be denied. From an ethnological standpoint, the 
place occupied by the West Soudan negro and his 
relatives in the United States is now clearly defined; 
he has been carefully studied by many minds fully 
capable of undertaking the task, and his status, not 
difficult of comprehension, is fairly set forth in the 
foregoing brief chapter. 




CHAPTER III. 


Further Comparative Ethnological Data. 

Many writers of the present and of the past have 
invited attention to the mental, moral, and physical 
characters of the negro, a few of which have been 
briefly described in the last chapter. 1 Heusinger, for, 
example, long ago recognized the fact that the black 
races of mankind came nearer the anthropoid apes 
than any of the white races did, and in his work he 
cites many authorities who have touched upon this 
question. 2 Shortly before his memoir appeared, 
Tiedeman had published one which contained a far 
greater amount of information on this point, illus¬ 
trated by excellent plates, comparing the brains of 
negroes with those of the simians. 3 He clearly 
pointed out, as many other writers had done before 
him, that the negroes of Africa were more nearly re¬ 
lated to the higher apes than were the white races of 
Europe. Indeed, as their writings testify, such dis- 

1 All the citations made here are from works personally examined 
by me, and in this connection my thanks are due to Colonel Walter D. 
McCaw, U. S. A., in charge of the Army Medical Museum at Wash¬ 
ington, and to the late Dr. Robert Fletcher, of the library of that 
institution, for the loan of several valuable volumes from the Library 
of the Surgeon General's Office, which were forwarded to New York 
for my examination. 

2 Heusinger, Dr. C. F.: “Vier Abbildungen des Schadels der Simia 
Satyrus von verschiedenem Alter, zur Aufklarung der Fabel vom Oran 
utan.” Marburg, 1838. Large quarto, 44 pp. Plates of skulls of 
Orang-utan. 

3 Tiedeman, Dr. Friedrich: “Das Hirn des Negers mit dem des 
Europaers und Orang-outangs vergleichen.” Mit sechs Tafeln. Heidel¬ 
berg, 1837. The tables in this memoir are very valuable. 

( 40 ) 




Fig. io.—Young Mende Girl, of Eastern Sierra Leone 

(Photo by Mr. Cecil H. Firmiti.) 















Further Comparative Ethnological Data. 


41 


tinguished anatomists as Cuvier, Camper, and Sdm- 
mering entertained the same opinion. 

White, who in 1799 published a memoir entitled 
“An Account of the Regular Gradation in Man, and 
in Different Animals and Vegetables,” says: “Taking 
the European man as a standard of comparison, on the 
one hand, and the tribe of simise on the other; and 
comparing the classes of mankind with the standards, 
and with each other, they may be so arranged as to 
form a pretty regular gradation, in respect to the 
differences in the bodily structure and oeconomy, the 
European standing at the head, as being farthest re¬ 
moved from the brute creation” (p. 83). He further 
says that “the African, more especially in those 
particulars in which he differs from the European, 
approaches the ape.” 

Lawrence states in his “Lectures on Physiology, 
Zoology and the Natural History of Man”: “In all 
the particulars just enumerated, the negro structure 
approximates unequivocally to that of the monkey. 
It not only differs from the Caucasian model, but is 
distinguished from it in two respects: the intellec¬ 
tual characters are reduced, the animal features en¬ 
larged and exaggerated. This inferiority of organi¬ 
zation is attended with corresponding inferiority of 
faculties, which may be proved, not so much by the 
unfortunate beings who are degraded by slavery, as 
by every fact in the past history and the present con¬ 
dition of Africa.” (London, 1819, p. 363.) 

Hume was of the opinion that all negroes were 
inferior to the whites, that “There scarcely ever was 
a civilized nation of that complexion [black], nor ever 
any individual eminent either in action or speculation. 


* 



42 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no 
sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and bar¬ 
barous of the whites, such as the ancient Germans 
and the present Tartars, have still something emi¬ 
nent about them, in their valour, form of government, 
or some other particular.” 4 

“The colour of the skin of genuine negroes,” says 
Haeckel, “is always more or less of a pure black. 
Their skin is velvety to the touch, and characterized 
by a peculiar, offensive exhalation. Although negroes 
agree with Kaffres in the formation of the woolly hair 
of the head, yet they differ essentially in the formation 
of th'eir face. Their forehead is flatter and lower, 
their nose broad and thick, not prominent, their lips 
large and protruding, and their chin very short. 
Genuine negroes are moreover distinguished by very 
thin calves and very long arms. This species of men 
must have branched into many separate tribes at a 
very early period, for their numerous and entirely 
distinct languages can in no way be traced to one 
primaeval language.” Of these same negro tribes he 
further says: “They have barely risen above the 
lowest stage of transition from man-like apes to ape¬ 
like men, a stage which the progenitors of the higher 
human species had already passed through thousands 
of years ago.” 5 

The attitude of the genuine African negro toward 
women has already been touched upon on a previous 
page of the present work. Every day the daily news¬ 
papers of this country take it upon themselves to re- 

4 Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, vol. i, note M. 

6 Haeckel, Ernst: “The History of Creation,” vol. ii, pp. 313, 364, 
1880. 




Further Comparative Ethnological Data. 


43 


cord the cases that have occurred within the day 
passed exemplifying this attitude. Thousands of such 
cases are never recorded, and the perpetrators seem 
to become more brutal and dangerous as time goes on. 
Letourneau has said: “We have previously seen how 
lamentable the fate of woman is among the negro 
Africans, and how excessive are the ‘rights of the 
father of the family,’ since he can traffic in his chil¬ 
dren without rebuke. This virile despotism may easily 
coexist with the adoption of uterine filiation. In one 
Kaffir tribe, the men used their own children to bait 
their traps for catching lions, and yet maternal filia¬ 
tion prevails in Kafifraria; only it does not govern 
inheritance.” 6 

Such customs are by no means uncommon today in 
Hayti and in the interior of Jamaica, barring the 
trap-baiting one, as there are no lions there. The 
non-morality of thousands of negroes in this country 
has already been described, and is not to be wondered 
at when we come to look into the history of their 
African ancestors. 

“As for all the negroes of Africa,” says Letour¬ 
neau, “whatever the degree of their civilization or< 
savagery, they have not even a suspicion of the mono- 
gamic regime. But, in Africa also, sensuality is only 
one of the secondary causes of the plurality of wives 
so strongly desired by the blacks. Their polygamy 
is chiefly founded on economic motives. 

“Naturally the last sentiments we may expect to 
find in African households are those of delicacy or 

6 Letourneau, Ch.: “The Evolution of Marriage, and of the 
Family.” London, 1900, p. 305. See also Layland in Journal of 
Ethnological Society, 1869. 





44 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


moral nobility. Humble to servility in the presence 
of the master, the women give rein to their shameless 
excesses as soon as they can do it without danger. 

“In Bornou a wife never approaches her husband 
without kneeling. When a Poul orders one of his 
wives to prepare his supper, which implies that the 
master desires her company for the night, this signal 
favour is received with transports of joy. The chosen 
wife hastens to obey, and when the repast is ready she 
proudly goes to seek the master, thus humiliating her 
female colleagues, who retreat in confusion to their 
cabins to await their turn. But all this abject be¬ 
haviour is merely by compulsion, and the women re¬ 
coup themselves well for it whenever they have the 
chance. ... In all negro Africa the husbands 
are generally strangers to the jealousy of honour 
which exists among the intelligent husbands of 
civilized countries. They do not care for moral 
fidelity, based on affection and free choice.” (Evolu¬ 
tion of Marriage, pp. 127, 128.) 

Monteiro, the African traveler, says: “The negro 
knows neither love, affection, nor jealousy. During 
the many years that I have spent in Africa I have 
never seen a negro manifest the least tenderness for 
a woman-^put his arms around her, give or receive 
a caress, denoting some degree of affection or love 
on one side or the other. . . . They have no 

word in their language to signify love or affection.” 
This statement is quoted both by Herbert Spencer in 
his Sociology (vol. ii, pp. 284-293) and by other 
authoritative writers on morals and marriage among 
negroes. Such characteristics as these can only per¬ 
tain to a people who delight in torture, and torture of 





Fig. ii.—Type of Congo Native 

















Further Comparative Ethnological Data. 


45 


every conceivable kind. We must cease to wonder, 
then, when Monteiro further informs us that the negro 
“has not the slightest idea of mercy, pity, or compas¬ 
sion for suffering. A fellow-creature, or animal, 
writhing in pain or torture, is to him a sight highly 
provocative of merriment and enjoyment. I have 
seen a number of blacks at Loanda, men, women, and 
children, stand around, roaring with laughter, at see¬ 
ing a poor mongrel dog that had been run over by a 
cart, twist and roll about in agony on the ground till 
a white man put it out of its misery.” 7 To prove that 
the unmixed negro in this country is still indifferent 
to feeling when confronted with fearful suffering in 
others, it is but necessary to remind the reader of the 
numerous instances where they have raped and mur¬ 
dered little white girls, for years past, in all parts of 
the United States. Cruelty is an instinct that militates 
against everything that is good and noble in a pro¬ 
gressive civilization; and can anyone believe for an 
instant that these Africans among us have lost this 
instinct, or that we, as a nation, are strong enough or 
numerous enough to ‘civilize it out’ of the millions of 
them that are now mixed up with us, and where, 
through that mixture, hybrids are, by the hundreds, 
being daily produced? Never! 

“Immorality,” says Fritsch, “is too deeply rooted 
in the African blood to make it difficult to find an 
occasion for indulging in it; wherefore the custom of 
celebrating puberty is made the occasion for lascivious 
practices; the unmarried girls choose companions 
with whom they cohabit as long as the festival lasts. 
. usually three or four days.” 8 


7 Monteiro, J. J.: “Angola and the River Congo, 1 ” p. 134. 

8 Fritsch, G.: “Die Eingeborenen Siid-Afrikas,” p. 112. 





46 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


Finck, too, has gathered together for us not a 
little literature shedding light upon the non-morality, 
the utter depravity, the bestiality, and the cannibalism 
of the native negroes in Africa; and, as has been said 
before, there are a sufficient number of examples in 
the world that go to prove that negroes, however long 
they may have enjoyed the influences of the highest 
civilization, when by themselves will always lapse into 
the very lowest stages of barbarism. Finck says: 
“In 1891 the Swedish explorer Westermarck pub¬ 
lished a book describing his adventures among the 
cannibal tribes of the Upper Congo. I have not seen 
the book, but the Rev. James Johnston, in summing 
up its contents says: 'A man can sell his wife and 
children according to his own depraved pleasure. 
Women are the slave drudges, the men spending their 
hours in eating, drinking, and sleeping. Cannibalism 
in its worst features prevails. Young women are 
prized as special delicacies, particularly girls’ ears 
prepared in palm oil, and, in order to make the flesh 
more palatable, the luckless victims are kept in water 
up to their necks for three or four days before they 
are slaughtered and served as food.’ 

But it is not necessary to go further into this side 
of the genuine negro’s character, for it is all too well 
known to the intelligent reader. The higher senti¬ 
mental qualities of love are totally lacking in true 
negroes of both sexes in this country today; this fact 
is easily discovered by anyone who will take the pains 

9 Finck, Henry T.: “Primitive Love and Love Stories.” New 
York, 1899, p. 394. Johnston, J.: “Missionary Landscapes in the 
Dark Continent,” p. 193. This work I have not personally examined, 
and so rely entirely upon Finck for the correctness of the passages 
here quoted.—R. W. S. 




Further Comparative Ethnological Data. 


47 


to study their natures with a keen psychological in¬ 
sight. In thousands of instances they undertake to 
mimic us in this quality as in much else that has for 
ages pertained to the higher race; as a matter of fact, 
from first to last, it is the gratification of the sexual 
appetite that comes up in their minds when typical 
negroes are brought together, the matter of pure love 
being constitutionally unknown to them. All this is 
a question of inheritance with the race in this country. 
How very, very rare it is that we see two negroes kiss 
each other, or exhibit any true sentiment in their love- 
making! The animal instincts arise at once, and the 
rest of the story is known to us. Many animals be¬ 
low man manifest a far greater amount of real affec¬ 
tion in their love-making than do the negroes, and 
hundreds of cases might be cited even among the vari¬ 
ous groups of birds. 

In support of all this we may note what Zoller 
says:: “A negro woman does not fall in love in the 
same sense as a European, not even as the least civil¬ 
ized peasant girl. Love, in our sense of the word, is a 
product of pur c ultu re, belonging to a higher stage 
in the development of latent faculties than the negro 
race has reached. Not only is the negro a stranger to 
the diverse intellectual and sentimental qualities which 
we denote by the name of love; nay, even in a purely 
bodily sense it may be asserted that his nervous sys¬ 
tem is not only less sensitive, but less well developed. 
The negro loves as he eats and drinks. . . ., 

And just as little as a black epicure have I ever been 
able to discover a negro who could rise to the imagina¬ 
tive phases of amorous dalliance.” 10 

10 Zoller, Hugo: “Forschungsreisen in die deutsche Colonie Kam- 
erum,” iii, 68-70. 





48 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


When my former work on The Negro appeared, it 
received a very large number of reviews, but a no more 
scientific one than at the hands of the distinguished 
ethnologist, Dr. A. H. Keane, of London. Doctor 
Keane’s remarks first appeared in The Savannah 
Morning News (Georgia) of June 7, 1908, p. 7, and 
were extensively reproduced by a number of maga¬ 
zines and periodicals throughout the country. Not¬ 
withstanding the fact that his contribution contains 
one or two quotations that have already appeared in 
a previous chapter of the present work, they are 
allowed to remain in order to not interfere with the 
line of his argument, and his criticisms are here re¬ 
produced in extenso :— 

“Editor Morning News: May I, as an outsider, 
but not ‘an alien,’ crave a little of your valuable space 
for a few remarks on this work, to which my atten¬ 
tion has recently been called, as again raising the 
whole question of the black ‘eye-sore’ in an acute 
form. Equipped as he is .with all the armature 
acquired from his ethnological and anatomical studies, 
and from long and close contact with the negro, the 
author speaks at first hand with a commanding voice 
that few others could pretend to. Hence, when he 
tells us that when writing the book he was ‘actuated 
by no other motive than that of telling the truth most 
plainly and fully,’ his conclusions on the many complex 
factors of the problem will at least be taken into 
serious consideration, though they may not succeed 
in securing universal assent. The issues raised are 
too numerous and involved to hope for an immediate 
solution, and, for the present, all that can be reason- 




F IG . i2 .—Comparison of the Physiognomy of a Congo 

Negro and Cesar. 























Further Comparative Ethnological Data. 


49 


ably expected is some such full and frank statement of 
the case as is here presented to the reader. 

“In support of Dr. Shufeldt’s general argument, 

I should like here to dwell more particularly on twq 
points, to wit: The negro’s intellectual stagnation, 
and the effects of miscegenation—on both of which 
I may claim to speak with some confidence, if not 
altogether convincingly. 

“First. I believe I was amongst the first anthro¬ 
pologists to enter a strong protest against the assump¬ 
tions of those philanthropists and sham sentimental¬ 
ists who, on political, social, and religious grounds, 
rashly proclaimed the fundamental equality of all 
races, and preached the doctrine that the Zulu-Ivaffirs 
and the Africans stood on the same mental level as the 
Aryan-speaking white peoples. As far back as the 
year 1884 I pointed out, in the Encyclopaedia Britan- 
nica (9th edition), that such equality was belied by 
the history of human culture, and disproved by the 
physical structure of the black man’s brain-cap. The 
cranial sutures close much earlier in the negro than in 
other races. To this premature ossification of the 
skull, preventing all further development of the brain, 
many pathologists have attributed the inherent men¬ 
tal inferiority of the blacks, an inferiority which is 
even more marked than their physical differences. No 
one has more carefully studied this point than Filippo 
Manetta, who, during a long residence on the planta¬ 
tions of the Southern States of America, noted that 
the negro children were sharp, intelligent, and full of 
vivacity, but in the adult state the intellect seemed 
to become clouded—animation giving place to a sort 
of lethargy; briskness yielding to indolence. With the 



50 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


white, the volume of the brain grows with the expan¬ 
sion of the skull; with the negro, the growth of the 
brain is, on the contrary, arrested by the early closing 
of the cranial sutures. (‘La Razza Negra,’ Turin, 
1864, p. 20.) Later the same phenomenon causing 
stagnation of both the mental and moral faculties was 
noted by other observers, such as Col. A. B. Ellis and 
Capt. Binger, the latter declaring that to this intel¬ 
lectual stagnation should be ascribed in these regions 
(the Soudan) the closing of the cranial box; the 
development of the skull ceases and prevents the brain 
from further expansion. 

“That the moral no less than the pure intellectual 
qualities remain at the animal stage, is evident from 
the unbiased testimony of such observers as Capt. 
Ruffin, of Richmond, Va., and especially the Rev. Dr. 
Tucker, who stated at the American Church Congress 
of 1883, that he ‘knew of whole neighborhoods where 
there is not one single negro couple, whether legally 
married or not, who are faithful to each other beyond 
a few weeks. The most pious negro that I know is 
confined in a penitentiary for an atrocious murder; 
and he persists in saying that he can see no offence 
against God in his crime, though he acknowledges an 
offence against man.’ He had not yet grasped the 
distinction between sin and crime. His moral faculty 
was still infantile, and it is this very infantile condi¬ 
tion of the negro temperament, combined with an 
ineradicable strain of animal ferocity, that makes the 
negro element such ‘A Menace to American Civiliza- 
tion.’ I may incidentally remark that the cranial 
capacity, on which the mentality depends, stands in 
Soudan at about 1300 c.c., as compared with Dubois’ 




Further Comparative Ethnological Data. 


51 


Pithecanthropus credits (900 or, perhaps, 1000), and 
the average American (1600). The average negro 
is thus intellectually about midway between the human 
precursor (early Pliocene man) and the present most 
advanced civilized people; in other words, he lags, in 
terms of time, at least one million years behind. Such 
is the inference to be drawn from the data supplied by 
physical anthropology. 

“Second. Racial temperaments resemble physical 
temperaments in that the union of two of either results 
in equilibrium. Hence the union or the intermingling 
of two races, at different cultural levels, means the 
relative upheaval of the lower at the expense of the 
higher. Consequently the Afro-American, now much 
spoken of, is necessarily a debarred creature, com¬ 
pared with the typical Anglo-American aborigine of 
more or less pure Anglo-Saxon or British descent. 
It follows that, if this Afro-American element is on the 
increase, the Anglo-American element has entered on 
a process of decay, which must end in all-round de¬ 
basement unless arrested. Can such a dismal prospect 
be looked upon with equanimity even by that ‘Little 
American’ section of the community, which, like our 
(I fear) still more numerous ‘Little Englanders,’ have 
always the first word for the alien, the second only 
for themselves? For it is to be noticed that the degra¬ 
dation would not be confined to the Southern States, 
but would inevitably spread like a pestiferous con¬ 
tagion over the whole Union. Indeed, it already 
- threatens to spread, and a silent Northward movement 
appears to have recently set in; the Southern blacks 
even now pouring into the city of New York, as I am 
informed, not by alarmists, but by cool-headed ob- 



52 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


servers there. On this aspect of the question I read 
almost with terror the warning note raised by Dr. 
Shufeldt, who tells us that ‘there are plenty of people 
in this country of ours who would far rather see the 
entire white race here rotted by heroic injections into 
their veins of all the savagery and criminality there 
is in the negro, than have any number of the latter 
in any way inconvenienced by their being returned 
to the country from which their ancestors came.’ 

“Such fanatical regard for the susceptibilities of a 
race which, after all, is entitled to scant respect, be¬ 
comes a crime against humanity, and, if persisted in, 
would end in national suicide. Surely they cannot 
shut their eyes to the deadly results of miscegenation 
in Latin America, although there the crosses have 
mainly been between whites and American aborigines, 
the latter being in most respects a far superior race 
to the blacks, so that the resultant Hispano and 
Lusitano-American Mestizoes must be assumed to be 
of better type than the Afro-Americans. Dealing 
with the various degrees of intermixture, Sir H. 
Johnston aptly remarks that the white and black 
stocks ‘are too widely separated in type to produce a 
satisfactory hybrid.’ This observer, who has had 
more to do with the African aborigines than any 
other man living, also holds that the pure and un¬ 
adulterated negro cannot advance with any certainty 
of stability above his present level of culture without 
the admixture of a somewhat higher race, such as the 
Indian Coolie. Then, the blend of these two races 
‘would give the Indian the physical development, 
which he lacks, and he, in his turn, would transmit 
to his half-negro offspring the industry, ambition, and 





Fig. i 



3.— A Steatopygous Hottentot Woman. 
(By the author, after Stratz.) 









Further Comparative Ethnological Data. 


53 


aspiration toward his civilized life which the negro so 
markedly lacks.’ (Quoted in my “Man, Past and 
Present,” p. 265.) The infusion of such a Hindu 
strain has even been suggested as a possible means of 
improving or elevating the North American negro. 
But I do not consider such a project as at all prac¬ 
ticable, and I hold, with Dr. Shufeldt, that the only 
ultimate remedy for the growing evil must be in 
separation, or, in plain words, removal or excision 
from the body politic. But a consideration of the 
various schemes by which it is proposed to effect this, 
and thereby disperse the ‘black cloud,’ does not fall 
within the scope of the present communication. I am, 
Sir, yours faithfully, A. H. Keane, LL.D., 

“Late Vice-President of the Anthro¬ 
pological Institute, 

“Aram-Gah, “London. 

“79 Broadhurst Gardens, 

“South Hampstead, 

“London, N. W., 

“May 7th, 1908.” 

Passing from this phase of the ethnological status 
of the negro, we may touch upon a few more points, 
in a comparative way, regarding his anatomical struc¬ 
ture as observed by various writers. 

“In some skulls,” says Huxley, “the brain-case 
may be said to be ‘round,’ the extreme length not ex¬ 
ceeding the extreme breadth by a greater proportion 
than 100 to 80, while the difference may be much 
less. 11 

11 “In no normal human skull does the breadth of the brain-case 
exceed its length.” 




54 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


“Men possessing such skulls were termed by Ret- 
zius ‘brachycephalic,’ and the skull of a Calmuck, 12 
of which a front and side view are depicted by von 
Baer in his excellent 'Crania selecta,’ affords a very 
admirable example of that kind of a skull. Other 
skulls, such as that of a negro. . . . from Mr. 

Busk’s ‘Crania typica,’ have a very different, greatly 
elongated form, and may be termed ‘oblong.’ 13 

“In this skull the extreme length is to the extreme 
breadth as ioo to not more than 67, and the trans¬ 
verse diameter of the human skull may fall below even 
this proportion. People having such skulls were 
called by Retzius ‘dolichocephalic 

“The most cursory glance at the side views of these 
two skulls will suffice to prove that they differ, to a 
very striking extent, in another respect. The profile 
of the face of the Calmuck [or the skulls of the 
Europeans and ancient Roman, cited above] is almost 
vertical, the facial bones being thrown downwards and 
under the fore part of the skull. The profile of the 
face of the negro, on the other hand, is singularly in¬ 
clined, the front part of the jaws projecting far for¬ 
ward beyond the level of the fore part of the skull. 
In the former case the skull is said to be ‘ orthogna- 
thons / or straight-jawed; in the latter it is called 

12 The same features are to be observed in the skull of the intel¬ 
lectual European, shown in Fig. 20 of this work, or in the skull of 
the ancient Roman shown in Figs. 21, 22.—R. W. S. 

18 The skull here referred to is reproduced in Figs. 16 and 17, 
and the same characters are admirably shown in the negro skull I 
have photographically copied from Quatrefages, shown in two views 
in Figs. 14 and 15. There is no mistaking the prognathous skull 
of the genuine negro, nor the fact that it is more simian-like in 
character than the skulls possessed by the intelligent Anglo-Saxon. 
—R. W. S. 




Further Comparative Ethnological Data. 


55 


‘prognathous,’ a term which has been rendered, with 
more force than elegance, ‘snouty.’ 

“Various methods have been devised in order to 
express with some accuracy the degree of prognathism 
or orthognathism of any given skull; most of these 
methods being essentially modifications of that de¬ 
vised by Peter Camper, in order to attain what he 

called the ‘facial angle.’ ” 14 

Professor Huxley then proceeds to show that “any 
‘facial angle’ that has been devised can be competent 
to express the structural modifications involved in 
prognathism and orthognathism, only in a rough and 
general sort of a way.” He then offers a far more 
accurate method of computing this angle in all skulls 
of the Mammalia, though it places the negro skull in 
the scale where it truly belongs, among the very lowest 
of existing races. 15 

As every student of comparative vertebrate mor¬ 
phology is aware, “in the lower vertebrates, the sur¬ 
face of the cerebral hemispheres is smooth; in the 
higher, it becomes complicated by ridges and furrows, 
the gyri and sulci, which follow particular patterns. 

. The general nature of the modifications ob¬ 
servable in the brain as we pass from the lower to the 
higher mammalia is very well shown by the figures 
of the brain of a Rabbit, a Pig, and a Chimpanzee.” 16 
(Figs. 28, 29, and 30.) 

14 See Figs. 23, 24 and 25 of the present work. In the matter 
of the facial angle, the typical negro stands between the gorilla and 
the intelligent white man, and this will hold true for a typical series 
of skulls.—R. W. S. 

15 Huxley, T. H.: “Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature,” 
1863, pp. 169-171. 

is Huxley, T. H.: “The Anatomy of Vertebrated Animals” New 
York, 1872, p. 60. 






56 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


By comparing these figures with those shown in 
Figs. 31, 32, 33, and 34, it will be observed that “the 
brain of man differs far less from that of the chimpan¬ 
zee than that of the latter does from the Pig’s brain.” 
Huxley says, further: “As to the convolutions, the 
brains of the apes exhibit every stage of progress, 
from the almost smooth brain of the Marmoset, to 
the Orang and the Chimpanzee, which fall but little 
below man. And it is most remarkable that as soon 
as all the principal sulci appear, the pattern according 
to which they are arranged is identical with that of 
the corresponding sulci of man. The surface of the 
brain of a monkey exhibits a sort of a skeleton map 
of man’s, and in the man-like apes the details become 
more and more filled in, until it is only in minor char¬ 
acters, such as the greater excavation of the anterior 
lobes, the constant presence of fissures usually absent 
in man, and the different disposition and proportions 
of some convolutions, that the Chimpanzee’s or the 
Orang’s brain can be structurally distinguished from 
Man’s.” 17 

In other words, when we come to study and com¬ 
pare the skulls of all monkeys, anthropoid apes, and 
the lower and higher races of man, their several 
cranial capacities, the facial angles, and other char¬ 
acters in a sufficiently large series, and setting aside all 
rare exceptions in these particulars, it will be appre¬ 
ciated that the great mass of typical, unmixed negroes 
in America and elsewhere must be classed as prob¬ 
ably the lowest race of people now in existence on this 
planet. To properly understand the most important 

17 Huxley, T. H.: “Evidences as to Man’s Place in Nature,” 119, 


120. 






Figs. 14 and 15.—Anterior (Fig 14) AND Lateral (Fig. i^) Views 
of the Skull of a Xegro from the Congo. 

(Photo by the author, after Qiuvtrefages e^ Hamy^: t nuiia 

Cranes dea Races Humames, i, * A, is Vkull They exhibit the simian 

Et^’^°ve^ e i^ e i^!!ecS Plane occupied by these people. 

























Further Comparative Ethnological Data. 


57 


of these differences, one has but to study and compare 
the various figures of skulls, brains, and facial angles 
offered in the several examples of the present work. 

I have many times examined the actual material and 
compared such as is here described, and anatomists 
are practically of one opinion in regard to the facts as 
I have presented them, or quoted them from the writ¬ 
ings of other authors. This I have intentionally done 
and will continue to do to the end of this chapter, in 
order that I may, as far as possible, escape the charge 
of confining myself to my own studies and observa¬ 
tions for proof of what is here brought forward. 

Dr. Chamberlain, in quoting Dr. Shute, says: “As 
‘anatomical peculiarities, which, taken together, stamp 
a race as high or low,’ Dr. Shute mentions the follow¬ 
ing, which are more or less simioid: — 

i. Cranial sutures simple and uniting early. 

‘2. Nasal aperture wide, with nasal bones anky- 

losed. | > 

“3. Jaws unduly projecting and chin receding. 

‘4. Wisdom teeth well developed, appearing early 
and permanent. 

‘5. Humerus unduly long and perforated. 

“6. Calcaneum (heel-bone) elongated. 

“7. Tibia flattened. 

“8. Pelvis narrow. 

“According to Dr. Shute, 18 ‘measured by these 
criteria, the Caucasian stands at the head of the racial 
scale and the negro at the bottom.’ ” 19 


U 


(( 


<( 


(( 


18 Shute, D. K.: “Racial Anatomical Peculiarities/’ Amer. Anthro., 
vol. ix (1896), pp. 123 - 132 . 

19 Chamberlain, Alex. F.: “The Child, A Study in the Evolution 
of Man.” London, 1900, p. 432. This excellent work contains a mass 
of information tending to prove the low plane occupied by the negro 
in America. 





58 


» • 

America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


Few people understand the negro better than does 
Sir Harry H. Johnston, and in one of his works he 
says that if left to himself he is a fine animal, incapable 
of any progress, while “in his wild state he exhibits 
a stunted mind and a dull content with his surround¬ 
ings, which induces mental stagnation, cessation of all 
upward progress, and even retrogression towards the 
brute. In some respects I think the tendency of the 
negro for several centuries past has been an actual 
retrograde one. As we come to read the unwritten 
history of Africa by researches into language, man¬ 
ners, customs and traditions, we seem to see a back¬ 
ward rather than a forward movement going on for 
some thousand years past—a return towards the 
savage and even the brute. I can believe it possible 
that, had Africa been more isolated from contact with 
the rest of the world, and cut off from the immigra¬ 
tion of the Arab and the European, the purely negro 
races, so far from advancing towards a higher type 
of humanity, might have actually reverted by degrees 
to a type no longer human.” 20 

Huxley refers, in his “Anatomy of Vertebrated 
Animals,” to some few other anatomical characters in 
comparing Apes, Negroes, and Whites, which may be 

20 This quotation is from Dr. A. H. Keane’s “The World’s 
Peoples,” etc. (London, 1908), p. 73), a work full of valuable in¬ 
formation in regard to the negro races and the low plane they occupy 
in humanity’s scale of development. In it, on pp. 72, 73, Dr. Keane 
says: “Even when some progress has been made under the stimulus 
of higher influences, the removal of those influences is inevitably fol¬ 
lowed by a relapse into the former state, as in Hayti. Here the re¬ 
version to Voodu and other pagan rites, to snake-worship, cannibal¬ 
ism, and similar horrors, is attested to by Sir Spencer St. John, who 
had official knowledge of these matters, and, after twenty years’ resi¬ 
dence in the ‘Black Republic/ tells us that, the better influences re¬ 
moved, the negro gradually retrogrades to the African tribal customs.” 





59 


Further Comparative Ethnological Data. 

referred to with advantage; he says: “It appears in 
some of the lower races, c.g., Negroes and Australians, 
the forearm and hand and the foot and leg are often 
longer in proportion than in Europeans. From not 
wearing shoes, the hallux is much more movable in 
these races, and the foot is commonly employed for 
prehension. 

“There is no proof of what is so commonly as¬ 
serted, that the heel is longer in proportion to the foot 
in negroes.” 21 

There are not a few characters in the skeleton of 
the trunk and limbs wherein the genuine negro more 
often agrees with the simians than with the whites. 
In Fig. 26 a comparison is made between the skeleton 
of a European and a Gorilla, introduced for the pur¬ 
pose of showing how very closely the skeletons of these 
two mammals resemble each other. 

For a similar purpose I have likewise introduced 
two of Sir Richard Owen’s figures (Figs. 35 and 36), 
comparing the plantar surface of the foot of a Gorilla 
and in Man, both dissected out to show the arrange¬ 
ment of the muscles. Reference has been made in a 
previous chapter to the great prehensibility of the 
foot in certain Africans, and in this particular they 
more closely approach the anthropoids than do the 
Europeans or their American descendants. It must 
be remembered, however, that in this respect it never 
in any way approaches the truly hand-like member as 
found among the Apes and Monkeys. 

21 Dr. A. H. Keane, in his “The World’s Peoples,” differs on this 
point, and in giving the “physical characters” of the negroes he says: 
“Foot flat and broad with low instep and larkspur heel” (p. 16). It 
is a common assertion, at least throughout the United States, that “a 
nigger’s heel will make a hole in de groun’.” 







60 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


The foot of the Gorilla is well shown in Fig. 3, a 
picture wherein some other useful comparisons can be 
made, as for example the physiognomy of the great 
ape with that of any of the three negroes who stand 
behind it. Even a more interesting comparison of 
this nature is to be found in Fig. 4, where the ex¬ 
pression of the young negro’s face so much resembles 
that of the young chimpanzee on the left, especially 
about the eyes and the nose. The pure animal type 
of the unmixed negro, however, is well exemplified ■ 
in Fig. 39. Here, indeed, we have a good example of 
many of the negroes that are now interbreeding with 
the whites in this country, and a glance at this man’s 
features should be ample to convince any intelligent 
person of the great undesirability of such a mixture. 

Of all the African colored races, Dr. Keane claims 
that the Vaalpens, or Kattea, are the most degraded, 
being the most perfect “embodiment of the pure 
savage still anywhere surviving.” They are a negroid 
people. 




Figs, i6 and 17. 

Fig. 16, lateral view, and Fig. 17, anterior view, of the 
oblong and prognathous skull of a negro. After Huxley, by 
the author. (“Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature,” big. 28.) 



















CHAPTER IV. 


The Introduction of the Negro into the United 
States. The African Slave Trade. 

Early in the 6o’s my father was the American 
Consul General in the city of Havana, Cuba, and while 
there I not only saw and visited the African and 
coolie slavers in the harbor, but for two years I had 
the opportunity of studying the treatment of the slaves 
on the island by their masters. The barracoons were 
a familiar sight to my eyes, and I have seen many a 
slave punished either by the owner or by the govern¬ 
ment overseer. At Cape Haytien in Hayti, a year or 
so later, I had the opportunity of studying negro life 
in a negro city,—a city of Spanish and French build¬ 
ing, but at that time—in a dilapidated condition—in 
the hands of the blacks, who had gained it through an 
insurrection against their masters. During the 
American Civil War I was in the South in the service 
of the Federal Government. For forty years I have 
studied the African negro in America, in every situa¬ 
tion ever occupied by the race, whether its represen¬ 
tative was of pure African stock, a half or other frac¬ 
tional caste, a slave or a freedman. 

The existence of human slavery, in one form or 
another, dates back to the very dawn of American 
history. An account of the millions of beings who 
have thus been enslaved, their histories, their lives, 
their deaths, and their fates afterward, would be a 
tale of the rankest injustice, most dastardly murders, 

tortures unspeakable, fiendish cruelties, slaughter, de- 

( 61 ) 



62 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


ception, unbridled lust, tyranny,—indeed, every crime, 
both petty and capital, that the mind can conceive of, 
or the hand of man has ever committed. Millions of 
our own species have been dealt with in this manner, 
and make up a tremendous death roll; no part of 
human history can in any way compare with it. 

England, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, and 
many other countries were deeply engaged in it, but 
none of these more so than was America, whose record 
in the slave trade is quite as foul, shameless and 
abominable as that of any other nation on earth dur¬ 
ing the time it lasted. In the present volume I shall 
have nothing to say on the subject of slavery in the 
far East, where it still exists in many places, as it does 
in many parts of Africa among the negroes; neither 
shall I refer, except ever so lightly, to the slave trade 
of Great Britain and other European countries. My 
main object in introducing it at all is to picture to the 
reader the character of the negroes that were brought 
over to America as slaves; their mental, moral, and 
physical natures; their numbers, the treatment they 
received in the way of fitting—or unfitting—them for 
colonization; how the slave trade was conducted, and 
how it was brought to an end. Of all these questions 
the most important by far is: What kind of people, 
what kind of stock were these negroes? This point 
has been avoided by the so-called twentieth century 
leaders among the negroes in the United States; and 
naturally so. This avoidance is seen in their published 
works as well as in their addresses and teachings. A 
few exceptions to this rule occur, however, exceptions 
met with in the writings of those having very little 
negro blood in them. 



Introduction of the Negro Into United States. 63 


So far as we can ascertain from history, the first 
African slaves landed in the Northern States were 
brought there by the Dutch in August, 1619. John 
Rolfe, the husband of Pocahontas, was in Jamestown 
at the time, and a part of his account of the affair has 
been preserved. In his diary we read that “a dutch 
man of warre that sold us twenty Negars touched at 
Jamestown this year.” Little more is known about it, 
and it is not even ascertained from what part of 
Africa these negroes came, or how they were captured. 
The history of the North American slave trade dates 
from this event. The Dutchman came here because 
on the high seas, when he had his slaves on board, he 
met with a Virginia ship, the Treasurer , and those 
aboard of the latter told him that they wanted slaves 
in Jamestown. Afterward the Treasurer herself 
brought negro slaves to Virginia, and indeed she was 
the first ship especially fitted out for the slave trade 
in this country. Subsequently she had quite a history 
which has been very well told in the Magazine of 
American History (November, 1891) by a writer of 
authority. In the year 1636 we see, in the ship 
Desire , the very first craft built in the United States 
for the very purpose of this nefarious traffic. Still 
other vessels landed them along the coast at various 
points, yet in 1649 n °t over fifty negro slaves had been 
imported into Virginia. The negro president of the 
colored institute at Tuskegee, Alabama, in his book 
entitled “The Future of the American Negro,” ignores 
the introduction of the tens of thousands of slaves that 
were landed in this country during the subsequent 
slave-trade period, and makes the attempt to hoodwink 
his readers by asking them to believe that all the 



64 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


negroes in the United States at the present time are 
descended from those constituting the first cargo 
brought to Virginia. He makes the statement thus: 
“The first slaves were brought into this country by 
the Dutch in 1619, and were landed at Jamestown, 
Virginia. The first cargo consisted of fourteen. The 
census taken in 1890 shows that these fourteen slaves 
had increased to 7,638,360.” 

That, he meant this exactly as it is said is proved 
by what he restates on pages 22 and 23 of the same 
book in the following words: “I know that, whether 
the Negroes are increasing or decreasing, whether 
they are growing better or worse, whether they 
are valuable or valueless, a few years ago some 
fourteen of them were brought into this country, and 
that now those fourteen are nearly ten millions.” 
These statements are false. In the first place, twenty 
of these African cannibals were brought here upwards 
of two and a half centuries ago, instead of “a few 
years;” many thousands were added to them from 
1619 to 1862, and of the ten millions of negroes he 
speaks of as now being in the United States, more than 
half are hybrids. 

Mr. William Hannibal Thomas, in his work on 
“The American Negro,” had reason to say of him: 
“He lies with avidious readiness, and in all moods and 
degrees of enormity, without undergoing the slightest 
remorse, and often without any apparent sense of pre¬ 
varication. He lies to please, to evade, to conceal, to 
excuse, to command. He lies to be heard, and will not 
be silent, though he has no truth to utter.” And 
again: “There is a cunning astuteness about the 
nature of a negro which renders him an adept in de- 




% 



Figs. 18 and 19- 

Fig. 18, anterior, and Fig. 19- lateral views of the skull of a hybrid. 
[Negro and Indo-European.) The subject murdered a cashier of a 
jank in Baltimore many years ago. The author purchased the head 
'or dissection after the execution, when the body was secured by the 
Medical College. The skull is still in his private collection. It is of 
especially brutal aspect. (Photo by the author.) 

























Introduction of the Negro Into United States. 65 


ception, and consequently enables him to hide many of 
the shams of his life.” 

It has been contended that the colonists, in first 
introducing the negroes into this country, were to 
some extent inspired by religious motives, and that 
the “soul-saving” proposition was at the bottom of it; 
but in course of time the cloak became woefully thread¬ 
bare, to be finally converted into a shroud in no way 
concealing the cadaver that might fitly stand for the 
emblem of this disgusting traffic. Slavery at first 
prospered in the colonies, and, seeing this, not a few 
attempts were made to enslave the indigenous redmen; 
but it was an utter failure. 

At an early date the British entered the field as 
slave traders, and they succeeded in this undertaking 
from the very start. Royal Companies were formed, 
treaties were drawn and ratified, and British slave 
trade soon became a powerful institution (1713). “In 
those days,” says an authority at hand, “the ship- 
chandlers of Liverpool made special displays in their 
windows of such things as hand-cuffs, leg-shackles, 
iron collars, short and long chains, and furnaces and 
copper kettles designed for slavers’ use. The news¬ 
papers were full of advertisements of slaves and slaver 
goods. The young bloods of the town deemed it fine 
amusement to circulate hand-bills in which negro girls 
were offered for sale. An artist of wide repute— 
Stothard—painted The Voyage of the Sable Venus 
from Angola to the West Indies.’ No doubt much of 
the same sort went on in the colonies, for New Eng¬ 
land soon took the lead in the slave trade, as it was a 
field full of adventure, cruelty, independence, chance 
for wealth, and unlimited opportunity to gratify the 






66 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


sexual passions with a new and an enslaved race.” 
The colonial Yankees plunged into it with avidity. 
Moore, in his “History of Slavery in Massachusetts,” 
says: “At the very birth of foreign commerce from 
New England the African slave trade became a regu¬ 
lar business;” and Hopkins, in his “Reminiscences,” 
stated that in 1770 there were no less than 150 vessels 
belonging to Rhode Island alone in the African slave 
trade, and that that State was responsible for enslav¬ 
ing more of them than any other one in all New Eng¬ 
land. Newport, in fact, was started and built up 
almost entirely on the African slave trade. 

The famous Captain John Paul Jones, of the 
American Colonial Navy, gained his experience and 
his early reputation along the same lines. He served 
in the forecastle of the slaver King George. But this 
vile traffic, this fatal, murderous and beastly trade, 
bred, not only adventurous sailors, but pirates, buc¬ 
caneers, and every species of rascal and coward. 

An average slave-ship was in those days one of 
about 500 tons burden; she had a length between 60 
and 70 feet, and was built with especial regard for 
speed. Her storage capacity consisted in a capacious 
hold, in which rum, trinkets, powder, provisions, and 
slave truck were stowed away. There was an upper 
deck, with a space between it and the hold, known as 
“ ’twixt decks.” This space is where the slaves were 
quartered during the voyage. It was less than four 
feet high, and in some slavers even not so much. In 
here, in this horrid death-pit, this unventilated hole 
and rotten dungeon, they packed away the poor 
negroes by the hundreds. The men were usually for¬ 
ward, shackled together two and two; the women and 




Introduction of the Negro Into United States. 67 


children were aft, and, though confined, were not 
chained. All of them were pushed along until they 
touched each other. In some instances they were 
rammed in, and compelled to lie spoon-fashion during 
the entire trip of many weeks. In a little while the 
dead and the living were in there together, linked 
together in the dark. Sometimes death claimed three- 
fourths of them; hunger, burning thirst, and unmiti¬ 
gated misery assailed them all the time. They wal¬ 
lowed in their own filth, breathing an air pestilential in 
the extreme. The women were raped and ravaged by 
the entire crew. 

Hundreds of such craft were afloat at one time, 
swarming the slave-coast of Africa, taking all man¬ 
ner of chances, and conveying their human cargoes 
to the West Indies, to Europe, to the American 
Colonies, and to Brazil. Some fine ships were in the 
trade, though whalers were pressed into the service; 
also fast sloops, brigs, and brigantines. It was the 
money-making scheme of the day. Men would clear 
thousands of dollars on one trip. Slaves were landed 
all along the American coast. The Providencia put 
4500 into Brazil in four voyages. She was a steamer. 
Plenty of small craft were in it, hardly bigger than 
small oyster-sloops. Some were notorious for their 
great speed, and in tight places they could down masts 
and use sweeps. 

So far as the great slave markets of America were 
concerned, during the entire time the slave trade was 
considered legal, the chief and almost only source 
of supply was found, says a writer at hand, “along 
the Atlantic coast of Africa, between Cape Verde at 
the north, and Benguela, or Cape St. Martha, at the 




68 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


south. The sea here makes a great scoop into the 
land, as if the Brazilian part of the South American 
continent had been broken out of the hollow in the 
African coast. Two great rivers and a host of smaller 
streams come down to the sea within its limits, and 
its contour, as a whole, is that of a mighty gulf; but 
there is neither bay nor inlet throughout its whole 
extent that forms a good harbor for shipping. And 
the off-shore islands, too, are few in number and 
small in extent. The land at the beach is almost every¬ 
where low, though hills and mountains may be seen, 
flooded with a dreamy haze, in the distance. The 
rivers wind about through uncounted channels in low 
delta lands covered with masses of mangrove and palm 
trees, and haunted by poisonous and vicious reptiles. 
The yellowish sand of the sea, and the black sand- 
washings of the uplands, mingle to form low, tawny 
beaches and dunes, where the river currents are beaten 
back by the ever-present and ever-treacherous surf. 
Goree and Gambia, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the 
Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra, Bonny and 
Calabar, Anamabae and Ambriz, the Congo and St. 
Paul de Loango, are all familiar names to the student 
of slave-coast literature.” 

This was the field of operations on the African side, 
—a hot, torrid sea; a practically unindented coast-line, 
washed by a most dangerous surf; an atmosphere 
reeking with disease; a dense, miry jungle and forest 
on landing, the very air of which was like breathing 
death itself; dangers from ferocious beasts and rep¬ 
tiles, from hostile natives,—in fact, everything that 
places the life of man under such conditions and cir- 


i 


\ 




Fig 20. 

Left lateral view of the skull of an intelligent white 
European, showing the relations of the principal bones and 
cranial sutures. (Photographically copied by the author from 
Dr. Carter’s drawing in Gray’s Anatomy.) 











Introduction of the Negro Into United States. 69 

cumstances in jeopardy, while inward, beyond it all, 
lay the land of the vast unknown. 

More or less near in this latter lived the various 
races and tribes of black people that furnished the 
slaves, the relatives and descendants of which are the 
close blood-relations of the stock now commonly desig¬ 
nated as American negroes. They were, and are still, 
a savage, superstitious and cannibalistic people. In 
their religion of fetishism they see their world peopled 
with evil and malevolent spirits at war with nature 
and themselves. Lightning, thunder, rain, reptiles, 
witches, beasts and birds of prey, the cowards and the 
cunning among their own or other races, were one 
and all under the control of malignant and antagonis¬ 
tic spirits. Hundreds of negroes in the Southern 
States of North America still believe in such things, 
and it is perfectly natural that they should, for it is not 
so many years ago that they left their human flesh¬ 
eating relatives in Africa. 

These people are not only superstitious and de¬ 
graded to the last degree, but ignorant, non-pro¬ 
gressive, and without conception of the barest elemen¬ 
tal of civilization. Recorded history they have none. 

This was the country and these were the people to 
whom the slave traders flocked, and who furnished 
them their human freight to carry on their infamous 
traffic. Rum had much to do with it. Both the slavers 
and the natives loved it. The whites drank it; em¬ 
ployed it as their medium of exchange, the stuff that 
got the slaves for them, and out of which their great 
fortunes were made. 

Slaves were few and hard to get at first, the 
slavers having to purchase them from such tribes as 



70 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


had them for sale on the coast. Everyone considered 
the trade perfectly legitimate and honorable. One 
coast tribe of blacks being more powerful than a 
neighboring one, it would, upon defeating in battle the 
weaker one, capture a number of slaves, and these 
latter were disposed of to the slavers when they came 
for them. Not a few tribes were thus pitted against 
each other; as time passed, and the victorious parties 
found they had a growing market for slaves, they be¬ 
gan making their raids for no other purpose. 

Slaves were owned principally by the chief men 
of the tribe where they were to be found; when it was 
otherwise, they had become enslaved for various 
offences to individuals. Not a few negroes were made 
slaves for debt; for seducing wives of their neighbors; 
for handling a neighbor’s fetish, and for other causes. 
Until they became numerous, these slaves were well 
treated by their owners,—almost as members of the 
family. It was only after the white man came upon 
the coast that they began to increase in number, to be 
kidnapped and treated with cruelty, and slain by the 
score when the danger of discovery was imminent, or 
when they mutinied against their captors or owners. 

The negroes of the period often killed and ate their 
captured enemies and slaves; sometimes they were 
butchered, burned, disemboweled, and otherwise used 
as “sacrifices” on gala days, jubilees, fetes, on the 
dedication of a juju-house and on similar festivals. 
If anyone cares to read of the horrors of the customs 
and ceremonies of these demons in their native land, 
customs which are still in vogue, I can suggest no 
better book than “The Ethiopian,” by J. Cameron 
Grant. This is a work that ought to interest anyone 




Introduction of the Negro Into United Slates. 71 


and everyone who may be studying the negro problem 
in this country; who desires to know from what kind 
of stock our negroes are derived, and the length, 
breadth, and thickness of the terrible black stain with 
which we have soiled our racial recoi d, a stain that 
unfortunately possesses properties for spreading. 

In 1645 slaves were becoming more difficult to 
obtain; the demand for them in the colonies was great 
and ever-growing; fortunes lay in the trade,—some¬ 
thing must be done. So, in the year when the’ Boston 
ship Rainbowe was on the coast of Afi ica, she fell in 
with some London slavers there who had become 
somewhat tired of waiting for a cargo. To enliven 
things the Londoners and the Yankees combined, and 
on some pretence of a row with the blacks on shoie, 
landed a howitzer—in those days called “a mur¬ 
derer”—and one Sunday morning raided a village, 
killing scores of the inhabitants, and captui ing some 
of them alive. Captain Smith, of the Boston boat, got 
two of these. He was an American,— proud of the 
feat and of his brilliant slaughter of men, women, and 
children, and also of the fact that he had been the 
first to teach the world how to obtain slaves in Africa 
without waiting for them so long on the coast. Upon 
his return home this captain was tried in Boston; but, 
of course, the courts had no jurisdiction over any 
acts he may have committed on the coast of Africa. 
So the charges against him of sabbath-breaking, kid¬ 
napping, and murder were dismissed, and both slaves 
were sent back to Africa. 

This case cleared the African coast for all Ameri¬ 
cans who cared to go and do likewise. From a peace¬ 
ful and orderly traffic—disgusting and cruel though 






72 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


it was—the slave trade was soon enlarged by this 
added feature of slave capture. Shore stations were 
established soon thereafter,—veritable hells of in¬ 
iquity; so these shore attacks began to be far more 
frequent and on an ever-increasing scale. Not only 
this, but the slavers instigated the coast tribes to make 
attacks themselves for the profit there was in it; thus 
wars were enkindled between the tribes of the coast 
and the tribes of the interior. Notwithstanding all 
this, and the hundreds of slaves captured, the supply 
by no means yet met the demand. 

Captain Canot describes one of these raids in the 
following words: “In my wanderings in Africa I 
have often seen the tiger pounce upon its prey, and 
with instinctive thirst satiate its appetite for blood 
and abandon the drained corpse, but these African 
negresses [who were of the raiding party] were 
neither as decent nor as merciful as the beast of the 
wilderness. Their malignant pleasure seemed to con¬ 
sist in the invention of tortures that would agonize 
but not slay. A slow, lingering, tormenting mutila¬ 
tion was practised on the living, . . . and in 

every instance the brutality of the women exceeded 
that of the men. I cannot picture their hellish joy, 
while the queen of the harpies crept amid 
the butchery, gathering the brains from each severed 
skull as a bonne bouche for the approaching feast.” 

Those that were captured alive were sold on the 
coast, and the stories of these raids undoubtedly in¬ 
terested the American colonists when they were re¬ 
cited to them upon the return home of the slavers. 
History goes to show that the colonies were, at this 
time, quite familiar with all of these outrages. 




I 


Figs. 21 and 22.—Anterior (Fig 21) and Lateral (Img. 22) of the 

Skull of an Ancient Roman. 

The proportions are here particularly good, and the 
delicacy of the entire structure especially marked. (Photo 
by the author from Quatrefages et Hamv. “( rania Ethnica 
les Cranes des Races Humaines,” PI. LXXXIV, iigs. 

I and II.) 

















Introduction of the Negro Into United States. 73 


English slavers were quite as bad in such matters, 
as is evidenced by the chapter of treachery and mur¬ 
der done in 1767 on the slave-ships Indian Queen, 
Duke of York, Nancy, and the Concord, when they 
were up one of the rivers on the slave-coast. Scores 
of negroes were induced to come aboard these four 
vessels for a pow-wow. After they were made nearly 
crazy with rum, the crews armed themselves simul¬ 
taneously for slaughter and capture. The scenes that 
followed almost defy description, and I am rather 
glad that my space will not admit of my telling the 
story. 

Both Portuguese and English women engaged in 
the fascinating slave trade upon their own account, 
some of them even going to the coast of Africa. 
Here they lived in the stations on shore or up the 
rivers,—in those barbaric palaces of wealth, culture, 
ribaldry, sensuality, and blood-money. The home of 
Dom Pedro was an example of these, and his sister 
lived with him. He left the coast in 1839 with a cool 
million of money. Captain Philip Drake, in his 
• “Revelations of a Slave Smuggler,” describes another 
of these voluptuous fiends (January 5, 1840); the 
following are his words: “Da Souza, or Cha-Chu, as 
everybody calls him, is apparently a reckless volup¬ 
tuary, but the shrewdest slave-trader on the African 
coast. Whydah was built by his enterprise, and he 
lived the life of a prince. His mansion here is like 
a palace, and he has a harem filled with women from 
all parts of the world. He keeps up a continual round 
of dissipation, gambling, feasting, and indulging in 
every sensual pleasure with his women and visitors. 

His house is the very abode of luxury. He 



74 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


must squander thousands. But what is money to a 
man who has a slave-mine in Dahomey, bringing 
hoards of wealth yearly by a hundred vessels! Da 
Souza enjoys almost a monopoly of the coast trade. 
Blanco has been his only rival of late years. 

This morning Cha-Chu met me and proposed to supply 
me with a wife. ‘You shall have French, Spanish, 
Greek, Circassian, English, Dutch, Italian, Asiatic, 
African, or American,’ he said, laughing.” 

In 1850 there were 244,985 slaves in the State of 
Louisiana alone. Virginia was a breeding-place for 
them. Hundreds of them died because of the severity 
of slave-life; hundreds upon hundreds of them still 
continued to die on board the vessels that transported 
them to our shores; and untold numbers of others 
were murdered, or destroyed as incidental to attempts 
at capture. 

The raids in Africa were carried a score of leagues 
inland, and untold and unspeakable atrocities were 
perpetrated upon the natives. No end of cruelty, no 
end of bloodshed, no end of diabolical torture was the 
order of the day. Although growing side by side with 
America’s maiden efforts in a humane civilization, 
and the introduction of all manner of merciful meth¬ 
ods, the treatment of the African slave has never¬ 
theless been, from start to finish, a long drawn-out 
picture of hellish brutality, unbridled sensuality, and 
demoniacal practices. No other kind of cattle have 
ever been thus dealt with in the world’s history. It 
is a panorama of beastly infamy. 

Sometimes the cargo of negroes aboard the slaver 
mutinied; a case occurred in 1844 aboard the American 
slaver Kentucky, which left the coast with 530 slaves 




Introduction of the Negro Into United States. 75 


aboard. They were in the hold and packed together 
as usual, chained two and two. The mutiny was 
quickly suppressed; but the captain decided to make 
an example of the ring-leaders, so he shot and hanged 
46 of the men and 1 negress. The deponent, one of 
the crew, further says that “after this was over they 
brought up and flogged about 20 men and 6 women.” 

The profits of the slave trade were simply enor¬ 
mous, single trips clearing as much as from $20,000 



The facial angle in the gorilla (Fig. 23), in the negro 
Fig. 24), and in the intellectual representative of the white 
race (Fig. 25). It will be seen that in the skull of the 
gorilla this angle is less than 60 degrees; in the negro less 
than 70 degrees, while in the skull of the white man it almost 
reaches 90 degrees. (Drawn by the author, from typical 
specimens.) 


to over $40,000. These are net profits. In one case 
the net profit made in six months by a small vessel 
amounted to $41,438.54. 

In 1835 a Baltimore clipper, the Napoleon, made 
on one cargo a net profit of over one hundred thous¬ 
and dollars; but such facts have little to do with the 
present work. They simply show the incentive that 
kept up the filthy enterprise, making men blind to the 
trouble they were heaping up in this country for fol¬ 
lowing generations to get out of as best they could. 










76 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


That many of the colonists long foresaw the evils 
that would some day come from the interbreeding of 
the blacks and whites in the United States, there can 
be no manner of doubt. Even as early as 1705 
Massachusetts imposed a tax of four pounds on each 
slave that came within her jurisdiction, and this was 
distinctly “for the Better Preventing of a spurious or 
mixt Issue.” 

Those that sought such sable Venuses were so 
numerous that the cafe-au-lait progeny, which began 
to appear in the population, excited the alarm of the 
legislators of the State. It is a wonder that some of 
the Southern States did not likewise see this pending 
danger, especially at a later date, when it must have 
been still more evident; for be it known, South Caro¬ 
lina, for example, had in 1734 no fewer than 22,000 
slaves against a short 8000 white within her limits. 
Possibly altogether as many as hundreds of thousands 
of negro slaves were, during the history of the slave 
trade, brought to the United States from Africa. 
There may be 4,000,000 of unmixed African negroes 
in this country at the present writing (1914), but the 
remainder of the 10,000,000 that writers on the sub¬ 
ject talk about are half-castes,—hybrids produced by 
incessant crossing with the whites. 

From the time the slaves were first brought into 
the country, up to and to include the time when they 
were set free as a result of the Civil War, they were 
the cause of the framing and enforcing of no end of 
laws; of starting all sorts of legislation; of the for¬ 
mation of parties for and against the trade; of 
exciting the Church to action; of strife of many kinds 
and outbreaks of passion and speech. It is not the 



Introduction of the Negro Into United States. 77 

intention of the present work to pass into the history 
of this part of the subject. It is the darkest and 
dirtiest page in American history, and I must leave 
it to those who care to follow it along other lines. 
Indeed, enough would have been said in this chapter 
had I merely stated the fact that the North American 
slave trade practically began when the Dutch brought 
twenty of them to Virginia in 1619, and that up¬ 
wards of four hundred thousand more of these be¬ 
nighted, ignorant, semi-simian, superstitious and 
treacherous cannibals were, up to 1862, landed upon 
our shores. The entire traffic was horrid in the ex¬ 
treme, and the injury it has done and is still power¬ 
fully doing those of Anglo-Saxon descent in these 
United States of America is immeasurable. 



CHAPTER V. 


Biological Principles of Interbreeding. 

Man’s place in nature and the ethnological status 
of the negro have been completely demonstrated and 
settled for all time, as have the facts that between the 
years 1619 and 1862 many hundreds of thousands 
of negroes were imported into this country from the 
west coast of Africa; that some of these are probably 
still living at the present writing, and that three or 
four millions of their actual descendants, together 
with several millions more of half-castes—produced 
chiefly by interbreeding with the white race in the 
United States—now demand consideration. These 
negroes inhabit principally what is known as the 
“black belt,” an area extending through the Southern 
States westward, in which latter direction their num¬ 
bers gradually decrease. Their ancestors, the negro 
races of the West Soudan, are cannibals,—ignorant, 
superstitious, cruel, unreliable, and non-progressive 
in every way; savages of the lowest type, without a 
recorded history, and almost totally lacking in any¬ 
thing we refer to modern civilization; yet it was from 
this stock that the negroes of the United States were 
derived within a comparatively brief space of time,— 
so brief that it is highly probable that many of the 
near relatives of the negroes here in the United States 
are still living as cannibals in their own country in 
Africa. For example, male negroes, brought to this 
country in i860, when they were twenty-five years old, 
might easily have left living children behind them in 
( 78 ) 


Biological Principles of Interbreeding. 


79 


Africa. This would make the fathers here some 
seventy-odd years old, while their children in Africa 
would be in the prime of life or less than fifty years 
of age. So far as I am aware, no single negro in this 
country has ever made any attempt to hunt up his 
or her relatives left behind in Africa. No such neglect 
could ever have happened in the case of a white race. 
Even had it been ever possible to enslave the latter, 
they would certainly have made a unanimous attempt 
to regain their relatives upon being restored to liberty, 
and in all probability they would have returned to 
their own country. That the negroes in the United 
States have never made any attempt of this nature is 
one of the best proofs of the extremely low position 
they occupy, in any sort of classification, in the genus 
Homo. 

However this may be, it next devolves upon us to 
examine the biological laws of interbreeding in man 
and in other animals; it is evident that this is the next 
question that presents itself for our consideration. 

Within the last half-century or more so much 
light has been thrown upon all things relating to the 
origin of living forms upon this planet, their repro¬ 
duction and multiplication, their development, growth, 
decadence and extinction; variation, the production of 
races, subspecies and species, natural selection, the 
survival of the fittest, and, indeed, upon a score or 
more other questions of the kind, that, with the abun¬ 
dant literature in the field upon such subjects, it 
would be superfluous to enter, in an argumentative 
way, upon the discussion of such matters. Much of 
it has now far outgrown the stage of hypothesis and 
has been relegated to the realm of the law. The 



80 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


Asiatic myth of special and miraculous creation has 
long ago passed into the scientific waste-basket, and 
the story of the original pair now figures, in the minds 
of all informed people, simply as a dogmatic pun. 
There is much that is transcendentally beautiful in 
nature, and we see it throughout the animal and vege¬ 
table kingdoms as well as in the inorganic world; yet, 
notwithstanding all this, and the surpassing beauty of 
the garden in which we live and die, there is much in 
nature, indeed nearly all, which is ordered upon the 
scheme of the most implacable cruelty. “I have, also, 
often personified the word nature,” says Darwin, “for 
I have found it difficult to avoid this ambiguity; but 
I mean by nature only the aggregate action and 
product of many natural laws,—and by laws only the 
ascertained sequence of events.” 1 

Some of the laws to which Darwin refers are now 
as thoroughly appreciated as are the facts in physics 
and astronomy. We no longer believe that the earth 
is flat, and the sky a perforated crystal to allow the 
rain to come through; we know much better, and we 
know, too, that we have no power to alter any of the 
natural laws or the absolute conditions existing in 
life. We often hear it said that it is foolish for man 
to “tamper with nature” and thus cause variability 
in forms or change in conditions that may militate 
against his interest or do harm in other ways. To 
this extent alone can man tamper or interfere with 
nature; but this by no means implies that he can cause 
variability in animal or plant forms, or check or pre¬ 
vent it in its operation in nature. The struggle for 

i Darwin, C.: “Animals and Plants under Domestication,” vol. i, 
p. 17. 





Fig. 26.—Skeletons of Max and Gorilla. 

From “The Living Animals of the World.” Courtesy of Hutchinson and 
Company (London). “This photograph shows the remarkable similarity 

the structure of the human frame (left) and that of . a th sor iIl?n wf g^of ordi- 
gorilla happened to be a particularly large specimen, the man was ot ordi 
nary height.” It will also be observed that in the man the hands reach down 
only to the' upper thirds of the femora or thigh-bones, while in the goiilla 
they come opposite the knee-ioints. I11 negroes the hands frequently reach 
down to the*middle thirds of the thighs, or to points between those just 

mentioned. 





















Biological Principles of Interbreeding. 


81 


existence commenced with the first spark of life on 
earth, and it has never ceased, nor will it cease in its 
operation until every evidence of life in the world is 
extinct. So, too, with all the natural laws: heredity, 
variability, natural selection, and others. They all 
came into force as life and form first appeared in the 
world, and they will never cease to act so long as living 
forms of any kind, either animal or vegetable, are 
in existence through which they may be exemplified. 
All that man can accomplish is to artificially produce 
variability in form by a change of environment and 
by crossing. But in doing this he cannot alter in 
the slightest degree any of the primal conditions, as 
climate, or any of the laws controlling variability. 
Man may expose living forms of animals and plants 
to these existing conditions and laws, but beyond that 
his power ceases. Within certain limits, he may cause 
various forms of animals and plants to cross, and re¬ 
produce other forms that differ, in certain particulars, 
from the parent ones, and so on through successive 
generations. But his limitations here are equally 
exacting; for, in the first place, all animal forms are 
either not fertile inter se, or interbreeding is impos¬ 
sible, as would be the case in a giraffe and a bat. Even 
when possible, the two species cannot be induced to 
breed, as would in all probability be the case with a 
wolf and a peccary. 

Let us consider a few other examples to make my 
meaning still clearer. In the group of domestic pig¬ 
eons we may select and cross certain varieties, with 
the view of producing particular changes either in 
plumage or form or both, and this selection and cross¬ 
ing may be persisted in until we have accomplished our 

6 



82 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 

object and produced the kind of birds we desired to 
manufacture. But we should have been absolutely 
powerless in our efforts here had it not been for the 
ceaseless operation of the natural laws of variability 
and heredity to insure the gradual changes. We are 
told of a variety of domestic pigeon which had been 
produced by artificial selection, extending through a 
number of generations, with the view, among other 
characters, of having the birds have as short bills as 
possible. The breeder was so successful that he ob¬ 
tained pigeons with bills so short that they could not 
feed themselves, and the old ones actually had to be 
fed by hand, otherwise they would soon have starved. 
Again, we have in this country certain aquatic batra- 
chians called amblystomas; they are related to the 
tritons, salamanders, and newts; some people call them 
water-lizards, as they possess the general shape of a 
lizard, and, at least in the case of the amblystomas. 
they spend a certain part of their existence in the 
water. In New Mexico they have the Amblystonia 
tigrinum, and when they are found in shallow water 
or pools with light-colored, clayey bottoms, the am¬ 
blystomas themselves are of pale tints; this may also, 
to some extent, be due to their food. When I was 
living in New Mexico, a number of years ago, I cap¬ 
tured a great many of these amblystomas, several 
hundred for the Smithsonian Institution, and others 
for a German lady who was experimenting with them 
in Berlin. I also experimented with them, as the 
amblystomas possess what may be termed very plastic 
organizations. I found that, by keeping them in per¬ 
fectly clear water in deep glass jars, and feeding them 
heartily for months on raw beef and nothing else, they 



Biological Principles of Interbreeding. 


83 


changed very markedly in appearance; besides, they 
became of a deep black color, and in the course of time 
they came to look totally unlike their kin in nature. 
This was a case where surroundings and food pro¬ 
duced the variation; but the variation was due to laws 
over which I had no control, and which, in fact, I 
could not fully explain; yet I soon came to know that, 
if I took from its natural environment a pale-brown 
amblystoma which was more or less slender and agile, 
and desired to produce a stouter and more sluggish 
one of nearly or quite dull black color, all I had to do 
was to expose him to the above conditions, feeding him 
as just described, and I was certain to get the result. 
But the result responding to the treatment was always 
the same, and the variety produced was uniform; that 
is, under the same conditions and treatment the am- 
blystomas never became more slender in form, or 
yellow or pink in color. The same thing can be accom¬ 
plished with flowers and plants of all kinds. In these 
instances we do quickly what nature takes a long time 
to do, and breeders all over the world have been doing 
this sort of thing for many, many generations. A 
great variety of flowers have been thus treated, with 
the view of producing odd and extravagant forms with 
brilliant and attractive colors. Fruits have been 
crossed, grafted, and bred to improve their size and 
flavor and other desirable qualities. In the domestic 
animals all sorts of crossings and selections have been 
resorted to in order to accomplish a great variety of 
ends. Horses have been thus dealt with to improve 
their speed and form; cows, in order to breed for 
milk; sheep, for their mutton and wool; dogs, for 
hunting, running, and guarding; pigs, for pork, and 




84 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


so on with many other animals. Darwin says: “Man, 
therefore, may be said to have been trying an experi¬ 
ment on a gigantic scale; and it is an experiment which 
nature during the long lapse of time has incessantly 
tried. Hence it follows that the principles of domes¬ 
tication are important for us. The main result is that 
organic beings thus treated have varied largely, and 
the variations have been inherited. This has appar¬ 
ently been one chief cause of the belief long held by 
some few naturalists that species in a state of nature 
undergo change.” It is quite a number of years ago 
since Darwin penned these words, and they are as 
true today as they were when they were written. All 
intelligent naturalists of the present time not only 
believe that species in a state of nature undergo 
change, but they know it to be a fact. I desire the 
reader to ponder well upon the real significance of 
these facts, for a little farther along, when I come to 
consider the question of their application in the case 
of man and the higher mammals, I shall return to 
them. 

When different breeds of animals are crossed, the 
laws of inheritance are ever in operation, and the re¬ 
sults are seen in the morphology as well as in the 
traits, characters, and idiosyncrasies in the descend¬ 
ants of the succeeding generations. If too close inter¬ 
breeding is practised, sterility is often the result, and 
this condition also follows sometimes when the breed¬ 
ing animals have been removed from their normal 
habitats and food, and placed in widely different en¬ 
vironments and climate. Having a sufficient number 
of animals to select from, and a knowledge of vari¬ 
ability, so far as we now comprehend it, with an 



Biological Principles of Interbreeding. 


85 


understanding of the laws of inheritance, man can, if 
he chooses, produce great results. Nearly everything 
in such experiments, however, depends upon careful 
and scientific selection. Acting in this manner we 
can, with greater or less certainty, produce, within 
limits, the forms we desire. If you want black cats 
with winning and docile natures, you surely would not 
breed from white cats with cross and ill-tempered 
natures; and if you wanted black cats with an area of 
white on the chest, you would certainly select parents 
so marked—a dozen or more individuals—and by 
careful selection and a not too close interbreeding, the 
desired marking will be produced in an ever-increasing 
proportion of cases. The same thing would happen 
in nature were such cats left to themselves to breed, 
and the white area proved to be a strong sexual and 
attractive character; but in such cases it would take 
ever so much longer, the balance of the environment 
being the same, and food and climate favorable. After 
studying thousands of such cases, Darwin was again 
led to say that “Man may select and preserve each 
successive variation, with the distinct intention of 
improving and altering a breed, in accordance with a 
preconceived idea; and by thus adding up variations, 
often so slight as to be imperceptible to an uneducated 
eye, he has effected wonderful changes and improve¬ 
ments. It can also be clearly shown that man, without 
any intention or thought of improving the breed, by 
preserving in each successive generation the individ¬ 
uals which he prizes most, and by destroying the 
worthless individuals, slowly, though surely, induces 
great changes. As the will of man thus comes into 
play, we can understand how it is that domesticated 



86 


America's Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


breeds show adaptation to his wants and pleasures. 
We can further understand how it is that domestic 
races of animals and cultivated races of plants often 
exhibit an abnormal character, as compared with 
natural species; for they have been modified, not for 
their own benefit, but for that of man.” 

Having now reviewed some of the better known 
principles or laws of interbreeding in animals in gen¬ 
eral, we are in a position to apply these to the case of 
man. In the first place, it is well to note that every 
known biological or natural law, having anything to 
do with organic evolution in its very widest sense, is 
just as applicable to man as it is to any other animal. 
This not only applies to normal growth, change, and 
development, but to similar abnormal conditions and 
to disease. It has been—and is now—the overlooking 
of this fact which has been the cause of much misery, 
crime, disease, and the production of highly undesir¬ 
able individuals in the human race the world over. 
Men and women can be varied with just as much cer¬ 
tainty as are pigeons, chickens, dogs, or horses, by 
scientific and judicious selection and crossing. Given 
the proper material in the way of men and women, the 
absolute control of it, the time and the conditions, and 
the other necessary means to carry out the ends in 
view, and the result will be any desired kind of man 
or any kind of a woman, within the laws of variability, 
heredity, and development. No single person could do 
this, for the reason that the time might be a thousand 
or even several thousand years; but nature cares 
nothing: for time. The same is true of artificial selec- 
tion or race-breeding with the view of attaining a cer¬ 
tain result. There may be simply hundreds upon 




Biological Principles of Interbreeding. 


87 


hundreds of different kinds of the latter. We may 
breed men and women for giants or for dwarfs; for 
any color of hair, eyes or skin; for long noses and flat 
feet; for immense gluteal proportions, as the steatopy- 
gous Hottentot women; for flat heads; for a tail or the 
development of the caudal appendage beyond the gen¬ 
eral superfices of the body; for immense strength; for 
a complete covering of hair; for polydactylism; for 
curiously shaped ears, and for the elimination of the 
teeth. In other words, make pointed-eared, edentate, 
wonderfully hairy, short-tailed, long-nosed, bimanous 
vertebrates of them, presenting many other curious 
characters. 

Mankind may be dealt with to produce diseased 
individuals, and this may be carried so far—in the 
case of some diseases—that the virulence of the latter 
will wipe out the stock, thus bringing the experiments 
to a close. All it requires is scientific stirpiculture, 
close attention, and ample time. If we except the 
Spartans and the experiments at Moscow a few years 
ago, no attempt—so far as I am aware—has ever 
been made to improve, either mentally or physically, 
a sex or a race in the manner indicated. In the lower 
races, nature is having some play in the matter, with 
results by no means always for the best. In the white 
races it is even worse, and little or no heed is paid 
to careful mating with the view of race improvement, 
or even with regard to elimination of diseases and 
deformities. Here the process is exceedingly slow, 
and in the vast majority of instances Dame Nature 
blushes to look her growing progeny in the face. 
Brainless numskulls cross with opium victims; mis¬ 
shapen dwarfs marry measly maids; in fact, it is 





88 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


all a purely haphazard performance, and done without 
any regard to giving fine physique, well-trained intel¬ 
lectual powers, and evenly balanced, well-tempered 
characters any chance at all in the world. 

Upon the whole, the ancient Greeks were made of 
better stuff than the modern Americans, and the latter 
have been the most disregardful of proper race¬ 
breeding. In fact, since the Civil War we have 
actually imported all sorts of stuff from all parts of 
the planet, and taken blood of all shades into our veins 
by converting the United States into a kind of pro- 
creation-pen, in which experimentation is going on, 
apparently with the view of observing how many dif¬ 
ferent kinds of crazy creatures we can turn out !k"fhe 
criminal records in the courts of our large cities show 
the results; the grave-yards point to others; the hos¬ 
pitals, penitentiaries, insane-asylums, and no end of 
“charitable” institutions point to scores of still others. 
Nevertheless, it is not all bad; improvements in sani¬ 
tation; the rapidly growing interest taken in individ¬ 
ual improvement in physique, in health culture, in the 
spreading of knowledge, and many similar features, 
are all combining to do something. But all combined 
are as nothing when compared with what might be 
accomplished in such directions in a few generations, 
were the methods more systematic and scientific. 

I have now another subject, more or less akin to 
the one we have just had under consideration, to bring 
forward; it is this: if, through any cause or causes, 
large numbers of one race are introduced into a region 
already occupied by large numbers of a totally dif¬ 
ferent race, and the environment, climatic conditions, 
and food are favorable to the support and increase of 



p 1G# 27. —Type of Young Male Negro Boy. (New York ( ity.) 

Photographed by the author. The subject has tuberculosis of the 
lungs, so common to the race in America. 








Biological Principles of Interbreeding, 


89 


both peoples, such races are certain to fraternize, to 
react upon each other in various ways, and finally to 
interbreed. It matters not a whit whether one of 
these races is highly developed in every way, and the 
other is savage, superstitious and ignorant,—they will 
inevitably cross and produce hybrids. In most in¬ 
stances it will be the males of the dominant race who 
will couple with the females of the lower race, while 
it will prove a marked exception that the reverse of 
this will be the case. The males of the lower race 
may occasionally entrap a female of the higher race, 
or they may succeed, in rare instances, by violence, 
but all such cases will not amount even to a few in 
several thousands; whereas the males of the advanced 
race will easily succeed with the females of the lower 
or savage stock. The reason for this is not far to 
seek. The females of the higher types are more re¬ 
fined, more sensitive, and far less passionate. The 
mere suggestions of a barbarian would be repugnant. 
No such sentiments control the males of the dominant 
or advanced and cultured race with respect to seeking 
the females of the savage people. The pressure or 
demand to satisfy the sexual appetite in the male— 
even if he be an individual endowed with refinement 
—often completely blinds him, rendering him prac¬ 
tically irresponsible in many cases, and, the desire for 
variety coming into play, carries him over almost 
anything. Black, brown, red, or yellow skin makes 
no difference whatever, and there will be plenty of 
representatives in the one race to cross with an equal 
number of representatives in the other. There will 
be large numbers of exceptions to this, of course; the 
females of the advanced race will not interbreed with 




90 


America's Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


the males of the lower race, and in the case of the 
males of the former many will be found who will like¬ 
wise shun such intercourse, controlled either by senti¬ 
ment, disgust, self-respect, or by other reasons. Still, 
the interbreeding will go on with marked increase 
during certain periods, and falling off at other times. 
These fluctuations will be due to various causes, but 
it will nevertheless always be progressing in some 
degree or other and a hybrid race be continually pro¬ 
duced. War, social and political privileges and 
restrictions, the gradual degeneration of the morale 
of the higher stock, and the increasing push and 
effrontery of the lower, will, with several other 
reasons, exert an influence; but, one way or another, 
nothing will entirely check it. It very soon becomes 
impossible to separate the two races. A system of 
fines, however large the amount in any case, would 
have but a slight deterrent effect. The whipping-post 
might be more efficient; but I do not believe that even 
the death sentence as a penalty would be wholly 
effectual in preventing it. In fact, sometimes the very 
danger to be met lends a zest to the attempts to 
gratify the demands of the sexual appetite, and men 
will seek it and attain it even with their lives in their 
hands. It is the nature of the animal, and it obtains 
throughout nature. A thorough comprehension of the 
entire subject in its widest sense might lead to some 
effectual remedy; but a far separation is, as a matter 
of fact, the only preventive of interbreeding, when two 
races come to occupy the same area of country under 
the conditions I have pointed out above. 

From what has been said in the foregoing para¬ 
graphs of the present chapter, it is clear that we have, 



Biological Principles of Interbreeding. 


91 


in the case of the negroes in this country, a typical 
example, on a very large scale, of the introduction of 
a large number of representatives of one race into an 
area occupied by a large population representing 
another and primarily distinct race. History fur¬ 
nishes nowhere a better example of the kind than this; 
and in so far as the two races are concerned, they were 
initially as distinct as they could possibly be. One 
race—the imported one—was as black as black could 
be; they were as low, sensual, and superstitious a race 
of cannibals as the world has ever known. On the 
other hand, the advanced race—the preoccupiers of 
the soil upon which these two races subsequently 
fraternized—represented, at least in part, some of the 
best stock that had developed in the Old World. They 
were in reality the seeds of a great nation, a nation 
destined to take its place later on as one of the most 
powerful, most advanced, and most highly civilized 
on the face of the globe. Hundreds, nay thousands, 
of the former, the blacks from the West Soudan of 
Africa, were interspersed among these in the manner 
already described in a former chapter. The crossing 
of the two races commenced at the very outstart of 
the vile slavery trade that fetched them hither; indeed, 
in those days many a negress was landed upon our 
shores already pregnant by some one of the demoniac 
company that made up the crew of the slaver that 
brought her over. It is quite likely, too, that many 
of these negresses were pregnant by blacks in Africa 
at the time of their capture; some of them died in this 
state aboard the slavers, and others gave birth to 
children on the passage across the Atlantic. Some 
were carrying unborn children upon being disposed of 





92 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


at the end of the journey, and I dare say were con¬ 
sidered to be the more valuable on that account. 
However this may be, there is no question that, from 
the earliest time the negro slaves came into the United 
States—during all their years of slavery, and during 
all their subsequent years of freedom, up to the pres¬ 
ent writing—the negresses of that race have borne 
myriads of children to representatives of the white 
race in this country. 

By far the vast majority of these births have 
occurred in the “black belt” of the Southern States; 
although in slave days, and even now, in such cities as 
Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and a score of 
others to the northward, the males of the white race 
have not been behindhand in increasing the vital 
statistics along these lines. Many of the mulattoes 
thus produced had good, white blood in their veins. 
In many instances the negro mothers adopted the 
name of the family that owned or employed them, or 
that of the male members by whom they had borne 
children. Cases are even on record where negresses, 
in bearing twins, would have one white and one black 
child; for an instance of the kind and its explanation, 
see Flint’s Textbook of Human Physiology, p. 8,95. 

As the years rolled by the effects of all this became 
painfully visible. Nature never has and never will 
concern herself about man’s interests, however vital 
' man himself may consider these interests to be, and 
she did not in this matter of race interbreeding; con¬ 
sequently, every child that was born was born with 
every cell in its body occupying its position according 
to the immutable laws of heredity and variation. 
Hence the features and entire organization of each 




Biological Principles of Interbreeding. 


93 


and all of those children responded to the aforesaid 
laws, just as they do in the case of any other animal, 
and each came to be the very kind of being, in all par¬ 
ticulars, that the operation of those laws would pro¬ 
duce, no other organization, in any particular instance, 
being possible. The same may be said for the innate 
mental and moral potentiality of any particular child. 
Of course, during the development and growth of any 
being, from the moment of birth to the close of its 
career, it may, to some extent and from a variety of 
causes, be subject to being molded and changed,— 
mentally, morally, and physically. In other words, 
when a child is born to a pure negro mother by a white 
man, that child is, according to certain fixed laws, pre- 
natally stamped with certain morphological, mental, 
and moral characters, no particle of which could pos¬ 
sibly have been different under the particular parental 
combination, however that child may come to be 
molded afterward, either for good or for bad. The 
knowledge we have of inherited prenatal impressions 
of all kinds is extremely meager and amazingly hazy 
in its character. No one can as yet tell why a child 
resembles one parent more than the other, or, perhaps, 
a grandparent more than either; nor how it grozvs to 
be more or less like some member of the family or 
perhaps one of its ancestors. Yet all such things are 
evidently controlled by laws, causes, and effects, and 
by circumstances and conditions, the origin of which 
we hardly know anything about, though we have many 
reasons to believe that the produced organism, in the 
form of the particular child, could not have been, even 
to the last atom in its composition, other than it was, 
or turned out to be, from the various forces in opera- 



94 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


tion to produce it. In the life and career of any adult, 
at any particular instant, there is always a reason 
why he or she has such and such features, such and 
such an organization, such and such traits of mind and 
character, and so on to the ultimate composition of the 
entire being. There is no element of chance in all this; 
we are all resultants, at any instant of our lives, of 
certain laws, causes, and efifects, and we could not be 
otherwise than we are if we tried ever so hard. In the 
next chapter I shall touch more fully on this question, 
as it bears upon hybridization, and point out a little 
more clearly why it is that, in so many white people 
in our Southern States, one can so frequently recog¬ 
nize a faint, subtle strain of the negro in their faces 
and forms. 

In a number of places in the present chapter I have 
referred to the remarkable character of the sexual side 
of the negro’s organization. This is a subject of 
which the laity knows absolutely nothing or little 
about, and but very few physicians have paid the 
slightest attention to it, much less given it any serious 
thought or study. Lawyers and judges, as is only too 
often the case, ignore it entirely in those trials wherein 
the accused is a negro man, charged with rape or 
assault. This is unfair to the negro, and unpardonable 
ignorance on the part of those who sit in judgment on 
him. 

And finally—as for the mob that makes up a 
gang of lynchers to hang and torture the negro who 
has assaulted and perhaps raped a white woman— 
they, to a man, know no more of the uncontrollable 
sex frenzy in a male member of that race than the 
average negro knows of vertebrate palaeontology. 



Biological Principles of Interbreeding. 


95 


Doubtless many of the readers of this volume will 
question what I have said on this subject, and what I 
will pass upon again in other places in this book; so 
I thought it best to have some one of my profession— 
an authority of the very highest order on the entire 
subject of the psychology of the negro, and especially 
his sex psychology—stand as sponsor for my state¬ 
ments with respect to this side of his organization. 
With this in view, I requested my friend, Doctor 
William Lee Howard, to prepare me a contribution on 
this point, as I knew of no writer on the psychology 
of sex and matters sexual generally, as applied to 
man, better than he in the United States. Doctor 
Howard has not only had abundant opportunity to 
observe and make record of the sensuality of the 
negro, but he has never neglected the advantage he 
has thus enjoyed, while his several books and many 
articles on the subject have rendered him an inter¬ 
national authority in that particular field. He is an 
extremely candid writer, and does not hesitate to refer, 
in unmistakable terms, to any organ or organs and 
their several functions, if he finds it necessary to do 
so, and the complete presentation of his picture and 
argument calls for it. In doing this, he but plays the 
part of the true and fearless physician who knows 
full well that, in order to make clear what he desires 
to impart to his readers, the Prince of Denmark must 
appear in the scene. 

It is worse than useless to undertake to teach the 
laity anything of this subject, now so vital to our own 
race, if we are to omit the very factors that demand 
the fullest consideration. That Doctor Howard has 
ever been guilty of this, no one will charge him with 





96 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


who has read his lucid and important articles in The 
Ladies’ Home Journal and elsewhere, and his various 
. books on sex. When a dentist discusses any subject 
pertaining to his profession, it is no more than natural 
that he mentions the teeth; or when a physician under¬ 
takes to make clear to an audience the nature of in¬ 
digestion, we expect him to mention the stomach in 
his discourse; then, why should one be surprised when 
an authority on the nature and pathology of sex 
mentions the anatomical organs and the functions 
responsible for the manifestations of sexuality and 
sensuality? The time for prudery in such matters has 
passed. 

I find I am not altogether in harmony with Doctor 
Howard in regard to the treatment of the negro, or 
what to do with him in this country. We cannot cure 
an ulcer by tickling it with a straw—we must be more 
radical in our treatment. What he advises with re¬ 
spect to the “loafing negro,” may answer for those so 
addicted,—that is, temporarily; but as a remedy for 
the problem as a whole, it would be worse than 
temporizing with the most serious question that this 
nation now has before it for consideration. This is a 
matter that I fully treat of in the last chapter of the 
present volume. What follows below is Doctor 
Howard’s contribution in its entirety:— 

“THE BASIC CAUSES FOR THE NEGRO’S 

SENSUALITY. 

“By William Lee Howard, M.D. 

“What has impressed me most as being a stumb¬ 
ling block to a solution of the negro problem in the 
United States, is the general ignorance of anthro- 




Figs. 28, 29 and 30.—Lateral Views of the Brains of a Rabbit 
(Fig. 28), a Pig (Fig. 29), and a Chimpanzee (Fig. 3°')- 

(Drawn of nearly the same absolute size.) The rabbit’s brain is at the top; 
the pig’s in the middle, and the chimpanzee lowest. O.L ., the olfactory lobe; 
A, the frontal lobe: II, the occipital lobe; <\ the temporal lobe; 8y, the Sylvian 
fissure; In., the insula; 8.or., supraorbital; 8.F., M.F., I.F., superior, middle, 
and inferior frontal gyri; A.P., antero-parietal, P.P., postero-parietal gyri; A, 
sulcus of Rolando; P.Pl., postero-parietal lobule; O.Pt., external perpendicular 
or occ-ipito-temporal sulcus; An., angular gyrus; 2 , 8, 4 , annectent gyri; A./., 
M.T., P.T., the three temporal, and 8.Or., M.Oc., l.Or., the three occipital 
gyri. (By the author, after Huxley.) 




















Biological Principles of Interbreeding. 


97 


pologic facts, ethnic sexual traits, with an unwilling¬ 
ness to study or learn of the fundamental causes for 
the ineffaceable differentiation between the African 
and the Caucasian. 

“This studied refusal, this denial of the necessity 
for knowing the real reason for the African’s unfit¬ 
ness for any social relations with the white man, is 
found among the masses and that very large class 
of supposedly educated men and women of the North, 
East, and West of our country. Yet it is not strange 
that this ignorance of the negro’s ethnic traits should 
prevail, because these people have never, through 
travel or observation, been brought face to face with 
the negro and his innate habits and instincts. 

“More, these people and philanthropists, these 
well-meaning teachers with their ancestral training in 
prudery, this mass of the superficially informed, have 
only lately been forced to listen to plain facts of the 
sex structure of their own race. 

“The havoc venereal diseases are making with our 
race, the great role uncontrolled sexuality plays in 
our increase of insanity, idiocy, crime, and pauperism, 
has been a revelation to the general public. But this 
important fact must be kept ever in mind: that sen¬ 
suality with us is recognized as antisocial, immoral, a 
menace to civilization, and the effects of total disre¬ 
gard of instruction and watchfulness, while giving 
license to the young to do about as pleases their 
undeveloped impulses. 

“Also, the increase of immorality among the 
white people is mostly seen in those we recognize as 
unfit, mentally unstable, and not of the pure racial 
stock. Furthermore, with this recognition is an 




98 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


effort, through laws and social organizations, to con¬ 
trol and remedy the conditions. We, as a race, do 
not accept sexual immorality as a right social con¬ 
dition; the negro, on the other hand, can see no 
immorality or social wrong in practising sexual 
rites with their religious and social affairs. 

“The fundamental difference between our sexual 

instincts and those of the African may not be so great; 

but, while with the negro sensuality is the Alpha and 

# 

Omega of his whole life, from childhood to old age 
in both sexes, with us it is controllable, and lechery 
meets with its proper condemnation. 

“It is not controllable in the negro, nor is lechery 
a state he condemns. In the negro, sensuality is a 
natural, innate condition, having a biologic origin 
and physiologic impulse, ineffaceable through educa¬ 
tion, moral teachings, or environment. 

“It was necessary that first the public be awakened 
to sexual facts and psychology before we could expect 
it to understand the problem of the negro as it con¬ 
fronts us today. It was the only way for people to 
understand why the negro must remain a negro, never 
permitted to reach the height of his ambition—sexual 
relations with the white girl; prevented from longer 
believing that his ultimate destiny was social equality 
among the Caucasians of the United States, and that 
biologically his sexual traits, instinct, and passions 
can never be changed by man’s methods. 

“Five years ago it would have been impossible to 
have gotten the truth about the African into the mind 
of the average man or woman living in the United 
States. Preachers were ignorant of sex psychology, 
lawyers were indifferent and lacked scientific knowl- 



Biological Principles of Interbreeding. 


99 


edge, the business man did not dare mention to his 
family the few facts he knew, and the school-teachers 
-Well ? 

“The African is biologically unfit—get the point? 
—to associate with a race whose basic sex instincts 
are as different as the color of its skin. Now I hear 
from all sides: ‘Oh, but the color of the skin does not 
make any difference: a man with a black skin is just 
as good as a man with a white skin!’ 

“True, if black skin and white skin had the same 
biologic origin; and if the man with the black skin 
had been reproduced by germ cells containing the 
same elements as the white man. But the fact that 
they contained elements which made him black, is sug¬ 
gestive evidence that they also contained elements 
which made him vastly different in other traits. And 
this suggestion is proven to be one which leads to 
facts, as we shall see. 

“Now, you will ask, What has this to do with the 
negro’s unfitness to associate with the Caucasian? 

“Nothing by itself; only to show that Nature has 
endowed him with several ethnic characteristics, 
which must be recognized as ineffaceable by man. 

“The germinal sexual elements transmitted to him 
he transmits unchanged to his children, no matter 
whether he is a college professor or a laborer, just as 
he does the color and odor of his skin, his kinky hair 
and anatomical features, especially the large but 
flexible sex organ, which adapts itself to the peculiar 
sex organs of the female negro and their demands. 

“These ethnic traits call for a large sexual area 
in the cortex of the African’s brain, which soon after 
puberty works night and day. When we can outdo 


t 




100 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


Nature and reduce this area by education, we can 
also reduce the inherent sensuality of the negro, and 
replace it by an area where intellectuality and culture, 
combined with our views of morality, will operate. 

“As interesting as it would be to go into the sub¬ 
ject of inherited and acquired traits, and to express in 
technical terms the reasons why inherited primal in¬ 
stincts cannot be changed by education, I believe much 
of it would not be thoroughly grasped by the general 
public. Hence I give the facts about the African’s 
inherited sexual traits devoid of scientific terms and 
euphemisms. 

“Unless you get it clearly in your mind as a 
scientific fact that primal instincts cannot be eradi¬ 
cated by education or social contact, you will be 
unable to comprehend why the negro must be socially 
segregated. 

“Pugnacity, the instinct to war, is a primal in¬ 
stinct. Has culture or the highest form of education 
effaced it? Has Christianity, prayers, laws, peace 
treaties, decreased the fighting instincts of man? 
Certainly not! and because it is a primal instinct. 

“The chief, the controlling primal instinct in the 
African is the sexual. Education, laws, Christianity, 
cannot change one iota this biologic force in the pure 
race. Of course, artificial procedures—operations, 
drugs—will kill the cell origin of the instinct. Co¬ 
habitation with the Caucasian will reduce the sensual 
impulses in resulting generations, as well as reduce 
the positive traits of the respective races. The off¬ 
springs of miscegenation are negative beings, having 
the evil qualities and traits of their parents and none 
of the good, besides being constitutionally weakened 




Biological Principles of Interbreeding. 


101 


in resistance to all the mental and physical affections 
of man. 

‘'Operations have no Christian or educational 
reason for application, while mixture of the races is 
socially and ethnically destructive. 

“The Caucasian as a race is moral; the African 
as a distinct race is not moral. He is wi-moral, and 
no amount of education or training is going to change 
a non-existing element—a biologic negative. 

“This fact should never be lost sight of; it is one 
of the causes which produces the great sexual differ¬ 
ences between the negro and white race. ‘These 
differences may be exaggerated or lessened, but to 
obliterate them it would be necessary to have all the 
evolution over again on a new basis. What was 
decided among the prehistoric Protozoa, cannot be 
changed by an act of Congress’ (Geddes and 
Thompson ). 

“The negro problem can be solved only by dealing 
in concrete facts, not abstract principles. The latter 
method has been too long accepted and has resulted 
in a miserable failure. As an example: the belief that 
the African was capable of living as hygienically and 
morally as the Caucasian was the great mistake made 
by those who deal in abstract principles. Physicians 
and social workers know that this false idea sets in 
action three of the most powerful and destructive 
foes of mankind: insanity, tuberculosis, and syphilis, 
—diseases which have been conscientiously studied 
bv the best minds during the last ten years, and whose 
causes and remedies we are just commencing to 
understand. 



102 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


“No extent of education has produced in the pres¬ 
ent-day negro any ethical understanding of the neces¬ 
sity of fidelity in married life. He has no code of 
marital ethics or of morals to control seduction or 
adultery. What is carefully guarded among all races 
of the world, is among the African-race accepted as 
natural and treated with moral indifference. This 
undeniable fact is due to their innate im-morality. 

“The African has the instinct of sex jealousy well 
developed, but it is not the jealousy of permanent pos¬ 
session : it is the ferocious instinct of the animal when 
mating, the lycanthropy of immediate desire. He will 
attempt to kill or mutilate with razor or axe—any 
weapon that approximates those of his ancestors—the 
man who would rob him of a temporary sex mate. 
But this innate jealousy of possession will give way 
to be transferred to another woman, as suits his sen¬ 
sual impulses and tastes. 

“The anatomic variations of the African show 
conclusively his ineradicable traits. The phylogeny of 
the negro will exert itself under all conditions. We 
can keep him down for a time through fear and re¬ 
straint; but there comes a time when the libidinous 
substances flowing in the blood stimulates him to sex¬ 
ual fury. Under these circumstances nothing short of 
a bullet will stop him. 

“Besides the secretions of the testicles which 
stimulate sexual impulses, there is this libidinous sub¬ 
stance which also stimulates the whole genesic system, 
nerves in the body, sex organs, and sex centers in the 
brain. In the negro, this latter substance is unques¬ 
tionably of great force and quantity, and accounts for 
much of his sensual ideation. You can see this 



Biological Principles of Interbreeding. 


103 


physiologic stimulation working a bull elk to madness 
when the females are in rut. I have seen the same 
effect upon a bull elk when menstruating girls paused 
before his wire enclosure. 

“One might as well attempt to reduce by educa¬ 
tion this overpowering mass of physiologic element in 
the African’s system, as to attempt to reduce the secre¬ 
tions of his odoriferous glands. I have never heard 
good women and teachers claiming that this could be 
done, but I have heard them say that kindness, Latin, 
and some knowledge of ethics would reduce his sexual 
impulses. 

“The whole trouble in getting the facts before the 
general public is that it does not know the least thing 
about sex psychology or physiology; that sex forces 
are fundamentally the greatest forces in all life, and 
that the Negro, for reasons Nature knew were neces¬ 
sary, was given sexual activities fortunately denied the 
Caucasian. To me, these reasons are fairly clear; but 
as an explanation would have to go deeply into social 
psychology, we shall avoid it. 

“Education, as it is understood by the white man, 
will never, in the full-blooded African, affect centers 
above those governing the procreative instincts. It is 
a fact observed by those in positions to study the negro 
that, with the advent of puberty, all intellectual de¬ 
velopment ceases; even the 'sound memory,’ which is 
the cause of much apparent precociousness, seems to 
be submerged by the growth of active sensuality. 

“With the oncoming of puberty, the negro shows 
his genesic instincts to be the controlling factor in his 
life. In little negro girls, lust is demonstrated to 
an extent scarcely possible of belief by those who have 



104 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


not been brought into contact with them in hospitals 
or otherwise. I have never seen a negro virgin over 
ten years of age, and never heard of one from my 
colleagues. Such conditions do not call for any 
ostracism or condemnation. Remember, I am refer¬ 
ring distinctly to the negro of African descent. 

“Sensuality takes hold of the negro’s religiosity, 
controls his thoughts, governs his actions. It is 
purely a physiologic state, and one for which he is 
not responsible, but one we must recognize and see 
to it that it is confined to his own race,—that is, the 
operative effects. 

“The periodic attacks of sexual madness in the 
negro are due, as I have said, to overstimulation— 
from our point of view—of sex centers in the brain 
from the great amount of glandular secretions. These 
stimulating secretions may be sublimated or turned 
into useful channels by one way only: physical labor. 
The outpouring of these substances circulate in the 
blood and then reach the brain centers. When this 
occurs, the African zvill not work, for he is under the 
control of sexual forces which produce a state of 
physical lethargy and physiologic activity. He never 
had to work when at home among the forests and 
streams, and existed under a life of constant sexual 
stimulation. 

“In his native country, this was exhibited and 
relieved by tribal orgies, lustful dances and cere¬ 
monies, initiation into sexual rites and excesses. Dur¬ 
ing the period of slavery in the United States he 
carried on similar methods of relief and sublimation, 
and had his women always with him. Yet even here 
there was considerable lessening of sex fury where 




Figs. 31 and 32—Brains of Orang-utan (Simla satyrus) (Fig. 3-2) 
and Chimpanzee (Troglodytes niger ) ( Ime. 31). 

(Superior views, considerably reduced.) Th* h ^ o' s ^^ivon hi other illustra- 
in either of these brains should ( . 0 pfed by the author from 

tr sirsf .- 

by Dr. Friedrich Tiedemann, Heidelbeig, lS>o. iat 



















Biological Principles of Interbreeding. 


105 


he was made to utilize the force through hard physical 
work. 

“But once scattered, free among white people and 
non-segregated, his one overpowering desire was 
white women. Now, to his inherent periodic attacks 
of sexual fury add this incessant determination to 
enjoy all the rights of white men, and you see the 
real reason for the horrible raping of white girls and 
women. The almost certainty of being tortured; the 
knowledge of immediate death in some frightful form 
—facts which would keep the man with a normal 
Caucasian brain from risking such ends—is com¬ 
pletely submerged by a sex madness, and then we see 
the explosion of a long train of antecedent preparation. 

“During these periods of sexual madness, the 
negro has all the active symptoms of animalism. 
There is loss of controlling power over what little 
higher centers of the brain he possesses. The power of 
inhibition given the white man, he does not possess— 
cannot as a negro ever possess. This fact accounts 
for his skatalogic rites which last for days, his super¬ 
stitions and lust ceremonies, his education from boy¬ 
hood to death in matters purely sensual. 

“In this country, the negro is supposed to have 
been ridden of his superstitions. Not a bit of it! The 
physician sees quite frequently one form of its in¬ 
effaceable heredity. No sadder sight can be seen than 
the little negress who is brought to the hospital suf¬ 
fering from an active venereal disease, due to the be¬ 
lief that a man suffering from such a disease can be 
cured of it by sexual intercourse with a virgin child. 
You can present a high-school diploma to a negro 
youth who will attempt a cure of himself by this 



106 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro . 


/ 


ancestral belief,—it won’t be driven out by algebra or 
Latin, nor by Sunday-school lessons. 

“Let the negro understand in emphatic terms that 
he cannot aspire to social equality with the white man. 
Force every loafing negro to work. Put him on 
Government roads—we need them. Instruct him in 
the use of tools and farming implements. Take him 
away from all cultural education. Make it a penal 
offence to sell or give him alcohol or drugs. Make 
him the nation’s ward, as are the self-respecting 
Indians. 

“Only by some such methods can we put to valu¬ 
able uses those physiologic by-products which stimu¬ 
late him to sensual acts and murderous deeds. 

“Unconstitutional? Unconstitutional to make 
such laws and regulations as will be the best for 
humanity and civilization? Tommy rot! The con¬ 
stitution already looks like a porous plaster.” 



CHAPTER VI. 

Hybridization, Atavism, and Heredity. 

I 

In the present chapter it is my intention to deal 
with the question of hybridization and race hybrids in 
nature, and to discuss, to some extent, the little we 
know about them. Most of my remarks will be con¬ 
fined to hybridization, as bearing particularly upon 
the special subject with which the present volume is 
concerned, of the Africans and the whites in the 
United States of America. Very considerable atten¬ 
tion has been paid to one phase of hybridization in 
times past, and is receiving a large share of attention 
at the present time,—that is, the whole matter of 
breeding in the domestic animals, and in fruit, flowers, 
and vegetables used by man. 

But little or no attention is being paid to the suc¬ 
cessful breeding of men and women. We know a good 
deal of the laws governing the production of hybrids, 
of artificial selection and evolution, of development and 
the rest; but we take no effectual steps to utilize them 
in our own case. In other words, race improvement 
is with us, at the present time, purely a matter of 
chance, and in some great movements, in which it has 
been profoundly involved, we have been quite blind as 
to the results, and quite deaf to the teachings of nature. 

In the case of the human race, interbreeding be¬ 
tween different peoples is going on all over the world; 
the crossing of species of men of all kinds is not only 
a fact of the present day, but it has taken place in 

various quarters of the globe as far back as history 

( 107 ) 



108 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


carries us. It was much rarer in early times than it is 
now, for the reason that the earth was not so thickly 
populated, nor were the means of travel anything like 
as perfect as today. When the various races and tribes 
of men were more distinctly separated; when great 
stretches of uninhabited wilderness or bodies of water 
isolated their habitats, and when the means of com¬ 
munication were extremely slow and limited, the 
several stocks were far more pure and unmixed. It is 
modern liberty, coupled with ease and rapidity of com¬ 
munication, enormous increase of population, and the 
various habitats becoming overcrowded, that afford 
the constant opportunity for race-crossing. The more 

pressing and evident these conditions become, the 

*■ 

greater is the amount of cross-breeding among the 
peoples so situated. Under such conditions it is cer¬ 
tain to take place, and just as certain to be followed 
by the appearance of half-breeds where it is going on. 
It matters little what races are thus brought into juxta¬ 
position ; crossing will occur to a greater or less extent. 
This will more frequently be done without the law of 
marriage than within it, although intermarriage, too, 
will be far more common under such circumstances. 
In the city of New York the Chinese men, here in this 
country from China, have often married white women, 
and the crossing of the Caucasians—using that term 
in its widest application—with Japanese has been very 
frequent in years past and is constantly on the increase 
in this day and generation. I have had the oppor¬ 
tunity to study a few of their half-breeds, and in one 
family I have in mind, some of the children were of 
the Anglo-Saxon type, more or less resembling the 
father; while one boy at least more strongly exhibited 



Hybridisation, Atavism, and Heredity. 


109 


the Japanese in his general morphology and traits, or, 
as they say among breeders, favored his mother who 
was a pure-blooded individual of the latter nationality. 
No one will suppose for a moment that the enormous 
stock of people, which for years past have been pour¬ 
ing into the United States from the Old World, in¬ 
variably remained distinct, for such is by no means the 
case. They not only cross, in marriage or otherwise, 
with people who were born and bred in America; but 
they intercross among each other, and even with 
Indians, Chinese, and negroes; this is going on far 
more extensively than most people are aware. In 
conversation with a very intelligent man of fine educa¬ 
tion and family connections in Germany, I learned that 
he very much preferred a good-looking negress to any 
white woman he had ever known. 

There are no end of half-breeds produced by the 
crossing of the whites and the North American 
Indians on the plains. During the Indian campaigns 
in that country, it was a very frequent occurrence for 
both officers and men to keep Indian squaws, and in 
not a few instances they married them. I have seen 
not a little of their progeny, and it always struck me 
that they made neither desirable men nor women, the 
poor qualities of the two races being intensified and 
the good ones subordinated. 

In this country but a small percentage of the half- 
breeds—the outcome of the crossing of whites and 
negroes, whites and Indians, and whites and Chinese 
—results through the institution of marriage. The 
great mass of them, especially in the.case of the whites 
and the negroes, are the outcome of chance crossings 
and the children are illegitimate. On the other hand 



110 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


it is through intermarriage that we have a growing 
offspring in the United States from the representatives 
of the various European nations that have made 
America their home. Many checks occur here, how¬ 
ever; for example, the Israelites usually marry only 
within their own race; so, too, with the Scandinavians 
and some of the others. Religion may have something 
to do with it. Catholics are more or less clannish in 
this respect, and, everything else being equal, Catholics 
select Catholics as mates when marrying. 

In all such hybrids we can see, with greater or less 
distinctness, the laws of heredity carried out. Hy¬ 
brids, the results of the crossing of individuals repre¬ 
senting different races of men—as in the case of whites 
and negroes—often exhibit hereditary characters and 
traits in the most interesting manner possible. Some¬ 
times, however,—where they are inherited from re¬ 
mote ancestors,—they may be very obscure as to their 
origin; then, too, they may be so mixed that we can 
tell but very little about them. There is no trait, habit, 
organization, disposition, anatomical or physiological 
character that may not be inherited down a line of 
related individuals from generation to generation. 
Pathological conditions or predispositions may be 
passed down in a similar manner, as may also deformi¬ 
ties or at least abnormalities. Certain talents, gifts, 
abilities, inclinations, and idiosyncrasies often pass 
down through families with a similar certainty, some¬ 
times cropping out in individuals in the most peculiar 
and unexpected way. In their main trend, however, 
all of these are governed by laws apparently as im¬ 
mutable in their operation as the most familiar laws 
in all nature. The matter of chance never enters the 




Hybridization, Atavism, and Heredity. 


Ill 


result in the case of any individual, be he white or 
black. In the main trend, again, men breed true to 
their race, their stock, and the lines of their family 
ascent. In investigating the attainments, accomplish¬ 
ments, and achievements of any line of pure-blooded 
and unmixed negro stock, we shall no more chance to 
find members in it who are, or have been, distinguished 
biologists, physicians, or artists, than we shall meet 
with semi-transformed, cannibalistic savages, fetish- 
worshippers or natural criminals, when we come to 
make similar researches in any first-class Anglo-Saxon 
pedigree. 

Any number of people can be found in this country 
today who will deny that there is any interbreeding 
going on between the whites and the blacks, and who 
affirm that the numerous mulattoes we see are due to 
the effects of climate. Such people are, of course, 
absolutely blind to what is going on about them. 
They are ignorant; they do not care to see. Take the 
city of Washington, for instance; I can distinctly 
remember when mulattoes in the streets of that place 
were, comparatively speaking, rare exceptions, while 
now they are to be seen there simply in scores upon 
scores. Some of them are so white that it takes a very 
keen eye to detect the African blood in them. Some 
are handsome creatures with good figures, but hand¬ 
some and fine-physiqued only in a sense. 

These half-breed negroes in the United States—in 
fact, all that class of people having negro blood in 
them at all—are extremely objectionable factors to 
add to our nation, or risk in the building up of our 
civilization. They are often—indeed, in a large pro¬ 
portion of instances—worse than the negroes them- 






112 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


selves; certainly a large number of them are no better. 
They are dangerous from whatever point we may elect 
to view them, as they may possess all the vicious and 
sensual traits of the negro, without the color of the 
latter’s skin as a warning flag to the unwary. In any 
question at issue they will invariably choose sides with 
the colored race, and from their keener wits and higher 
intelligence they are capable of giving a greater 
amount of trouble. Then, too, mulattoes have better 
opportunities to contract white alliances in marriage, 
and thus insidiously perpetuate their savage blood. 
This is most deplorable; for, as I have frequently re¬ 
marked, the negro has absolutely nothing of the 
slightest value in his organization that can be added 
to our own; while, on the other hand, nearly every¬ 
thing about him, mentally, morally, and physically, is 
undesirable in the highest degree. He is, as a rule, 
deeply imbued with criminal tendencies and his 
hybrids are equally so. 

Mulattoes have no higher sense of our civilization 
than has the black stock from which they are derived. 
I have found them equally superstitious, treacherous, 
mendacious, and unreliable. The better class of 
hybrids command place and position in this country; 
many regard them as colored doctors, colored lawyers, 
colored clergymen, colored poets and authors, and so 
on; whereas, as a matter of fact, they are nothing of 
the kind,—they are hybrids, nothing more nor less, 
and often with a very minute tincture of the African 
blood in them. Some of them are so like Caucasians 
in face and figure that the average European would 
never suspect the negro blood in them; it would only 
be a person well versed in the negro character, and 





Figs. 33 and 34. 

Fig. 33 is the superior aspect of the cerebrum of a male negro, and Fig. 
34 of the cerebrum of a Bosjes woman. Both reduced and copied by the 
author from the work cited in Figs. 31 and 32 r ultra. Taf. I and V. It is 
very interesting to compare the convolutions here shown with those in Figs. 
31 and 32 . 















Hybridisation, Atavism, and Heredity. 


113 


possessing knowledge gained by long contact with the 
race, that could make the correct ethnical diagnosis. 

But surely these hybrids are not negroes, although 
they are very convenient types to juggle with in this 
country for the admirers, among the whites, of the 
negro race in the United States, as well as for the 
negroes themselves, and to deceive the thoughtless 
into believing that the negro is making such vast and 
rapid progress among us. As a matter of fact, what 
he is doing is only through hybridization and cross¬ 
ing with the whites whenever the opportunity offers. 

Men like Thomas—who is about one-sixteenth 
part negro—prejudice this entire question; I refer 
especially to this author’s last work, “The American 
Negro; What he Was, What he Is, and What he 
May Become. A Critical and Practical Discussion 
by William Hannibal Thomas.” He has shown the 
negro race in its true ethnological light. He supports 
all that I have said above in regard to the character¬ 
istics of hybrids; he deplores the presence of the 
negro and his kin in this country; he advocates his 
intellectual upraising and civilization with the same 
pen with which he points out its utter futility and 
impossibility. These several inconsistencies and in¬ 
congruities he clinches by the last paragraph in the 
book, when he gives it as his opinion that “The future 
American negro will part, undoubtedly, with many 
of his racial characteristics as he approximates in 
color and conduct the white race. Even now many 
persons of negroid ancestry are so fair in color that 
they readily pass for white people, and marry among 
that class without exciting the slightest suspicion as 

to their mixed race identity. Furthermore, white 

8 




114 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


American marriages are constantly contracted with 
every variety of the colored races, and the fruit of 
such unions is certain to exert, hereafter, a consider¬ 
able influence upon many existing social perplexities. 
The inevitable outcome of a perfect blending of our 
heterogeneous peoples would be the development of a 
composite type of American people of incomparable 
strength and beauty, who, if they clung fast to their 
best ethical instincts, would attain such heights as 
would make our country what it was ordained to be,— 
the cradle of world-wide liberty, the citadel of human 
fraternity, and the seat and center of universal 
righteousness.” 

I can conceive of no greater calamity that could 
happen to the people of this country than this. We 
have here at least a certain proportion of the popula¬ 
tion who can call themselves true Americans,—a race 
that, although it came from the Old World, is a com¬ 
posite stock of great antiquity, and one that has 
arrived at a stage of civilization unexcelled by any 
other race in the entire range of history. This civil¬ 
ization speaks for itself, and it is not necessary for 
me to dilate upon it. And it is this civilization, the 
building up of which has taken thousands of years, 
that Thomas would now jeopardize by the injection 
into it of a poison so foul that, whenever or wherever 
it mixes with it, rottenness is the only result. 

Has Thomas ever seen a case of atavism in this 
country, resulting from the very interbreeding he so 
extravagantly proposes? Permit me to give an 
account of one that a few years ago came under my 
personal notice. A young American artisan of the 
better class and of excellent type, born of parents 



Hybridization, Atavism, and Heredity. 


115 


born in this country, and untainted by any mixture 
with African blood, meets a young and very pretty 
girl in Virginia, and in due course marries her. At 
the end of a year a boy child is born to them; but, 
horror of horrors! it is found to be as black as coal, 
and with hair as kinky as the veriest young Congo 
that a negress of that race ever gave birth to in 
Africa. Imagine the state of mind this at once 
threw the unhappy husband into! His poor young 
wife pleaded with him that he was the only man who 
had ever embraced her, and that the very suggestion 
of receiving the approaches of an African were most 
repugnant and disgusting to her. But the husband 
knew there must be a cause for it, as he was present 
in the room when the black child was born, and he 
quietly went to work to investigate his wife’s ante¬ 
cedents. After no end of trouble and expense, he 
finally ascertained that her great grandmother was a 
plantation slave who had borne .several children to her 
master. It was in this stock, through crossing and re¬ 
crossing with other whites, that this young wife saw 
her pedigree, and her first child was simply a re¬ 
version to the black ancestry on her maternal side, 
which had inherited the African characteristics, and 
among them the black skin and kinky hair. I have 
heard of several other well-authenticated cases of this 
nature. 

This is what Thomas would make general through¬ 
out the country; that Europe may point the finger at 
the American and say: Go to! You have negro in 
your blood, and you come of a mixed race who were 
slaves and eaters of hitman flesh. If you want to 
know something of your pedigree, read J. Cameron 



116 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro, 


Grant’s “The Ethiopian,” and the ceremonies attend¬ 
ing the erection of the Juju House in Gnongo, from 
whence your black blood came; it runs thus: “The 
king of Gnongo ruled a small but very powerful and 
very populous country, and was the terror of all his 
neighbors to the North and West by reason of the 
number and ferocity of the slave-raids that started 
from his dominions, and were almost invariably suc¬ 
cessful. The whole religion of these people necessi¬ 
tated attacks upon their neighbors, for its basis was 
constant human sacrifice, and the simple law of self- 
preservation taught the Gnongos, for their own safety, 
always to keep at hand a goodly supply of the neces¬ 
sary victims. The true history of the place would be 
a dismal record of ruthless and brutal doing to death 
of human beings, often apparently for no reason 
whatever except to satisfy a ghoulish craving for the 
sight of human blood flowing fresh, or blackening, 
clotted and nasty in the open, in the town, in street, in 
square, in court-yard—nay, upon the very household 
utensils themselves. 

“On this, the third day, were to be erected, with all 
the proper ceremonies, the six main uprights of the 
new Juju House. The reason, or even the simple 
mythology of these acts, it is hopeless to expect; one 
might as well hope to learn the mythology of the 
monkeys; though verily, I believe, the daily annals 
of the collection of the higher quadrumana would be 
more sane and cleanly, and far less blood-thirsty than 
those of the baser, lower bimana. 

“But now it was time for things to begin, and as 
etiquette, dangerous to evade, constrained all to take 
part in the ceremonies fasting, so far as a solid meal 



Hybridization, Atavism, and Heredity. 


117 


was concerned, all real eating and drinking had to be 
deferred till the proceedings of the day were concluded. 

“There appeared to be no regular commencement; 
but, seemingly by a kind of general impulse, drums 
began to be beaten, horns blown, and trade muskets 
discharged in the air. Then cows’ horns, filled with 
powder and tamped with clay, were fired off with a 
thundering report and considerable danger to the 
neighbors; and, with the exception of the king, who 
practically never appeared in public, and of his im¬ 
mediate attendants, the whole population of the town 
flocked to the spot where the ghastly preparations 
were already well advanced. 

“The priests and the warriors and women gathered 
in a great circle around the pits; the slaves who had 
carried the victims from the town, bound hand and 
foot to poles and rolled in cheap calico, at a sign came 
forward, and laid them two and two beside each ex¬ 
cavation, one man and one woman to each. Cutting 
the lashings that secured them to the poles, they took 
these away. Then one of the priests began a sort of 
exhortation to the people, telling them' that the king 
had graciously given orders for the erection of a new 
Juju House, which would be for the general benefit; 
then, after animadverting upon the crucifixions of the 
young women that had taken place two days pre¬ 
viously for the prevention of famine and drought, he 
referred to the head-cutting of the day before, and 
declared that the auguries drawn from the positions in 
which the heads had fallen had been most favorable; 
that the posts of the Juju House were about to be set 
up in accordance with them; that the heads would be 
fixed upon the building and would bring great luck; 



118 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


and, to prevent and minimize occurrences of such evil 
omen for the coming year, those women who had 
borne twins in his majesty’s dominions during the 
year gone by would now be buried alive in the hole in 
the center of the house, over which, when a proper 
dwelling-place had been provided, a most powerful 
Juju would preside. He ended by saying that the king 
had given orders for a great feast to conclude the 
three days’ proceedings, and that his royal bounty had 
provided for his people a more than usually liberal 
dole of rum and palm wine. He finished amid the 
frantic applause of the crowd, and more discharging 
of muskets and banging of drums. 

“Now the warriors got into some sort of order in 
front and began to chant a monotonous song or hymn, 
to which the women marked a rude time by grunting 
at regular intervals and slapping their arms, breasts, 
and thighs. 

“While this hideous anthem was being sung, the 
executioner and his assistants seized the victims two 
and two as they lay, male and female, and binding 
them face to face, pitched each couple into the long 
holes lying ready excavated beside them. This done, 
he and his daubed and painted assistants, in all their 
disgusting paraphernalia of charms and bones, began 
to dance about the pits, rattling hollow calabashes full 
of small nuts and seeds, and partially drowning the 
groans and screams of agony that proceeded from the 
wretched beings below. 

“But now arose the cry of f Rice-pounders! 
Women! O women, bring your rice-pounders! Let 
the family be fruitful and the year give many slaves! 
Women! O women, bring your rice-pounders!’ 



Hybridization , Atavism, and Heredity. 


119 


"These words were shouted and yelled by the war¬ 
riors, but promptly taken up by the whole crowd, 
which, wild with excitement, began to stamp and dance 
with gyratory motion about the spot occupied by the 
executioner and his assistants. 

“Several scores of women had rushed off to the 
town at the first words, and were now streaming back, 
each one armed with her rice-pounder of hard, heavy 
wood, about three inches in diameter and six feet long, 
shod with iron at the lower end. As they came up they 
were speedily arranged in rows round the pits, and at 
a given cry from the warriors and the crowd of ‘Now, 
O women, pound the sacred rice to feed the gods!’ 
they commenced pounding away with their formidable 
rammers at the wretched creatures below. 

“The piercing shrieks that immediately rent the air 
soon ceased, and presently save for a low groan or 
two, no sound rose from the blood-stained mortars 
except the monotonous beat-beat of the horrid pestles. 

“But while the women pounded, the people and the 
executioners yelled and danced till the excitement 
attained a frantic pitch. Then, suddenly closing in, 
the crowd seized the great pillars lying on the ground, 
hoisted them up by main force of arm, and, planting 
each one in the center of the gory mass below, filled 
in the loose earth and stones about them. 

“Not till the earth was packed hard around the 
pillars and level with the surface of the surrounding 
soil did the women cease their ghastly labour. Then 
they stopped, exhausted, and rolled about, many of 
them apparently afflicted with a species of epileptic 
frenzy. [Just such a frenzy as we see the negro 
women exhibit at their religious camp-meetings and 



120 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


church services in the United States at the present 
day.] 

“At once each became the center of an admiring 
circle, for their frenzy was a good omen, a sign that 
the sacrifice had been accepted with pleasure by the 
gods, whose spokeswomen they had now become, for 
the time being at least. 

“After a while things quieted down; the crowd 
once more became attentive, for the final ceremony was 
at hand. As already mentioned, another pit had been 
excavated in the center of the pillars, now so firmly 
erected. Alongside this center hole, a dozen or more 
miserable women were dragged. These were the 
unfortunates who had given birth to twins during the 
previous year in the king’s dominions, and so brought 
evil upon it. One of the priests gave the people his 
views upon the subject, views that will hardly bear 
reproduction in these pages; and then the executioner, 
carrying an iron bar about two feet long, and followed 
by his assistants rolling a short, thick log, threw the 
women down, one after another, and, deliberately 
smashing their arms and legs in two places, doubled 
them up behind them, and flung the poor creatures 
into the hole. 

“Not a sound broke the silence save the screams of 
the unfortunate victims of this horrible cruelty, and 
as soon as the last of them had been pitched, shriek¬ 
ing, into the pit, the earth was filled in over them 
while they were still alive, and with a wild shout the 
whole body of spectators rushed in and commenced 
stamping it flat with their feet. In a very short time 
all trace of the excavation had disappeared, and the 
whole space enclosed by the uprights, and even several 




Figs. 35 and 36. —Muscles of the Foot jn Gorilla (Fig. 35) 

and Man (Fig. 36). 

Plantar aspect, and much reduced. (By the author, after 
Sir Richard Owen: “Comparative Anatomy of the Verte¬ 
brates,” vol. iii.). 




















Hybridisation, Atavism, and Heredity. 


121 


feet beyond them, was tramped smooth and flat and 
as hard as a threshing floor. 

“No one passing could have guessed at the terrible 
crimes which had been committed, for hardly a splash 
of blood upon the pillars gave evidence of them. 

“With firing of muskets, blowing of horns, and 
general congratulations and jollity, yelled and chanted, 
of the goodness of their king and his liberality, the 
crowd returned to the town, the women to prepare 
the evening meal and make such festive arrangements 
as were demanded by the king’s orders, the men to talk 
over the day’s celebration, plan future schemes of 
blood and rapine, and discuss the next slave-catching 
expedition, all separating later on to secure betimes 
the royal dole of drink. 

“I have described the day; the night I will leave to 
the reader’s imagination and to its fitting veil of 
darkness.” (Pp. 33-42.) 

A few years ago, The Evening Star, of Washing¬ 
ton, D. C. (Dec. 5, 1895), reviewed the volume from 
which I have just so copiously quoted; and as this 
review, or rather what is said in it, is just as true 
today as it was the day it was written, I here repro¬ 
duce some of its most pertinent paragraphs. They 
run thus:— 

“The cannibalism of the black secret society known 
as the Human Leopards, in the country near Sierra 
Leone, disclosed by the recent trial, brings forcibly 
before us the difference between the East African and 
the West African habits of eating human flesh. The 
Sherbro cannibals waylaid and killed their victims 
and afterwards feasted on their flesh. The cannibal¬ 
ism of the east coast is of a very different kind. The 




122 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


flesh of the old people—the grandfather and grand¬ 
mother of a family—is dried and mixed with condi¬ 
ments; and a portion of this is offered, with a dim 
sort of sacramental meaning, to travelers who become 
guests of the family. To refuse it would be a deadly 
insult. To accept it is a passport to the privileged 
position of a friend of the house. Many of our 
travelers in East Africa have eaten thus sacramentally 
of the ancestors of some dark-skinned potentate. 

“The cannibalism of the west coast is, as has just 
been seen, of a more horrible kind. The Sherbro case 
seems to be connected with fetishism, the worst de¬ 
velopments of which are peculiar to that country; but 
there is a hideously genuine appetite for fresh human 
flesh still existing among the negroes of West Africa. 
The cannibalism manifests itself in a refinement of 
gluttony which has its mild analogy in the tastes of 
Europeans. Young boys are brought from the dark 
interior, kept in pens, fattened upon bananas, and 
finally killed and baked. To these Thyestean feasts 
come not only the savage chiefs of the interior, but 
also, it is whispered, black merchants from the coasts. 

“Men who appear at their places of business in 
English territory in broadcloth and tall hats, who 
ape the manners of their white masters, are said to 
disappear annually into the interior, where, we are 
told, they may be seen, in naked savagery, taking 
part in the banquets on plump boys, in which they 
delight. Be this as it may, somehow the native of 
the west coast and its Hinterland is unlike the East 
or South African native in the deep-lying savagery 
and the extraordinary facility for returning to it, 
which are his leading and very unpleasant characteris- 





Hybridisation, Atavism, and Heredity. 


123 


tics. The subject claims the attention of the anthro¬ 
pologist, and certainly suggests a curious reason for 
questioning the relationship of the black man and the 
ape or gorilla, seeing that the race of monkeys seems 
to be singularly free from anything like cannibalism. ’ 

It is possible that we still have in this country a 
few negroes who have taken part in just such cere¬ 
monies in Africa as are here described; beyond all 
doubt we have hundreds of descendants living among 
us, whose near ancestors, negroes in Africa, took part 
in the erection of Juju Houses where such practices 
were indulged in. There are hundreds of hybrids of 
these people, crosses between the blacks and whites 
in this country, who come from such stock. There 
are millions of negroes in the South who, if taken 
back into Africa, would in very short time revert to all 
these customs, so superficial is the veneer of their 
pseudo-civilization gained in America. 

Our white race has no such chapters in its history; 
but if we are to assimilate, by a general crossing, this 
cannibal race, as has been proposed by Thomas and 
others, their history becomes in time linked with our 
own record, and in the future no American will be 
able to say that he has no such blood in his veins, for 
there will be no means of detecting the mixture in 
intermarriage. It has been stated that the hybrids 
become sterile in the second, third, or fourth genera¬ 
tion; but this would not affect the question, for, 
assimilation once commenced, the blood of the inferior 
race must all be taken up eventually; and so great is 
the number of negroes in this country that there is 
plenty of their blood to effect complete adulteration 
of the entire white population of the United States. 



124 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


I have satisfied myself that not only is hybridization 
of the two races largely in progress, but that cases of 
atavism occur all the time. It is the aim and highest 
ambition of the negresses to have children by white 
men, for the reason that such children, by the superior 
intelligence coming from their white fathers, will 
command better positions when they grow up than the 
pure blacks, and in so doing will powerfully further 
the interests, political and otherwise, of the African 
population in this country. 



CHAPTER VII. 


Effects of Fraternization upon Morals, 
Ethics, and Material Progress. 

Animals of all kinds are invariably affected by 
their environments. Man forms no exception to this; 
indeed, in the case of man, I am strongly inclined to 
believe that he is more susceptible to his surroundings 
than any other organized being or class of beings. 
This is due, in the highest races, to the sensitiveness, 
plasticity, and moral composition of his organization. 
As we descend through the scale to the lower races, 
this becomes less and less evident, being least ob¬ 
servable in those races most nearly related to the 
anthropoids. Negroes are, of course, affected more or 
less by the environment in which they live, but more 
by climatic conditions than by reactionary effects on 
their organizations, due to the presence of peoples 
more highly civilized than themselves. A race with¬ 
out morals has it within its power only to mimic the 
qualifications of the higher race, just as parrots mimic 
the human voice; they neither know the meaning of 
the words they utter, nor are they in any way mentally 
advanced through the accomplishment. These con¬ 
ditions are often much improved in hybrids, when 
those hybrids are produced by the crossing of the 
lower races with representatives of either sex in the 
higher. 

In large parts of the United States, especially in 
the so-called “black belt,” all these conditions, and 
others which have been referred to in previous chap- 

025 ) 


126 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


ters of this book, are ever in operation. In some of 
the regions in this belt the two races are about equal 
in numbers; in others the whites are more numerous; 
while in still others the negroes far outnumber the 
whites. Where the blacks are in proportion relatively 
very few, the harm done to the higher race is com¬ 
paratively insignificant; the harm only increases in 
degree as the blacks increase in numbers. However, 
the crossing of the two races goes on wherever they 
are brought in contact for any length of time. Pro¬ 
portionately, there are but few negroes in New York 
City, and the black women are constantly sought by 
white men of the various planes of society for carnal 
gratification. Lighter colored hybrids are produced 
and they are making their appearance in considerable 
numbers. As I have before said, negresses are well 
pleased to have children by white men, and for 
reasons already given. If the offspring happens to be 
good-looking, cleanly in habits, and not especially re¬ 
pulsive, they make better arrangements; and if light 
colored, with regular features, fine figures, and sen¬ 
suous and attractive, they are often selected by white 
men of position. Such matings are usually made 
where scandal is least likely to flourish. Children may 
or may not follow, depending upon the means 
adopted to prevent such calamities. 

All this is very degrading, injurious, and harmful 
to both races, though in very different ways. In the 
case of the whites, it aids the adulteration of the 
higher stock by a baser material,—a practice harmful 
under any and all conditions; whereas in the case of 
the negroes—the majority of whom believe that 
procreation and nature’s method of insuring it are 




Effects of Fraternization. 


127 


about all that life means—it fosters the idea that they 
are ethnologically the equals of the whites; conse¬ 
quently they become dissatisfied with the social plane 
they occupy, and are restive under what they deem 
to be the barriers placed in their road to wealth and 
political power. It is impossible for them to appre¬ 
ciate the fact that nature is the author of such 
restrictions and limitations and not their Anglo- 
Saxon superiors. Brains, ability, and the power of 
achievement are the factors that are principally 
responsible for the status of the individual and of the 
nation, and not that either simply possess human form 
and the power of speech,—a notion that appears to 
dominate the mind of the manumitted slave. 

As we pass southward to the mid-Atlantic cities, 
where the negroes are far more numerous than the 
whites—as in Baltimore and Washington—not only 
is the crossing between the two races more evident, 
but there likewise exist harmful influences of a widely 
different nature. Long contact with American civil¬ 
ization has had but the effect of making the better 
class of negroes admirable mimics of the whites in 
dress, social requirements, and conversation, while 
it has in no way improved them morally or physically. 
American civilization has but endowed the hybrids 
with the most superficial veneer of refinement; and, 
as a matter of fact, the pure negro in this country is, 
in his real nature, just as much of a savage today as 
he was three hundred years ago. Were the bulk of 
the blackest ones in the South taken back to their 
native haunts in Africa, they would resume all of 
their savage practices and customs within a brief 
space of time. This makes all the more forcible the 



128 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


ethnic argument for sending them there, and giving 
them the opportunity to work out their own destiny; 
of the practicability of this, however, more will be said 
further on. 

Coming back to Washington, we find that, though 
the negro has benefited but superficially through his 
long contact with our civilization, he has by no means 
been lacking in the harm he has worked with our own 
race in morals and ethics. This injurious influence 
has been of such an insidious nature, and so varied in 
its character, that it is not always apparent to the 
observer. Moreover, it requires careful, just, and 
far-reaching comparison in order to measure the 
moral standard of a race at intervals in its career, in 
that we may ascertain the differences in it. So far 
as it appears, no such comparisons have been made in 
the case of the unadulterated population of whites in 
the city of Washington; but it is as true now as it 
always has been that, by contact with a naturally 
criminal race, a superior and sounder race will, in 
time, slowly but surely, morally deteriorate through 
sheer force of circumstances. The crime of the one 
people is almost certain to involve the acts of the other; 
transitory acts in time become habits, and habits 
define the characteristics of the wholep.eaple.__As long 
ago as 1891 I pointed out that the negroes in Wash¬ 
ington constituted but one-third of the population; yet 
they furnished the great bulk of criminal cases of all 
kinds. The police report, ending June 25, 1890, ex¬ 
hibited the following terrible record, sustaining what 
I have just stated: Assaults on policemen, 162,—by 
whites, 75, by colored 87; assaults on special officers, 
25,—by whites 9, by colored 16. “Last year three 





Fig. 37.— Right Lateral View of the Calvarium of Pithecanthropus 
credits, with Facial Parts of the Skull and Lower Jaw 
Restored in Outline. (From Sergi, after Dubois 

and Manouvier.) 

According to Sergi, “The Pithecanthropus of Java, it is 
true, is an animal with some human characteristics; but, in 
my opinion, it is not man nor the intermediary type; it is a 
higher type of the other anthropomorphic species.” (“The 
Mediterranean Race,” pp. 201, 202.) (By the author, after 
Dubois.) See also Deniker, Races of Man, pp. 359 - 36 i, where 
a fuller account of the skull of P. credits is given. 








Effects of Fraternisation. 


129 


policemen were killed by negroes, two when attempt¬ 
ing to arrest them, and there is scarcely a year that 
this does not occur.” ( Science , New York, August 
14, 1891.) In The Star, a Washington newspaper, of 
December 24, 1888, it was shown that there were 
then in jail, awaiting trial or sentence for murder, 16 
persons,—2 white and 14 colored. Two years after¬ 
ward (March 26, 1890) there were on the calendar 
18 murder trials, the greater proportion by far 
having been committed by negroes. That brief article 
was more than prophetic in its statements; and now, 
many years later, hundreds of newspapers all over the 
country are printing accounts of crime that sustain 
what I then stated, and further stated in the Wash¬ 
ington Analostan Magazine for March, 1891; in The 
Daily Picayune of New Orleans, February 16, 1891, 
and elsewhere. In the New Orleans paper I remarked 
that “In 1882 I watched several hundred negro chil¬ 
dren as they poured out of one of the large colored 
public schools in Washington, D. C. Later, in 1890, 
the same sight was presented at exactly the same place, 
but a most marked change was perceptible. In 1882 
the vast majority of the children were black, the 
mulattoes being the exception; in the second instance, 
more than 50 per cent, were mulattoes, and many 
others so white that it would be difficult to pronounce 
with certainty upon them.” (See also “Hybridiza¬ 
tion,” in The Religio-Philosophical Journal, Jan. 17, 
1891.) 

The “problem” is now far graver; the number of 
negroes far greater, and the means of ridding our¬ 
selves of the black more difficult. At the nation’s 

capital, as everywhere else in the country, they con- 

9 



130 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


tinuc to furnish nine-tenths of the crimes on the court 
calendars. As an element they are more dangerous 
than ever in the matter of assaulting white women. 
Their notions of national and municipal politics are 
* just as rotten and debased as they have always been. 
They are just as much given to mendacity as they were 
when in Africa. And they still exhibit, as a race 
object-lesson before our growing generation, all that 
is most lewd, degrading, objectionable, ignorant, and 
superstitious; in short, the bestial side of the genus 
Homo. The negro—the pure negro—in this country 
is. no more responsible for his organization and char¬ 
acter than is any other animal. A vulture will eat 

* 

carrion when surrounded by every kind of cleaner 
food; it is the nature of the bird. 

A number of years ago I was at the voting* polls 
of a State election in the southern part of Maryland. 
Negroes went up there in numbers to deposit their 
votes. Every vote they deposited had been bought for 
a trifle by the representatives of the political parties 
at the time. There are those who say that the mem- 
hers of our own race are to blame for this, because 
they buy the votes, which is just as criminal as the 
sale of them, perhaps more so; for the higher race 
should set the better example. However, it illustrates 
what 1 have already stated in a former paragraph. 
Were it not for the presence of the negro in such 
numbers in such places, the whites would not have 
the inducement to resort to these practices. One never 
sees scenes of that kind in New York City, where but 
comparatively few negroes appear at the polls, and 
where the votes cast at a general election run into 
myriads. 





Effects of Fraternization. 


131 


As a rule, the youth of the American negro are 
liars by nature; they are nearly all predisposed to 
gambling, and the majority of them will steal. So 
far as example goes, in these respects they set a bad 
one to the youth of our own race in this country. 

m/ 

Moreover, the young blacks are distinctly lewd and 
sensuous in their inclinations, and at an early stage 
develop a desire to possess white women, traits which 
they, in reality, never outgrow, and which are a con¬ 
stant menace to the gentler sex of our people every¬ 
where. This influence is extremely bad, and the 
knowledge of it reacts disastrously upon the minds of 
our daughters and wives throughout the country, as 
I shall presently show. To develop a fine, pure- 
minded, clean and cultured race, it is essential that it 
shpuld ever have before it all that is refining and 
beautiful, all that tends to elevate body and mind, all 
that inspires to cultivate art, science, literature and 
learning; and certainly not be brought into the atmos¬ 
phere of another race, who have all the factors of 
degradation and ignorance in their organization. 
People may think that the latter have no influence 
upon the higher race; but this is a profound error. 
Anything and everything in the environment of any 
animal is certain to affect it in one way or another. 
The same axiom applies, with equal truth, to a race or 
group. With respect to the superior people, their 
morals and ethics are bound to suffer. A few rotten 
apples may spoil the entire barrel, and the greater the 
number of rotten ones, the sooner will general cor¬ 
ruption and decay take place. It is all nonsense to 
talk about the better race redeeming, and eventually 
elevating, the lower one to the plane of the former, 



132 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


for nature’s laws work in no such manner. In this 
country the highest civilization and the cleanest and 
soundest white people flourish where the negro 
exists in comparatively few numbers. But to carry 
this argument further would be to introduce odious 
comparisons. Washington, our nation’s Capital, has 
in these particulars a terrible load to carry, and the 
amount of black venom that has been injected into her 
veins requires all the force of her Caucasian consti¬ 
tution to tolerate. As beautiful as that growing city 
is, it could be far more so were it not for the presence, 
in its every place and thoroughfare, of the low 
African stock that constantly attacks its vitals. 
Baltimore is another city profoundly affected by the 
same malady; and Dr. William Lee Howard has well 
said, in an article on the subject, entitled “The Negro 
as a Distinct Ethnic Factor in Civilization”:— 

“The attitude of complacent moralists, the preach¬ 
ing of far-distant ascetics, and the Sunday-school 
advice of the New England maiden who would take 
the African to her bosom, would be amusing were it 
not for the serious conditions underlying the mis¬ 
understood facts. 

“The truth is that the negro of today, untram¬ 
meled and free of control, is rapidly showing atavistic 
tendencies. He is returning to a state of savagery, 
and in his frequent attacks of sexual madness, his 
religious emotionalism, superstition, and indolence, is 
himself again—a savage. This animalism, this innate 
character of the African, will demonstrate itself more 
and more as he is allowed the liberty of his sway of 
ancestral sexual impulses, and as long as moralists and 
sociologists of the ‘suppressive school’ continue to 



Effects of Fraternisation. 


133 


remain purblind to the negro’s dominant physiologic 
and psychologic organism.” 

Further on he very truly says: “It is unscientific 
to attempt to study the adjustment and laws of society 
without a thorough knowledge of the structure of its 
individual parts. It is useless for philanthropists, 
preachers, and editors in the North, or any other part 
of the country where the African is not understood or 
studied, to talk about school and college education 
controlling his hereditary racial instincts. His in¬ 
dividual parts are not known to such people. Only he 
who knows life from the monad to cell-complex man 
can intelligently discuss the negro question. To 
understand the ineradicable racial traits of the Afri¬ 
can, one must know the structural life and habits 
resulting from a certain biologic basis. We must 
penetrate beneath superficial ideas, throw aside 
prudish philosophy, and open our eyes to anatomical 
and physical facts if we wish to render justice to 
civilization. Silence regarding sexual matters must 
give way to vocative statements, for it is by these 
unavoidable statements that we must be guided in 
dealing with the negro question.” ( Medicine, June, 

i 9 ° 3 ) P- 433 -) 

The time has arrived—or ought to have arrived— 
when man, or the intelligent part of mankind, can 
largely control his or its own environment. So far as 
we know, nature has no pity and no designs in such 
matters. With her, the laws are simply operative in 
accordance with the conditions present and involved. 
Certain effects are bound to become evident if certain 
states and conditions exist. Nature would evince no 
emotion were this planet to become as cold as an ice- 



134 


America's Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


berg, solid to the core, and with a surface as smooth 
as a billiard-ball without so much as a grain of dust 
upon it. With her, biologic law would then simply 
cease; physical law alone would still remain active. In 
other words, it remains entirely with ourselves to 
control our environment; and were there a consensus 
of opinion upon the point, followed by a consensus of 
action, we would have it in our power to render the 
negro race harmless in the United States in very short 
time. Sociologic adjustment would follow quite as 
quickly, and natural laws would still continue as 
unceasingly in their action. That mankind would be 
enormously benefited in the long run, and the white 
race in this country be the distinct gainer, cannot for 
a moment be doubted. 

But let us pass for a while still further south in this 
region south of Washington and Baltimore, into our 
subtropical realm, into the so-called “black belt,” to 
see how our Caucasian brethren are faring in that 
quarter. The dangers attempted to be portrayed in 
the leading paragraphs of this chapter are there vastly 
intensified and increased. The bulk of the white 
population throughout those states are slowly awaken¬ 
ing to the horrors of the situation that now confronts 
them. Negroes are massed everywhere, and, being- 
no longer under control, menace all that is decent in 
the developing nation: menace morals, menace prog¬ 
ress and development, menace legal and political 
stability, and threaten, in no uncertain manner, the 
very existence and purity of the American race and 
its career. Ask any intelligent Southern man or 
woman, and he or she will tell you something of the 
state of affairs existing there, even if such people do 



Effects of Fraternisation. 


135 


not grasp the danger in its fulness as the biologist 
and anthropologist does. Read some of the para¬ 
graphs that Ellen Barret Ligon, M.D., of Mobile, 
Alabama, has printed in her article on “The White 
Woman and the Negro,” which appeared in the 
November (1903) issue of a Springfield, Massa¬ 
chusetts, magazine called Good Housekeeping. After 
pointing out the nature of our American civilization 
in the South and our duties in preserving it; after 
touching upon the calamities which follow an attempt 
to inaugurate social equality between the negroes and 
the whites; after indicating the true attitude of the 
Southerner toward the colored race; after arraigning 
the negro hybrids for boasting of the white blood in 
their veins, and reminding them that they are still 
negroes, and. after rejoicing that the negro in the 
South is manumitted, this writer proceeds to say: 
“Those at a distance cannot realize the situation the 
people of the South are facing, nor the conditions 
arising from living in the midst of hordes of negroes. 
One or two negroes may be to some tastes picturesque; 
but to be in the midst of a whelming black flood, roll¬ 
ing its waves against the bulwarks of our civilization, 
overflowing our public highways and public convey¬ 
ances, and threatening our homes, is the condition 
which the men and women of our own race should 
investigate and realize, before they devote themselves 
to that strange philanthropy which is so tender of 
heart for the black brother or sister, and criminally 
ignorant of, and careless about, the terrible dangers 
that threaten the women and children of their own 
race, and which they may be so largely instrumental 
in precipitating. 



136 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


“The all-pervasiveness of the negro, not by ones 
and twos, but by the million, with his ‘equality’ 
insolence, his odoriferous person and his criminal 
tendencies, is a factor for danger and discomfort that 
must be held in check by the most far-seeing intelli¬ 
gence. There is no community, where the blacks exist 
in any numbers, where they have not made themselves 
offensive to the whites—Washington, for example— 
and there is no other part of the country where this 
offensiveness, when short of actual criminality, is 
borne so forgivingly as in the South. They put on 
extra police force that their daughters, in going to 
and from school, may be protected from infamous 
remarks made to them by passing negro ipen; city 
districts must have extra guards that negro fiends 
may not enter homes and knock sleeping women 
senseless that they may be violated afterwards. This 
happened in the same city over and over again for 
two years, in spite of extra guards. Several of the 
women died. One wretch was at last caught; the 
tolerant people decided that he was a degenerate, and 
sent him to the insane asylum to be cared for by the 
State. Yet there are people at a distance, unknowing 
the conditions in. the South, who throw all their 
sympathies with ‘the poor, downtrodden negro.’ 

“It is time they .knew better. Let all the world 
listen while the South calls on you to hear: The 
white woman is the coveted desire of the negro man. 
The despoiling of the white woman is his chosen 
vengeance. 

- “The white woman must be saved! 

“The vital point in the race question today is the 
safety of the Southern white woman, and all the help- 





Fig. — Pax chimpaxse. (Reduced.) 

(By the author, after D. G. Elliot: “A Review of the 
Primates/’ vol. iii, PI. VIII.) 












Effects of Fraternisation. 


137 


lessness of womanhood appeals to the manhood of 
the world to protect her with every possible safeguard. 
‘Social equality’ is battering on the walls that protect 
her, and for what purpose? To make a breach 
where the negro may climb up and over. And who is 
to be helped by this invasion? Not the negro, for it 
puts him in a false position, and the white race will 
certainly be no better for the mixture. 

“All philanthropical claims can be fully met, men¬ 
tally and morally, without taking the negro, even the 
best negro, into the home circle. It makes no differ¬ 
ence that social equality is asked only for those who 
are worthy. The social recognition of one good 
negro stimulates in thousands of black devils resent¬ 
ment at not being similarly treated, and rouses them 
to fresh insults and outrages aimed at the Southern 
white woman. Negro equality is a theory; negro 
outrages and insults resulting from the inculcation of 
the doctrine of equality are hideous facts.” 

This lady knows whereof she speaks, and she 
possesses the courage of the heroine, putting her 
thoughts to paper and print without a spark of false 
shame or fear. We cannot sufficiently admire her 
candor and her appeal. Her words, her description 
of actual conditions, should be sounded throughout 
the length and breadth of this country; with that 
view I take pleasure in reproducing here still more 
from her admirable invocation: “Today, because the 
negro has been taught ‘you are the social equal of 
the whites, you have the right to whatever the white 
man has a right to,’ the object' most desired by him 
is the forbidden, the unattainable white woman. In 
that over-and-over repeated story of the outrages in 



138 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


the South, it is almost invariably a white woman or 
white child that has been the victim, and a negro the 
criminal. The Southern white man knows that his 
wife is not safe in her home, nor his child in her bed, 
except for the vigilance and surveillance of the law. 

‘‘When one American woman was carried off by 
bandits the entire nation, even the government, was 
roused with, indignation and anxiety. Almost daily 
in our own country beasts worse than bandits despoil 
the tender and the helpless. Good, conscientious, mis¬ 
taken women are sympathizing with the black man, 
because they have not heard the little child's voice 
crying in the night and found their baby girl out of 
doors in her own blood, mangled and torn; nor seen 
some white woman’s body with skull crushed and 
bruised breast, nor even heard the obscene infamies 
that, in wanton insolence, are spoken to the white girl 
or woman by the passing black.” 

Proceeding, this Southern lady exhibits the record 
for all kinds of crimes in the South and the increase 
. of certain diseases. Eighty-five per cent, of the 
crimes committed in the Southern States are com¬ 
mitted by negroes. Insanity is increasing among 
them to a fearful extent, especially among the mulat- 
toes. Tuberculosis has a similar showing; the blacks 
there are especially prone to that disease, forming an 
immense nidus to propagate the malady, and pass it 
along to the most susceptible types among the whites. 
All this is a curse, adding death and disease to every 
other infliction brought upon us through the presence 
of this criminal, semi-savage race in our midst. 

“Within the past year or so,” says this courageous 
writer, “the horror has crept across the line, and what 




Effects of Fraternization. 


139 


the North once viewed with incredulity and indiffer¬ 
ence from afar lias lately become visible from its very 
doors. It can no longer be dismissed as a fable from 
Louisiana or Texas, for it has manifested itself in 
Delaware, Kansas, and Illinois. It has come too close 
to be ignored or pooh-poohed, or relegated to the 
limbo of malignant fiction. Suppose it were to be 
your daughter next? 

“What are you going to do about it, Americans?” 

This is a very fitting question wherewith she 
closes this burning appeal to our race; and it is the 
members of our own race—Americans—who are the 
real sufferers in this matter. 

Yes, Americans, what arc you going to do about it? 
We are not responsible for the acts of our forefathers 
in this country, nor are we pledged to abide, for a 
single instant, by the monumental blunders they made. 
It was an enormous mistake on the part of our 
ancestors, the bringing of the African negroes to this 
country; but the proposition that confronts us now 
is an entirely different matter. They are here; and 
instead of being slaves under control, they are free, 
—free to pollute our entire country. Are we to 
stand with our hands down our sides and see them 
do it ? Are we to allow this miscegenation to go on ? 

As far back as he can look into human history, 
the Anglo-Saxon has no cannibalism to conceal from 
his offspring. Are we now to take up into our blood 
a race of human flesh-eaters, who would consume 
human flesh again with relish were they returned to 
the country from whence they came? Are we to 
make a hatchery of crime and disease simply because 
we are afraid to act? Are we of the North to remain 




140 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


deaf to the earnest appeal from the mothers and 
daughters of our own race in the South for aid in this 
matter? What, in the name of all that is brave, and 
manly, and honorable, has come over this American 
nation? Are we already so foully adulterated by the 
black scum that we can no longer be moved through 
the dictates of honor, and through the highest in¬ 
stincts of manliness, to listen to and to heed the dis¬ 
tress and danger of thousands of our own women? 

Are we, as a nation, after all our effort, with all 
our civilization, and with everything before us, to 
have no better record for the future than this: that 
we proved a curse rather than a benefit to mankind? 
It is a nation’s highest duty to so acquit itself in its 
career that its national record will not only redound 
to its own credit, but that, in the general trend of 
humanity’s progress, it will exhibit a high regard for 
the interests of mankind in general. 

In this race question one thing is certain: our 
mothers and daughters in the South are becoming 
thoroughly awakened to the dangerous side of the 
freed negro’s character, in so far as it concerns them; 
what is quoted above demonstrates this fact. 

To rid ourselves of what is criminal, we must first 
recognize the source of the crime. With respect to 
the negro this has been done. To rid ourselves of 
disease and unsanitary conditions, we must first 
recognize the disease and the class of people who are 
p-iving- rise to it, and whether it be curable or incurable. 

o o 7 

With respect to the negro this has, again, been done. 
Finally, to sustain a high standard of morals and 
refined ethics, we must rid ourselves of the source of 
the immorality, and of the cause of our retrograda- 



Effects of Fraternization. 


141 


tion. With respect to the negro, this it evidently 
remains for us to do. Penal legislation by itself has 
never been known to eradicate vice or crime; isolation 
or removal have proved far more effective. 

Through our experience, the safest of all teachers, 
we have come to know thoroughly the mental density 
of the negro; his ignorance and superstition; his men¬ 
dacity; his innate predisposition for crime; his bestial¬ 
ity and sensuality, and his savage and cannibalistic 
history. A diagnosis having been made, every 
educated physician appreciates what is next to be done 
in the case. In the following chapter this diagnosis 
will be discussed; something will be said of the treat¬ 
ment that has thus far been instituted, and what may 
yet have to be done. 

In closing this chapter, I have a word to say to 
those people of the North who, seeing nothing beyond 
the comfortable homes in which they live, complacently 
remark, upon reading Mrs. Ligon’s appeal in the 
foregoing paragraphs, that such things, or state of 
things, may have been true ten years ago, at the time I 
quoted her, but that all this is now past history, and 
that the women of our race are, in these days, never 
molested in any such manner, anywhere in the South. 
Will the people, to whom I refer, read the following 
letter which comes to hand as this book goes to press, 
and which I have full permission to print in this 
chapter ? 

E- n, Georgia, 

October 15, 1914. 

Dr. R. W. Shufeldt. 

Dear Sir: —A letter from Mrs. Annie Riley Hale sug¬ 
gests that I give you, from the centre of the black belt, where 
I was born and reared, a few personal experiences. It is said 




142 Americas Greatest Problem: The Negro . 


women prefer the concrete to the abstract, and 1 am wonder¬ 
ing if the circumstances under which this is written would 
not best describe or visualize a condition you wish to emphasize 
in my section. Briefly, then, I am writing under the nervous 
tension of expecting to be strangled at any moment, as there 
is a negro man in the house with me, and I am—alone. I 
picked up my pen, intending to give you a few facts on the 
“negro peril,” with a furtive glance over my shoulder, and a 
sensation of a hand at my throat; and it occurred to me, “Why 
not put this in words?” Why not, indeed! 

To make my meaning clearer: Out of pity for a hungry, 
vagrant negro, I have just fed, clothed, warmed, sheltered, and 
put into my home to work [a negro of this class], and I am 
in a panic of fear, knowing he may spring at me like a tiger, 
should T relax my vigilant watch. This, then, is the exact 
situation throughout the whole black belt: V igilant watch and 
constant fear on account of the horror that crouches in or near 
everv Southern home. 

The little town from which I write is the most nature- 
favored region of the world—the Piedmont plateau of the 
South, elevated on Titan’s rocky shoulders, nearly 800 feet 
above' the sea level, and endowed with a climate of almost 
endless summer. From the very prodigality of its blessings 
has come its curse: the overwhelming presence of the negro, 
brought here by the slave owner, who sought the richest and 
best agricultural section of the State! Below is the dead level 
of ocean deposit, once considered too unhealthful for whites 
to live in. Above is the infertile mountainous region; so the 
middle section of the South, with its warm, sunny slopes, from 
the Alleghanies to the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico, became the 
preferred home of our race who tilled the soil with slave labor. 
The result: tragedy in the 20th Century, where barbarism 
now strikes sharp on civilization and Christianity! 

No white woman dares walk alone and unprotected on 
the country road, or even in the Southern village, when the 
shadows fall. She must, in her lonely plantation home, for¬ 
ever keep a watchful eye on the loaded gun—her only de¬ 
fense in her husband's absence. And this in the days of tele¬ 
phones and telegraph and all the marvels of our age, only 

> 


v 



143 


Effects of Fraternization. 


twenty-four hours from New York, and much less from 
Washington City! Our women living in as deadly peril as 
they were in the time of the scalping knife and tomahawk! 

Does the average white man of the North, who knows 
the South only as he views it from a palace-car window, doubt 
this statement? 1 will only say: Let him buy or rent a 
lonely plantation home, miles away from town police, in any 
section of the South where the negro race predominates; let 
him leave his wife and children unprotected there, and then 
state to the world the result if he can, or dare. 


Name and address withheld; but the writer is known 
and vouched for by Mrs. Annie Riley Hale, who has visited 
her, and personally verified every statement she makes. 

This does not look like past history. 

Such cases, however, or such condition, as my 
correspondent has just cited above, are by no means 
confined to the “black beltfor, only a few weeks ago, 
a negro assaulted a white woman a short distance from 
my home in Washington, and within half a pistol-shot 
from where the present book was being written. 

The Washington Times, of the 24th of September, 
1914, gave the following brief account of the above:— 

‘'Attacked by a colored man, as she was walking 
on the Park drive near Rock Creek Park, Mrs. 
Catharine Lee, who lives at 3402 Nineteenth Street 
northwest, and conducts the fruit and refreshment 
stand at the Harvard Street entrance to the Zoo, was 
saved by the screaming of her two children. 

“Throwing Mrs. Lee to the ground, the man held 
his hand over her mouth so that she was unable to 
make an outcry. The children cried out at the top 
of their voices, and the colored man fled. As soon 
as the matter was reported to the police, a squad of 





144 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


officers scoured the woods on the edge of the Zoo, 
but the man was not found. He is about nineteen 
years old, light-brown skin, and was roughly dressed. 

“Mrs. Lee is suffering severely from shock.” 

Should anyone wonder that President Wilson be¬ 
lieves in the segregation of the whites and the negroes 
in Washington, as pointed out in the newspapers 
lately? 




Fig. 39. Pure African Negro. (New York City.) 

Male. Born in Demarara, British Guiana. Parents un¬ 
mixed. Africans. Age, 24; height, 3 feet 11 inches; weight, 
165 lhs. Came to the United States when eighteen years of 
age. Victim of syphilis. (From life, by the author.) 












CHAPTER VIII. 


Criminality of the Negro: Lynch Law. 

As the development of the body in man and in all 
other animals has been a matter of evolution, so, too, 
has been the growth and development of all the 
psychological attributes, using the latter term in its 
most far-reaching sense. This being true, it becomes 
evident that the lower the position held by any par¬ 
ticular race of mankind in the scale of morphological 
development, the lower will all the passions, instincts, 
morals, emotions, and aims be found in that race. To 
this universal rule and all its variations and refine¬ 
ments, the typical negro forms no exception, and it is 
equally applicable to every grade of hybrid produced 
by crossing the negro with other races. 

In the negro, all passions, emotions, and ambitions 
are almost wholly subservient to the sexual instinct, 
and that quite apart from the procreative instinct. 
They seek solely for the gratification of passion and 
for the erotic pleasure it affords them. In other 
words, negroes are grossly animal, that is, animal in 
the sense of quadrupeds; nor should we expect any¬ 
thing different from this. Civilization and progres¬ 
sive civilization are altogether meaningless to them; 
posterity has practically no interest for them. The 
negro lives in the present; and being essentially with¬ 
out morals—and as a rule equipped far above the 
average man for unlawful indulgence—he gives that 
side of his nature full sway when no restrictions of 

any kind are present to hinder. 

10 


( 145 ) 



146 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


Thomas says, in his previously quoted work: “He 
[the negro] is regarded as a creature of lascivious 
habits, personal vanity, and physical laziness. All 
who know the negro recognize, however, that the 
chief and overpowering element in his make-up is an 
imperious sexual impulse, which, aroused at the 
slightest incentive, sweeps aside all restraints in the 
pursuit of physical gratification. We may say now 
that this element of negro character constitutes the 
main incitement to the degeneracy of the race, and is 
the chief hindrance to its social uplifting.” (Pp. 
176, 177.) 

My study of the negro, as he exists in the United 
States, has convinced me that he is so bestial by 
nature that he holds in no regard whatever such 
decency as may be observed by the mothers, daugh¬ 
ters, wives, or sisters among his race. He revels in 
lewd conversation, in erotic practices, and in unlaw¬ 
ful pursuits; especially does he delight in encouraging 
the approaches of the whites among the women of his 
kind. On the other hand, negresses, although not 
altogether given to making advances of this character, 
readily accept the embraces of white men. 

“So lacking in moral rectitude are the men of 
the negro race,” says Thomas again, “that we have 
known them to take strange women into their homes 
and cohabit with them with the knowledge of, but 
without protest from, their wives and children. So 
great is their moral putridity, that it is no uncommon 
thing for step-fathers to have children by their step¬ 
daughters, with the consent of the wife and mother 
of the girl. Nor do other ties of relationship interpose 
moral barriers; for fathers and daughters, brothers 



Criminality of the Negro: Lynch Lazo. 


147 


and sisters, oblivious of decent social restrictions, 
abandon themselves without attempt at self-restraint 
to sexual gratification whenever desire and oppor¬ 
tunity arises. That such licentiousness is prevalent 
is not surprising, when we reflect that animal impulse 
is the sole master, to which both sexes yield unques¬ 
tioned obedience. Not only is negro immorality with¬ 
out shame, remorse, or contrition, but their unchaste 
men and women are perfidious, malevolent, and 
cowardly in their relations, and with reckless obliv¬ 
iousness to consequences eagerly gloat over each 
other’s frailties and readily betray the indiscretions 
of their companions in guilt. Moreover, the contradic¬ 
tions of the freedman’s nature are such that, while 
imputations of personal impurity are resented by the 
known impure, there is a common disposition to ques¬ 
tion each other’s morals, and rarely is either male or 
female accorded a clean bill of approval. Soberly 
speaking, negro nature is so craven and sensuous in 
every fibre of its being that negro manhood with 
decent respect for chaste womanhood does not exist.” 
(The American Negro, pp. 179, 180.) 

In the present chapter, thus far, I have presented 
enough, I think, to illustrate what an intensely sen¬ 
suous and lascivious race the negro race is,—utterly 
lacking in chastity among themselves, and in these 
particulars highly dangerous to the whites who chance 
to reside in the same region with them. 

The very important question now arises: Is there 
any remedy for all this, in so far as the redemption 
of the American negro is concerned? My firm con¬ 
viction is that there is none,—absolutely none. It is 
impossible to improve the morals of a people when 



148 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


they have no morals to improve. Every one, knowing 
anything of the typical negro, knows full well that he 
is an utterly non-moral being; and to endow the whole 
race of them in this country with a sound morality, 
would be just as impossible as to change the color of 
his skin and take the kink out of his hair. 

Says Thomas: “The extent of the crime instinct in 
the negro is indeterminate for the reason that accurate 
data are unobtainable. In so far as he has been held 
to an outward observance of moral restraints, it is 
obvious that fear of bodily harm has been the chief 
influence which has kept him in check. That his 
nature is surcharged with latent ferocity is shown by 
abundant evidence of atrociousness, committed on 
weak and defenseless objects. Indeed, there is good 
ground for believing that, were the negro once con¬ 
vincingly assured of personal security, all the malig¬ 
nity of his slumbering savagery would immediately 
find expression in the most revolting acts of physical 
lawlessness. His passions are easily excited, and his 
feelings readily inflamed to the point of reckless vin¬ 
dictiveness, though a natural unsteadiness of character 
renders him fickle and unstable in purpose” (pp. 
208, 209 ). 

By nature the negro is, in fact, capable of com¬ 
mitting any known crime, in so far as his intelligence 
will permit him to be the author of it. For the lack 
of such intelligence, and often for the lack of suffi¬ 
cient amount of courage, there are fortunately limita¬ 
tions to some of the heinous criminal acts he might 
otherwise be guilty of and be forever committing. 
But lacking in courage, intelligence, forethought, and 
the necessary staying powers, the criminal negro is 



Criminality of the Negro: Lynch Law. 


149 


perforce restricted to certain of the coarser and 
grosser crimes in the calendar not requiring these 
several prerequisites. His murders are clumsy and 
brutal; his thefts of all kinds are usually paltry and 
liable to be easily detected. Except for the purposes 
of spite or to cover other crimes he rarely resorts to 
arson; while in the refinements of criminality in other 
directions he is fortunately helpless. 

However, all things considered, and notwithstand¬ 
ing the enormous amount of crime of all kinds com¬ 
mitted by negroes in the United States, the one above 
all others for which he is held especially responsible 
by the American descendants of the Anglo-Saxon race 
is that of his assaults upon white women. These 
heinous, devilish, fiendish cases are often associated 
with the murder of the victim after the assault, and 
they have become so common in many parts of the 
country where negroes abound that a species of 
terror has come to prevail and haunt the minds of all 
the white women who reside within the same region. 
Indeed, matters have come to such a pass in these 
respects that no white woman, no white girl, and in 
fact no white child, can, with any safety, venture out 
alone in those districts and places where the negroes 
have more or less sway. For if not directly accosted, 
they may be subjected to insulting glances, to indirect 
insulting remarks, or to direct assault and violence. 
Such assaults may occur anywhere and at any time,— 
city or country, night or day. A case took place many 
years ago on “L” Street in Washington, D. C., during 
the early part of the afternoon. The victim was a 
little girl not more than twelve or thirteen years of 
age, and her father was an officer in the military 




150 Americas Greatest Problem: The Negro. 

service of the United States. Her mother had sent 
her upon a little errand, and when on her way back 
a burly negro accosted her, saying that he had just 
been talking to her mother at the house, and that she 
had said, if he met her daughter, he was to take her 
to a candy-store before she came home to buy her 
some candy. The child believed the story and followed 
him a few squares to where they crossed the George¬ 
town Tubular Bridge, in the very heart of the town. 
Here he suddenly seized her in his arms, made a leap, 
and was instantly in some shrubbery that grew be¬ 
neath the bridge. Out came his great clasp-knife, at 
which the child screamed fearfully. Some men over¬ 
head, hearing her cries, landed by her on the jump, 
but not, however, before the negro had ripped her 
clothing with his knife and severely choked her; then, 
making a dash for a nearby lumber yard, he escaped 
among the high piles of timber before any one had 
realized what had happened. The father and I hunted 
for that negro until long after dark, and he would, 
undoubtedly, have been shot on sight. The would-be 
raper was never discovered in this case. Fortunately 
he did not have time to mutilate the child, a common 
practice among negroes when they assault little white 
girls. 

Such :'s the class of cases which for years past have 
terrified Southern mothers; which have filled fathers, 
husbands, and brothers with apprehension throughout 
the great “black belt.” Owing to the peculiar nature 
of the crime, they cannot well communicate to their 
little daughters—or even to those of maturer years— 
these apprehensions, without putting ideas into their 
minds which, in many instances, would be harmful. 





Criminality of the Negro: Lynch Law. 


151 


In other words, there is an ever-present danger for 
them, against which a warning becomes extremely 
necessary but impracticable upon many accounts. It 
is this state of affairs, so little appreciated by the 
people in the Northern part of the United States, 
which has induced the women in the South, those 
occupying the best positions in society, to represent 
this sad condition of affairs in the pages of our 
magazines. 

But what has it availed? Nothing, absolutely! 
The negro is not responsible for his animal nature any 
more than for the opportunities he takes to gratify the 
normal impulses which are a part of him. It is not a 
case of changing the spots on the leopard, although 
some, indeed many, think this to be the case. For ex¬ 
ample, a writer in The Neiv York Evening Telegram 
of January 28, 1904,—a paper of wide circulation,— 
claims to have discovered a treatment for the negro 
which will have the effect of turning his skin white! 
Just as though all savagery, cannibalistic tendencies, 
thievish propensities, mendacity, and the rest were in 
the skin of this animal! Such an expedient might, 
if effective, prove to be of value politically; but it 
would be worse than useless biologically, for the 
danger sign—his color—would be removed, and the 
opportunity would be greater for this semi-metamor¬ 
phosed race to mix its cannibalistic blood with that of 
the unsuspecting Anglo-Saxon in the United States. 
Whatever the inventor may think of this skin-bleach¬ 
ing invention, it can, of course, be nothing more than 
one of those cheap nostrums now so frequently put on 
the market solely for gaining money, but absolutely 
valueless. 



152 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


I do not believe that, throughout the country as a 
whole, the number of assaults upon white women by 
negroes are diminishing in number or in their fiendish 
brutality; in some sections they even seem to be on the 
increase, the number of such cases being greater each 
year. It seems to me that the cases average at least 
one a day for the entire country; they are well ex¬ 
emplified by the following one from The New York 
Herald of January 31, 1904:— 

“Roanoke, Va. —When George J. Shields, a well- 
known young business man, reached his home, in the 
heart of the city, at the luncheon hour today, he found 
his three-) 7 ear-old daughter Mildred lying on the 
reception-hall floor with two ugly wounds in the head. 
Following blood-stains from the dining room to an 
upstairs chamber, he found his wife in a clothes closet 
with her throat cut from ear to ear and her head 
horribly hacked. Mrs. Shields managed to gasp: ‘A 
large black negro man came through the kitchen and 
attacked me in the dining room.’ 

“Excepting this, there is no clew to the criminal. 
Mrs. Shields had been assaulted, after which her 
assailant dealt her several blows on the head with a 
hatchet, fracturing the skull, dragged her upstairs, 
where he cut her throat with a razor and threw her 
into a closet, fastening the door on the outside. 

“The dining-room floor bore evidences of a terrible 
struggle. The physicians entertain little hope for the 
recovery of either mother or child. 

“Ever since the discovery of the tragedy, a large 
crowd of citizens has been in the vicinity of the city 
jail, watching to see if the police carry anyone into the 
building. At eight o’clock tonight, this crowd nura- 



ir 



Fig. 40.—Same Subject as in Fig. 39. Profile. 





















Criminality of the Negro: Lynch Law. 


153 


bered more than a thousand men. Mayor Cutchin has 
ordered Captain Francis, of the Roanoke Blues mili¬ 
tary company, to assemble his men as a precautionary 
measure. By order of the Mayor, all the saloons were 
closed at eight o’clock tonight.” 

Further on in the present volume will be found a 
number of cases of this kind, so that the reader may 
become informed as to their brutality, and the various 
circumstances under which they have occurred. 

In a large proportion of cases, if the negro 
assaulter and murderer is captured by the infuriated 
mob, a lynching takes place; in other words, the cul¬ 
prit is summarily taken out and hung. 

My readers may remember the typical example of 
one of the lynchings that took place in the State of 
Texas some years ago. The criminal in this case was 
an unusually black and brutal negro by the name of 
Henry Smith, and his victim was little Myrtle Vance 
(aged three years, eight months, and a day), whom he 
outraged and murdered at Paris, where the infuriated 
people of the place burned him on the first of February, 
1893, on the day of his crime. The details of that 
crime and the horrors of the lynching that followed 
are altogether too terrible to record here. 

With respect to lynching, Thomas, in his work 
“The American Negro,” says: “It is not the number 
of negroes lynched that makes such acts execrable, for 
the annual summary executions are less than two 
hundred, but the fact that such lawless methods deny 
to the accused the exercise of his highest privilege,— 
a free and impartial trial before a legally constituted 
tribunal. Were this phase of lawlessness directed 
solely against criminal assaults on women, it might 




154 America's Greatest Problem: 7 he Negro. 


have a color of justification; but while that is the 
offence for which negroes are mainly lynched, there 
are not infrequently summary executions of them for 
murder, arson, and theft. 

“Lynching may be correctly described as the 
infliction of summary punishment for alleged offences, 
without authority of law; and there is among sane 
minds common agreement that such lawless violence 
is an execrable usurpation of ordained legal functions. 
As a mode of punishment for the freedman criminal 
class, there is never, under any circumstances, excuse 
or justification for resorting to it. It cannot be said 
that it is to be approved by the best sentiment of any 
community; yet when indicted upon negroes for the 
commission of certain crimes, the perpetrators are 
assured of absolute immunity from punishment. No 
negro is likely to be legally acquitted in the South of 
the charge of criminal assault, or, in' fact, of any 
heinous offence, when a strong presumption of guilt 
exists. No negro charged with criminal assault upon 
a white woman ever has been acquitted. Hence, there 
is justification for the assertion that, so far as the 
white people are concerned, the impulse to indulge in 
mob brutalities arises from their low sense of ac¬ 
countability to law; that their lawlessness is the 
sequence of freedom from those restraints which 
obtain in law-abiding communities. 

“Lynching is resorted to merely to appease and 
gratify an instinctive brutality on the part of a lawless 
element of the white race. No man can foresee the 
final result of such disorders. Nevertheless, it is evi¬ 
dent that, if current individual usurpations of author¬ 
ity continue, all legal morality and social obedience 



Criminality of the Negro: Lynch Lam. 


155 


will cease, our civilization will be erased, and barbaric 
methods will take the place of law and order. What 
the South needs is an enforcement of equitable law. 
Its mobs now exercise a tremendous discretionary 
power of such far-reaching consequences as should 
make men pause in their madness. 

“The question has been raised again and again as 
to why the national government does not take cog¬ 
nizance of local disorders, and use its authority for 
the suppression of lynching. But one familiar with 
the genius of our social organism will readily under¬ 
stand that constitutional limitations effectually inter¬ 
vene. The Federal government is limited to national 
interests. It is inhibited from taking cognizance of 
the acts of individual citizens, except as they may be¬ 
come trespassers upon national rights. Under exist¬ 
ing conditions, then, national functions can neither 
deal with white lawlessness nor cope with black 
criminals, and no enactment by the Congress of the 
United States touching this matter would have the 
slightest standing in the Federal judiciary. We do 
not doubt but that Congress has the constitutional 
right to enact a law for the trial and punishment of 
lynchers by United States Courts, when the victims 
of mob violence are aliens or non-resident citizens. 
In such cases the responsibility of the Federal govern¬ 
ment for individual protection seems to be established. 
On the other hand, the state is supreme within its 
own domain, and has full and complete control over 
its citizens. No writ or process of law can issue, and 
no action can be begun in a Federal court against a 
citizen of a state unless the plaintiff is a resident of 
another state, or unless the alleged offence was com- 



156 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


mitted against the United States. Personal wrongs 
are to be corrected and personal rights defended by 
the state within whose jurisdiction cause of action 
lies. If that state will not act on the complaint of 
its citizens or is powerless to enforce its decrees, the 
individual sufferer has no relief, so long as public 
sentiment is against him.” 

Thomas continues along this line of argument, into 
which I do not care to further follow him, although I 
concur in much that he says; and while I am, of 
course, morally opposed to lynching, I fear that it will 
be practised in the “Black Belt” so long as the blacks 
remain in this country and continue to assault and 
murder our people,—this whether they are responsible 
for their nature and ignorance or not, and all the law 
to the contrary in so far as the mob is concerned. 

Touching upon this point, Thomas continues: 
“We are concerned chiefly with the cause which 
instigates sectional lawlessness, and our message to 
Southern civilization is to exterminate by law its 
lawless white element; at the same time to exterminate, 
at all hazards and at any cost, the savage despoilers 
of maiden virtue or wifely honor, and do it so 
thoroughly that the inexorable, remorseless certitude 
of punishment will make the lives and persons of the 
women of the South as safe in field, forest, and public 
highway as in their private homes. Our interest in 
the public welfare has prompted us to draft a measure 
for the correction of these evils, and one which we 
are gratified to know has received the approval of 
many of the leading publicists of the country. Its 
chief merits are the adequate safeguarding of all the 
rights of accused persons, the infliction of a penalty 



Criminality of the Negro: Lynch Law. 


15 7 


that would effectually deter others from committing 
like crimes, and the removal of all incitement to law¬ 
less usurpation of authority or justified excuse for its 
exercise. The punishment which we suggest for per¬ 
sons convicted by due process of law of criminal 
assaults upon women is an untried remedy, and the 
most that can be urged against it is that a heinous 
crime has a harsh punishment. Nevertheless, in the 
present abnormal condition of public morality, a 
measure of this kind cannot do otherwise than exert a 
wholesome influence on white and black society. 

“It is proposed that, when any male person of the 
age of fifteen or upward shall be charged with an 
attempt to commit an assault on a female person of 
any age or condition, with intent to violate her 
chastity and have carnal knowledge of her under 
duress and against her will, or upon the commission 
of such act, such person shall undergo an examination 
before a court of competent jurisdiction, and upon 
conviction thereof, by due process of law, shall 
undergo emasculation, and be further subjected to 
such restraint as the nature of the case and the welfare 
of the community justifies.” 

The propositions here made are too puerile to be 
worthy of sober consideration at my hands; they are 
simply idiotic and impossible. It would doubtless be 
a righteous thing, if it could be done, to emasculate 
the entire negro race in this country and effectually 
stop the breed right now, thus preventing any further 
danger from them and their crossing continually with 
the Anglo-Saxon stock; but would it prove an 
effectual remedy? 



158 America's Greatest Problem: The Negro. 

No! When a respectable white woman, in any 
plane of society, has been brutally assaulted and 
outraged by a negro, it will be of little satisfaction 
to her, or to any of her relatives, to know that the 
brutal raper had simply been operated upon by a 
surgeon. The fact that the bestial creature lives after 
he has accomplished the crime is what neither the 
woman herself, nor any of those who care for her and 
are connected with her, can possibly endure. If the 
emasculated brute is ever at large again, what is to 
prevent him from in time wreaking his vengeance 
upon that woman, or upon one of those who took part 
in his mutilation? Thomas’s idea is simply ridiculous 
from whatever viewpoint we may regard it. 

As an example of what women think upon this 
question, we quote an account of a lynching from The 
New York Evening Journal :— 

“For the first time since the crime and its terrible 
sequel, Mrs. Labouisse, who was formerly Mrs. S. 
Osgood Pell, of New York, and who, before her 
marriage, was Miss Isabel Audrey Townsend, was 
able today to tell her story of the crime. She has been 
confined to her home in a high state of nervous 
excitement, but in consequence of the publicity that the 
affair has received, she made the following state¬ 
ment to the press:— 

“ T am glad that the negro was hanged,’ she said; 
‘he deserved his fate. Until I knew that he was dead, 
I had no peace of mind. There was no mistake as to 
his identity or the crime that he attempted to commit. 

“ ‘I went into the woods with my nurse-girl, Mar¬ 
garet, and my baby, to gather mushrooms. After a 
short time the young negro came to me and told 



Criminality of the Negro: Lynch Law. 


159 


me that my horse was loose. I told him to go get 
him, but the negro said that the horse would run 
away if a stranger approached him, and asked me to 
go with him. The nurse was suspicious and begged 
me not to go, but I laughed at her, for the man’s man¬ 
ner was perfectly respectful. When we reached the 
horse, I saw that the traces were cut, and then we 
started back. Suddenly he stopped and asked what 
he was going to get for his work. 

“ ‘Come to the house tomorrow,’ I said, ‘and Mr. 
Labouisse will reward you.’ 

“ ‘I don’t want Mr. Labouisse,’ he said, ‘I want 

you!’ 

“ ‘As he said this the negro let go the bridle and 
turned toward me. I gathered up my skirts and 
dashed toward the road. He ran after me. I ran as 
fast as I could, but the thick brush and trees ob¬ 
structed my passage. 

“ ‘Suddenly my foot caught on something and I 
fell. Before I could rise the negro had caught me. 
The moment I felt his grasp upon me I screamed as 
loudly as I could. I must have been a long way from 
the nurse, for she did not hear me, or at all events 
did not' come to my assistance. The negro still held 
me on the ground, and I was left alone to fight the 
desperado. 

“ ‘He drew a large knife and, holding it to my 
throat, threatened to kill me if I did not cease scream¬ 
ing and struggling. It was, of course, impossible 
for me to stop, so he drew down the knife and 
poised it above my heart. 

“ ‘Stop!’ he cried, ‘or I’ll kill you!’ 



160 America's Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


“ ‘How long we struggled after that I do not 
know, but I paid no heed to his threats and was 
strong enough to fight the wretch off. As soon as he 
went away, I hastened back to where I left baby and 
Margaret. The nurse became greatly excited and 
frightened when I told her. 

“ ‘We had walked about three hundred yards 
when we came upon Louis Allen, an old negro, chop¬ 
ping wood with his two sons, about fifteen years old. 
He brought his wagon, drove us home, and then told 
the people what had occurred. When the negro was 
brought before me a short time afterwards, there 
was not the slightest doubt in my mind as to his 
identity. After I recognized him, the men took him 
away. I don’t see how they could possibly have acted 
otherwise than they did.’ 

“As soon as the news of this crime became public, 
John H. Lang, a prominent real estate dealer, William 
Trautmen and S. M. Thornton drove out to the 
Adams house. They saw Sam sitting on the fence. 
As they approached he got down, passed through the 
house, and ran into the woods. He had one hundred 
yards start, and, after they had emptied a magazine 
rifle and a shot gun at him, he was halted and taken 
to the Labouisse house. 

“ ‘When we got there,’ said Mr. Lang, ‘we took 
the negro before Mrs. Labouisse. 

“ ‘Do you know this negro?’ I asked. 

“ ‘Yes,’ she answered; ‘he is the one who attacked 
me an hour ago.’ 

“ ‘Are you certain ?’ I asked her, for in Pass Chris¬ 
tian we are not given to lynching the wrong man. 





Fig. 41.— Same Subject as Shown in Figs. 39 and 40. 
Photo from life by the author. Note the prognathous 
jaws, the length of the arms, and the comparatively slight 
development of the gluteal region. 





























Criminality of the Negro: Lynch Law. 


161 


“ ‘Yes,’ replied Mrs. Labouisse; ‘I am certain that 
is he.’ Then she called out her nurse and old man 
Allen. They identified him, too. Mrs. Labouisse 
lost control of herself. 

“ ‘Let me kill him! Oh, let me kill that negro 
brute!’ she cried in a terrible voice that we who heard 
it shall never forget. We hurried Adams away 
toward the jail, and the servants calmed Mrs. 
Labouisse. 

“A meeting was called at the Knights of Honor 
hall, in Pass Christian, and Adams was sentenced to 
death. The constable was advised by others to get 
Adams out of the county that night, and it was while 
he was being taken away that he was captured and 
strung up. When the rope was thrown around his 
neck, a voice said: ‘Adams, you have ten minutes . 
in which to pray and repent.’ 

“ ‘I don’t want to pray none,’ said the doomed 
man. 

“For five minutes everybody waited, and then the 
same voice asked again: ‘What have you to say 
before you die?’ 

“Adams shifted his weight lazily from one leg to 
the other. By the light of a single lantern in the midst 
of a tragic group his face could be clearly discerned. 
His black forehead drew itself into a frown, as if he 
were thinking. Suddenly his face cleared, as if he 
had found what he had sought. 

“ ‘Ah wish,’ he said, ‘that when you all gets 
through with me you’d jes’ give my shoes to my pa!’ 

“And with this anticlimax, the negro was hanged.” 

Does anyone for a moment suppose, even in the 

event of emasculation rendering this negro impotent, 

11 



162 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


that it would have a particle of influence in deterring 
other ignorant negroes, who would never hear of this 
case, from doing likewise? 

With the surgeon’s knife actually pressing upon 
him; with the blazing fagots so near him that he could 
actually feel the heat, he would nevertheless seize his 
victim if it lay within his power to do so. Ninety-nine 
times out of a hundred cases, similar to the one just 
quoted, the negro, having gotten his nearly exhausted 
victim down, and by threats with his murderous knife 
deprived her of nearly all her remaining strength for 
struggling with a brute of many times her vigor, 
would in the end compel her to yield. And in the case 
of any chaste woman, if she survived the terrors of 
the shock, the injuries inflicted, the shame, and other 
feelings more easily imagined than described, she 
would very naturally demand that her assaulter be 
deprived of his life at once, so she would at least have 
the satisfaction of not running the risk of ever seeing 
him again. 



CHAPTER IX. 


Some Views and Opinions by the Way. 

It is remarkable to hear these negroes and their 
hybrids express their views upon the future of the 
negro in the United States and to hear the arrogant 
opinions they entertain. Well do I remember listening 
to G. W. Murray addressing the House of Congress 
when he was a Congressman. It was a deplorable 
sight to see a man of that kind sitting there and 
having the right to help frame the laws for the United 
States. Here is what that negro thought of his race 
and its future some twenty years ago. I take it from 
The Evening Star of Washington, D. C., October 29, 
1893. [This is the view of a full-blood negro, a quar¬ 
ter of a century ago, or rather less]:— 

“The only colored man in Congress comes from 
South Carolina. His name is George Washington 
Murray, and he represents 216,000 people. His dis¬ 
trict is the famous black district, which was repre¬ 
sented by Gen. Robt. Smalls, and it is the biggest 
negro district of the Union. It is two hundred miles 
long, and it winds in and out like a snake, scalloping 
the Atlantic coast and cutting the State of South 
Carolina like a saw. It is the district set aside by the 
whites of that State for colored representation. It 
contains few towns, and only one-fifth of its popula¬ 
tion is white. 

“There is no question about Geo. W. Murray’s 
ancestry. Every feature of his cannon-ball head is 

modeled on African lines. His complexion is that of 

(163) 



164 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


the ace of spades, and his features are of the pro¬ 
nounced negro type. He is by no means a bad-looking 
colored man. He stands about five feet eight inches 
in his stockings, and is broad-shouldered and strong-- 
limbed. He has shown himself to be a man of nerve, 
and a politician of shrewdness. He talks well, but 
butchers the king’s English in many of his sentences. 
He has had to fight for all that he has, and his educa¬ 
tion has been acquired in almost as remarkable a way 
as was that of Fred Douglass. I had a talk with him 
last night about himself and questions relating to his 
race. I first asked him as to his history. Murray re¬ 
plied: ‘I was born in the district in which I live, just 
about forty years ago. My parents were slaves, and 
when Abraham Lincoln freed the negroes I was just 
eleven years old. I had no money and no one to take 
care of me, but I decided at that time that I would 
have an education and went at it. I learned my A, B, 
C’s by asking other children, who went to school, what 
the letters were, and by practicing on every person 
whom I met I finally learned to read and write. I 
studied as best I could until I became able to read 
the newspapers, and I know that I could stumble my 
way through a congressional speech when I was 
fifteen. It was about this time that Geo. S. Boutwell, 
a Congressman from Maine or Massachusetts, made 
a speech, which I read. It made a great impression 
upon me, and I can quote one sentence from it now. 
It was on the Southern question, and I think it read 
as follows: ‘‘I know that there is pro-slavery desire 
and always has been and always will be until we, the 
Republican party, grind it into powder, trample it 
under foot, and freedom blows the dust out with the 



Some Views and Opinions by the Way. 


165 


healing of her wings.” This sentence made an im¬ 
pression on me, and I probably read it to some of our 
people, as the colored boys who could read always 
read the papers to others. Well, in this way I learned 
to read and write. Arithmetic always came easy to 
me, and I could figure out sums in my head long 
before I knew how to make the figures. When I was 
eighteen years old I had so far progressed that I 
began to teach school, and the first school I ever 
entered was as a teacher and not as pupil. After 
teaching several years I went to the University of 
South Carolina, and remained there at school until 
the government of the State prohibited the coeduca¬ 
tion of the races and forced me out. I then went back 
to teach in the public schools, and was engaged in 
teaching and farming until I was elected to Congress. 

“ ‘The negro naturally wants a farm of his own, 
and my people are buying lands on time and are im¬ 
proving them. Some of them own farms of from 
one to two thousand acres, and there is a colored man 
in Washington today who farms seven thousand 
acres of land in Georgia. He owns more than this, 
but he has this amount under cultivation. I own a 
little farm of my own, and there are thousands of 
colored men in the South who own land. We are 
advancing right along in the accumulation of prop¬ 
erty, and the time will come when our people will 
be a commercial and business factor in the United 
• States. I believe that our success depends upon our 
education and enrichment, and I look for the time 
when the negro will stand even with the white man 
as a property owner.’ 



166 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


“How about property rights in the South? Are 
those of the colored people respected ? 

“ 'Yes, I think so,’ was the reply. ‘The Southern¬ 
ers are anxious that the negroes should own prop¬ 
erty, and they encourage them to save and invest 
their money. They treat them fairly so far as any 
of these things are concerned, but they do not give 
them a fair show in a political way.’ 

“How about the ICu-Klux? 

“ ‘There are no Ku-Klux in the South, and there 
is very little terror arising at the polls. The whites 
are able to accomplish their ends without the use of 
shotguns. They don’t need them.’ 

“How about the feeling between the negroes 
and the whites; will there ever be a war between 
the two races? 

“ ‘I think not. The negroes appreciate the fact 
that such a war would result in their destruction, 
and the fight that they intend to make is along busi¬ 
ness and educational lines. We propose to educate 
ourselves and to save our money, and when we be¬ 
come the equals of the whites in property and in 
business you will see that we have better recognition.’ 

“Do you think that the negro is the equal of the 
white in natural ability? 

“ ‘I do,’ replied the African Congressman; ‘history 
has shown that the sons of Ham are as strong as 
the sons of Shem and Japhet in every way. It was 
once thought that the negro could not advance in 
learning beyond a certain point, but the colleges know 
that the negro is the equal of the white, and, in many 
cases, superior. I think that we will gradually equal 
and eventually distance the whites. The reason for 



Some Viezvs and Opinions by the Way. 167 


this is that we have got to start from the bottom. We 
have nothing, and we must fight for every inch. We 
are very ambitious, and we will not stop until we get 
to the top.’ 

'What will be the future of the two races? Will 
the negro ever unite with the whites ? 

“ ‘I believe,’ said Mr. Murray, ‘that there will 
eventually be a mixed race in this country, made up 
of negro and white blood. When the negro becomes 
rich and educated the objection to him will wear 
away, and there will be intermarriage between the 
two races. At present the negro has no objections 
to such marriages. They think that the only ground 
of marriage should be that of love. The objection 
comes from the whites, and this will disappear as the 
negro equals them in property and other things.’ 

“Do not a large number of your people object to 
colored men marrying white women? You remem¬ 
ber the howl of indignation that went up from the 
colored people of this country when Fred Douglass 
married a white woman. 

“ ‘Yes,’ replied Mr. Murray, ‘I do, and the indig¬ 
nation against Mr. Douglass was so strong because 
he, to a large extent, represented the colored people 
of the United States, and the fact that he married 
a woman of white blood was considered by our people 
a slap at the women of his own race. They thought 
it meant that he could not find a colored woman good 
enough for him, and hence had to take a white one.’ 

“How about negro colonization, Mr. Murray? 
Will such schemes ever succeed? 

“ ‘No,’ was the reply. ‘The negroes have never 
been in favor of such colonization, nor have such 



168 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


schemes ever been engineered by people who have not 
wanted to make money out of it. There was a move¬ 
ment about fifteen years ago to take the colored 
people to Kansas, and there have been propositions to 
send them to Brazil and other places. The negroes 
are in the United States to stay, and if they could 
have free transportation to Liberia, or to Africa, they 
would not take it. I do not think the people of the 
South want to get rid of the negro, and I think if 
we are let alone that we will work out our destiny 
to the satisfaction of every one.’ 

“Speaking of the future of the colored race, Fred 
Douglass is one of those who believe that the two 
races will eventually come together. He says that the 
color line will eventually be obliterated, and that the 
only salvation for the negro is in union with the 
white. Douglass is about three-fourths colored him¬ 
self, and his second wife is as white as any woman 
in the United States. She was his private secretary 
when he married her, and is, I am told, very fond of 
her husband. She is twenty years younger than he, 
and lives with her husband near Washington. Fred 
Douglass is rich. He is said to be worth in the 
neighborhood of 200,000 dollars. He got $7000 as 
marshal of the district, and he has for a long time 
received $100 a night for his lectures. His books 
have paid him well, and he has so invested his money 
as to be well fixed. He is now seventy-six years old, 
and he has failed within the last three or four years. 
He has lost weight and strength, but intellectually 
he is now as strong as ever, and his last letter in 
reply to Senator Ingalls was as strong a paper as he 
has ever written. 




Fig. 42. —Pan Kooloo-Kamba. (Du Chaillu.) 

(Bv the author, after D. G. Elliot: “A Review of the 
Primates,” vol. iii, PI. VIII.) 












Some Viezvs and Opinions by the Way. 169 


“I saw Blanche K. Bruce on the floor of the U. S. 
Senate the other day. He looks hardly a day older 
than when he walked up to be sworn in on the arm 
of Roscoe Conkling. He is now devoting his time to 
his estate in Mississippi, and to lecturing. He has 
made money in both pursuits, and he told me not 
long ago that he was dividing up his Mississippi 
property into small farms, and was selling it on instal¬ 
ments to the colored people. He has built a church 
and school-house on the plantation, and he believes, 
with Mr. Murray, that the future of the negro lies 
in his education and in the accumulation of property. 

“Ex-Senator Bruce now lives in Washington, in 
a fashionable part of the northwest. His wife is a 
beautiful woman, nearly as white in complexion as 
many of our Washington society ladies. He met her 
while the two were at college together at Oberlin. He 
married her while he was in the Senate, and the event 
was one of two senatorial weddings which took place 
at Cleveland, Ohio, one summer. Mrs. Bruce was a 
teacher in one of the Cleveland public schools. She 
had been very well educated, and she is, in fact, as 
accomplished a lady as you will find anywhere. She 
dresses well, looks well, and has great natural refine¬ 
ment. The last time I saw her was at one of Clara 
Barton’s receptions, and she was assisting Miss Bar¬ 
ton to receive her guests.” 

Before this contribution appeared in The Star, 
United States Senator John J. Ingalls had published 
a long article on this subject in The Chicago Tribune, 
May 28, 1893. The article was entitled: “Always 
a Problem,” and Senator Ingalls sent me a marked 
copy of the same inviting my attention to it. I very 




170 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


much regret that the contribution is too long to incor¬ 
porate in this place, as it is pregnant with valuable 
facts on the history of the African negro in America. 
Senator Ingalls, however, did not believe that race 
union would ever take place, and in the aforesaid 
article said:— 

“Frederick Douglass is perhaps the widest known 
and most distinguished representative of the negro 
race. He is an eloquent, accomplished, and dignified 
gentleman. His father was a white man and his 
mother a slave. It is perhaps not invidious nor 
uncivil to affirm that the distinction of Douglass is 
not on account of his African blood, but in spite of it. 
The intellectual traits, qualities, and characteristics 
which have given him renown are due to his Anglo- 
Saxon reenforcement. He once said to me that he 
believed the white and black races were not inherent 
but causal, and that there was a temporary prejudice 
that would be obliterated, so that they would event¬ 
ually coalesce and the race question thus be effaced 
and disappear. There are no indications at present 
that this prophecy will be verified. Instead of vanish¬ 
ing, the repugnance appears to be more distinct and 
emphatic. Mr. Douglass bravely acted upon his 
theory, but his example has not been followed nor 
seriously approved. 

“Whether justly or unjustly, African blood is re¬ 
garded by the Caucasian as a taint to be abhorred. 
The discovery of an unsuspected negro strain by the 
heroine is the tragic motive of one of Howell’s most 
powerful novels. Whether this sense of degradation 
is peculiar to Americans and due to slavery is dis¬ 
puted. Certainly the revulsion in Europe is not so 



Some Views and Opinions by the Way. 


171 


marked as here, but in the most cosmopolitan capitals 
the negro is not persona grata. Black is not a badge 
of inferiority, because Cubans, Brazilians, Spaniards, 
and Hindoos are of dusky hue; but the African is not 
considered an equal or kindred race. No white man 
ever wanted to be a negro. Probably every educated 
and intelligent negro would prefer to be white. 

“That the condition of the African has been im¬ 
proved in many respects by freedom and education 
needs no arguments; but his progress has been toward 
segregation. The great gulf fixed between the two 
races has widened and deepened since emancipation. 
As dependents and subordinates the blacks were 
associates of the whites. As political equals they are 
strangers. Their children are no longer playmates. 
They are taught in separate schools; they worship in 
separate churches; they are buried in separate ceme¬ 
teries. If possible, the barrier is more insuperable at 
the North than at the South, and the proscription 
more contemptuous and intolerant. Wherever the 
negro appears in considerable numbers, the irritation 
is violent. Their settlement in any locality depresses 
the value of real estate and repels white occupation. 
Immigrants avoid contact with them and shun the 
South as an infected region. Places of trust, honor, 
' and emolument are shut against them inexorably. 
With confessed majorities in many districts, and the 
balance of power in others, they have no positions of 
hisfh rank in the State or National government. 
Although more than two hundred thousand enlisted 
in the Union armies, no full-blooded negro holds a 
commission in the army or navy, and in the militia 
their organization is distinct. The learned profes- 




172 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


sions, business, commerce, and manufactures are open 
to all, but except with his own people the African 
has no function. His occupations are menial. In 
their employments he finds toleration and is content. 
The rights and communities conferred by the three 
constitutional amendments have given him no protec¬ 
tion against the stronger edict of public opinion. 
Surrounded by opportunities which he cannot share, 
and by advantages from which he is excluded, the 
future offers no prospect of release from a bondage 
whose imperceptible manacles are forged and riveted 
by the tyranny of nature.” 

Much of what Senator Ingalls says, in what I 
have just quoted from him, has been entirely reversed 
in recent times in this country. Through juggling 
with politics, and receiving the advantages bestowed 
by politicians for political ends, some few negroes in 
the country and a large number of bastards or those 
descended from bastards (or half-bloods born out of 
wedlock, of negro mothers by white men) have been 
placed in all sorts of positions, from the Assistant 
Attorney General of the United States, down to a 
corporal in the army. 

As an incident of our “negro problem,” of the 
very highest significance, I cite the following account 
from The Washington Times of Thursday, Novem¬ 
ber 12, 1914 (pp. 1 and 2), and it appeared in hun¬ 
dreds of other newspapers in all parts of the country. 
It is the most extraordinary attempt to blackmail the 
President of the United States that ever occurred 
at the White House, and a superb example of the 
aspirations of the modernized mulattoes and negroes 
in the United States at the present time. This inci- 



Some Views and Opinions by the Way. 


173 


dent is so full of significance and importance for the 
future, that I publish The Times account in full, omit¬ 
ting only the unessential headlines and comments. It 
runs as follows:— 

“Warm words passed today between President 
Wilson and a delegation of colored men, who called 
at the White House to protest against the continuation 
of segregation at the Treasury and other departments 
of the Federal Government. 

“Declaring that never since he has been in office 
has he been addressed in such an insulting fashion, the 
President told William Monroe Trotter, of Boston, a 
colored man, secretary of the National Independence . 
Equal Rights League, that if ever again he consented 
to receive representatives of the league, that body 
would have to select another spokesman. 

“The delegation will hold a mass meeting at the 
Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church here next Sun¬ 
day, to protest against what the members declared on 
leaving the White House, was an ‘entirely disappoint¬ 
ing’ expression from the President as to his position 
on the matter. 

“The delegation is the same which sought unsuc¬ 
cessfully before the recent elections to see the Presi¬ 
dent, and then threatened to advise all colord voters 
of the country to vote against the Democratic ticket. 

“The President granted the delegation fifteen 
minutes for the interview; but these uncultured 
negroes knew no better than to extend the time to a 
full hour, keeping the Secretary of Commerce and 
others waiting outside for them to end their ‘talk.’ 

“In the meantime, the members of the delegation, 
after delivering their set speeches and hearing the 




174 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


President’s reply, attempted to cross-examine him. 
He answered several of the questions put to him by 
the secretary of the league; but as these grew more 
objectionable in character, the President showed his 
indignation. 

“Previously, however, he had told the delegation 
that, while he believed that segregation in the depart¬ 
ments was for the best interests of both races, in order 
to overcome racial friction, and wished in every way to 
assist the colored race toward its independent develop¬ 
ment, he would investigate any individual cases of 
discrimination which they might, from time to time, 
present to him. 

“The President refused to regard the matter from 
a political standpoint, and indicated his indifference 
toward the previously conveyed threats of the league 
that it would oppose all Democratic candidates in the 
future. The problem, he declared, was a human one, 
and one which the best thought of the Administra¬ 
tion had decided to be best solved by segregation, but 
segregation under such circumstances that the colored 
civil-service employees would have equal advantages 
in the way of working conditions. 

“ ‘What the President told us,’ said Secretary 
Trotter, as he left the White House, ‘was entirely 
disappointing. His statement that segregation was 
intended to prevent racial friction is not supported by 
facts. -For fifty years colored and white employees 
had worked together. It was not until the present 
Administration came in that segregation Was dras¬ 
tically introduced, and only because of the racial 
prejudices of John Skelton Williams, Secretary 
McAdoo, and Secretary Burleson. 



Some Views and Opinions by the Way. 175 


“ ‘It was a warm session, boys,’ declared Trotter, 
winking his eye at the newspaper men as he left the 
White House. 

“Others in the delegation included the Rev. Byron 
Gunner, of Hillburn, N. Y., president of the league; 
Thomas Walker, chairman of the Washington branch 
of the league; M. W. Spencer, of Wilmington; the 
Rev. E. E. Ricks, pastor of the First Baptist Church 
of West Washington, and F. Morris Murray, of 
Virginia, all colored. 

“Addresses were made by Trotter, Gunner, 
Walker, and Spencer, although the principal and, 
from the President’s standpoint, the only objectionable 
remarks were uttered by Trotter. 

“They presented copies of resolutions adopted by 
the Massachusetts legislature, and letters from Con¬ 
gressmen Thatcher, Mitchell and Gallivan, of Massa¬ 
chusetts, all Democrats, protesting against the separa¬ 
tion of the races in the Government service. 

“Trotter told the President that segregation 
‘means a charge by the Government of physical 
indecency.’ 

“He declared that the public was so against the 
Administration because of its attitude on segregation 
that the voters protested at the last election. 

“President Wilson expressed great regret that the 
colored men should consider such a question a 
political one, and he practically told them that if the 
colored race was dissatisfied with what his Adminis¬ 
tration was doing, they could register their dis¬ 
approval at the next election. 

“The President pointed out to the delegation that 
the race is making progress in the United States, and 



176 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


that it should not consider segregation here in other 
than a friendly light. 

“The delegates protested specifically against segre¬ 
gation in the Treasury and Postoffice Departments. 

“Mr. Trotter’s speech to the President follows:— 

“ ‘One year ago we presented a national petition 
signed by colored Americans in thirty-eight States, 
protesting against the segregation of employees of 
the National Government whose ancestry could be 
traced in whole or in part to Africa, as instituted 
under your Administration in the Treasury and 
Postoffice Departments. We then appealed to you to 
undo this racial segregation in accord with your duty 
as President and with your pre-election pledges. We 
stated that there could be no freedom, no respect from 
others, and no equality of citizenship under segrega¬ 
tion for race, especially when applied to but one of the 
many racial elements in Government employ. For 
such placement of employees means a charge by the 
Government of physical indecency or infection, or of 
being a lower order of things, or a subjection to the 
prejudices of other citizens, which constitutes in¬ 
feriority of status. We protested such segregation as 
to working positions, eating tables, dressing rooms, 
rest rooms, lockers, and especially public toilets in 
Government buildings. We stated that such segrega¬ 
tion was a public humiliation and degradation, 
entirely unmerited and far-reaching in its injurious 
effects, a gratuitous blow against ever-loyal citizens, 
and against those, many of whom aided and supported 
your elevation to the presidency of our common 
country. 




Fig. 43. —Right Lateral View of the Skull of Pan Kooloo-Kamisa. 

(Reduced about one-third.) 

By the author, after D. G. Elliot. (“A Review of the 
Primates,” vol. iii, PI. XXXVI.) Possesses the prognathous 
jaws as in many negroes. 























Some Viezvs and Opinions by the Way. 1 77 


“ ‘At that time you stated you would investigate 
conditions for yourself. Now, after the lapse of a 
year, we have come back, having found that all the 
reforms of segregation of Government employees of 
African extraction are still practised in the Treasury 
and Postoffice Department buildings, and to a certain 
extent have spread into other Government buildings. 

“ ‘Under the Treasury, in the Bureau of Engrav¬ 
ing and Printing, separation not only in the dressing 
rooms but in working positions, Afro-American 
employees being herded at separate tables, at eating 
tables and in toilets; in the Navy Department there 
is herding at desks and separation in lavatories; in 
the Postoffice Department there is separation in work 
for colored women in the alcove on the eighth floor, 
of colored men in rooms on the seventh floor, with 
forbidding of entrance even into an adjoining room 
occupied by white clerks on the seventh floor, and of 
colored men in separate rooms, just instituted on sixth 
floor, with separate lavatories for colored men on the 
eighth floor; in the main Treasury building in separate 
lavatories in the basement; in the Interior Department, 
separate lavatories, which were specifically pointed 
out to you at our first hearing; in the State and other 
departments in separate lavatories; in Marine Hos¬ 
pital service building, in separate lavatories, though 
there is but one Afro-American clerk to use it; in 
the War Department, in separate lavatories; in the 
Postoffice Department building, separate lavatories; 
in the sewing and bindery divisions of the Govern¬ 
ment Printing Office on the fifth floor, there is herd¬ 
ing at working positions of colored women and sep¬ 
aration in lavatories, and new segregation instituted 


12 



178 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


by the division chief since our first audience with you. 
This lavatory segregation is the most degrading, most 
insulting of all. Colored employees who use the regu¬ 
lar public lavatories on the floors where they work are 
cautioned and are then warned by superior officers 
against insubordination. 

“ ‘We have come by vote of this league to set 
before you this definite continuance of race segrega¬ 
tion, and to renew the protest and to ask you to abolish 
segregation of Afro-American employees in the 
Executive Department. 

“ ‘Because we cannot believe you capable of any 
disregard of your pledges, we have been sent by the 
alarmed American citizens of color. They realize that, 
if they can be segregated and thus humiliated by the 
National Government at the National Capital, the 
beginning is made for the spread of that persecution 
and prosecution which makes property and life itself 
insecure in the South; the foundation of the whole 
fabric of their citizenship is unsettled. 

“ ‘They have made plain enough to you their 
opposition to segregation last year by a national anti¬ 
segregation petition, this year by a protest registered 
at the polls, voting against every Democratic candi¬ 
date save those outspoken against segregation. The 
only Democrat elected governor in the Eastern States 
was Governor Walsh, of Massachusetts, who ap¬ 
pealed to you by letter to stop segregation. Thus have 
colored Americans shown how they detest segregation. 

“ ‘In fact, so intense is their resentment that the 
movement to divide this solid race vote and make 
peace with the national Democracy, so suspiciously 
revied [sic] when you ran for Presidency, and 



Some Views and Opinions by the Way. 179 


which some of our families for two generations have 
been risking all to promote, bids fair to be undone. 

“ 'Only two years ago you were heralded as per¬ 
haps the second Lincoln, and now the colored leaders 
who supported you are hounded as false leaders and 
traitors to their race. What a change segregation 
has wrought! 

“ 'You said that your “Colored fellow citizens 
could depend upon you for everything which would 
assist in advancing the interests of their race in the 
United States.” Consider that pledge in the face of 
the continued color segregation! Fellow-citizenship 
means congregation; segregation destroys fellowship 
and citizenship. Consider that any passerby on the 
streets of the National Capital, whether he be black, 
can enter and use the public lavatories in Government 
buildings, while citizens of color who do the work of 
the Government are excluded. 

“ 'As equal citizens and by virtue of your public 
promises, we are entitled at your hands to freedom 
from discrimination, restriction, imputation, and 
insult for race in Government employ. Have you a 
“new freedom” for white Americans and a new 
slavery for your “colored fellow-citizens?” God 
forbid! 

“ 'We have been delegated to ask you to issue an 
executive order against any and all segregation of 
Government employees because of race and color, and 
to ask whether you will do so. We await your reply 
in that we may give it to the waiting citizens of the 
United States of African extraction.’ ” 

The Washington Post next morning (Nov. 13, 
I 9 I 4) gave the matter almost a column in fine print, 



180 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


and stated that during the interview the President 
said, addressing himself to Trotter, the negro spokes¬ 
man, “that he (Trotter) was the only American 
citizen who had ever come into the White House and 
addressed the President in such a tone and with such 
a background of passion.” 

The ill-mannered negro then brought in some¬ 
thing in regard to votes, etc., whereupon “This men¬ 
tion of votes caused the President to say that politics 
must be left out, because it was a form of blackmail. 
He said he would resent it as quickly from one set 
of men as from another, and that his auditors could 
vote as they pleased; it mattered little.” 

The next day (Sunday, Nov. 15, 19 * 4 ) an an_ 
mense mass meeting of negroes took place at the 
Second Baptist Church. W. Monroe Trotter was the 
chief speaker, and he, negro-like, denied that he had 
been insulting or impertinent to the President, imply¬ 
ing: that the President did not know what he was 
talking about! Then, continuing his address, he de¬ 
clared, in strong Afro-American terms (not Ameri¬ 
can) that “For the first time in history a President 
had pronounced his Administration’s policy as one of 
racial discrimination. Our delegation wanted him to 
stop departmental segregation or say where he stood. 
Now, at last, after two years’ silence, he has told.” 

It is not necessary for me to comment upon what 
is so clearly set forth between the lines. In fact, this 
negro’s previously prepared address to President 
Wilson was an open insult from start to finish; threat¬ 
ening, and pregnant with blackmail from one end of 
it to the other. 

Negroes and half-bloods in other parts of the 



Some Views and Opinions by the Way. 


181 


country immediately took up the cudgel and rushed 
into such papers as would print their grievances; for 
instance, in holding forth in the New York World on 
“The Colored Vote,” Alexander Walters, President 
of the “National Colored Democratic League” (New 
York, Nov. 14, 1914), takes occasion to make an 
exhibition, negro-fashion, of his particular brand of 
Ethiopian political astuteness and says: “More than 
a half-million negroes are voting today, and they too 
must certainly be a factor in the defeat of the Demo¬ 
cratic party this year, for nearly all of them voted the 
Republican ticket.” 

This negro seems to be quite oblivious of the fact 
that probably half of these voters were half-bloods 
and not “negroes,” and that negro votes, in most dis¬ 
tricts where the voting takes place, can be purchased 
by the score at the price of a drink of whiskey or a 
twenty-five cent piece; this I have witnessed with 
my own eyes in Maryland. Further, this negro seems 
to be crassly ignorant of the fact that American 
politics are not a species of jugglery and a privilege, 
the sole use of which is for blackmailing purposes 
or to simply defeat the opposing party. He continues 
by saying: “Is it not time that our Democratic friends 
be awakened to the fact that the black man is a factor 
in American politics?” A question which most 
properly may be answered in Irish fashion by another 
question, to wit: Is it not time that the American 
people were awakened to the fact that the black man, 
with all his history, should not only cease to be a fac¬ 
tor in American politics, but that, for the welfare of 
this American people, he be, with his entire race, 
removed to some other quarter of the globe? 



182 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


This negro terminates his howl in the Nezv York 
World thus: “Another thing which has caused us to 
be discredited in the eyes of the world is, that out of 
this ten million colored citizens, not one is invited to a 
social function in the White House, and in this said- 
to-be the greatest democracy in the world! No 
wonder that America throughout the world is branded 
as a nation of Hypocrites.” 

Did one ever? And I wonder if this particular 
neero has it in him to be made to see the reason whv 
pure-strain negro men and women are not “invited to 
social functions at the White House?” I fear not— 
any more than he can be made to see that such part of 
our American population as is composed of the highest 
elements of the Anglo-Saxon race, or its pure-strain 
descendants, are not “branded as a nation of hypo¬ 
crites;” but that, on the other hand, thinking and 
observing people of broad minds and intelligence all 
over the world know only too well that we have a 
racial canker-worm gnawing at our vitals: the 
imported African negroes, and the race of half-bloods 
they have given rise to in this country. It is these 
“Afro-Americans” that would have their “uplifted,” 
illegitimate descendants, born of wenches out of wed¬ 
lock, foisted upon the “social functions at the White 
House,” and placed in the most important govern¬ 
mental positions within the power of the President of 
the United States. It is the presence of this stock 
among us that is rapidly bringing our country into 
discredit and worse! The time is now surely at hand 
when this Alexander Walters can with profit discuss 
with William Monroe Trotter some of the reasons 
why negroes are not admitted to the “social functions 



Some Viezos and Opinions by the Way. 183 


at the White House;” even a half-blood might catch 
the idea here. 

This entire incident is now past history, but it goes 
to show the exact attitude of the negroes and mulat- 
toes in our midst on the question of their social and 
general standing in the country. As they become 
more numerous, and come into power through their 
increased numbers, they intend, nolens volens ,—in so 
far as we are concerned,—to force themselves into 
American society everyzvhere, from the simplest of 
social gatherings to functions of all kinds in the 
Government, from the White House, down. 

It is now a thoroughly established fact that 
these negroes are so dense mentally that they cannot 
appreciate their position, nor see that they are not 
wanted. Any other race, under such conditions, 
would gather up its belongings, emigrate to some 
other part of the world, and set up a government of 
its own. 

Passing from this significant incident to other 
matters to be touched upon in this chapter, I may say 
that, very recently (November, 1914), I have com¬ 
municated with many influential people in this country 
in regard to all possible aspects of the so-called “negro 
problem,” and I have read extensively on the subject, 
including the best literature touching it during the 
past ten years or more. Some important correspond¬ 
ence has come to me of a similar racial problem in 
certain parts of Africa; but the discussion of this 
would be of but little value as throwing any service¬ 
able light on what we have to deal with here. The 
conditions are, essentially, quite different,—those in 
the parts of Africa to which I refer being associated 



184 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


with the matter of labor, while here it is largely a 
social question, and one of miscegenation. 

With respect to the question of expatriation or en¬ 
forced removal of the negroes in the United States to 
some other country, I have not, up to the present 
time, put myself in communication with the heads of 
any government, which might be willing to have them 
come as colonists, as this is a question better handled 
after the present volume has appeared and been con¬ 
sidered by the American public. However, in the 
next chapter I shall take up some of the initial features 
of this solution, and present some views upon it as 
have very recently come before me. 

As Professor Franz Boas, of Columbia Univer¬ 
sity—an eminent anthropologist—was known to me, I 
wrote him for a brief letter to publish in this chapter, 
on his recent studies of the negro. Unfortunately, he 
could not comply with my request for the reason, as he 
states in his courteous letter of September 29, 1914, 
that “I am afraid that you would not wish to include 
an expression of my opinion in your book, because I 
am not at all convinced that the miscegenation of 
races is a bad thing from a biological point of view. I 
know, of course, that half-bloods always grow up 
under very unfavorable circumstances, and for this 
reason are seldom up to the mark.” 

Such an opinion cannot possibly stand in the light 
of modern biology,—that is, when applied to the pure 
negro and the white races of the world. In the admix¬ 
ture, the higher race is sure to suffer in every possible 
way, while the half-bloods offer very unstable improve¬ 
ment or worse. 

Doctor Josiah Morse, to whom I have also written, 




Fig. 44.— Same Skull as Shown in Fig. 43. (Anterior view; 

reduction the same.) 

By the author, after Elliot. Xote the highly developed supra¬ 
orbital ridges as in many negroes. Compare with Fig. 19. 


*.>•***. 



















Some Views and Opinions by the Way. 


185 


has recently thrown some light on this point in his 
researches. The following quotation from The 
Literary Digest (Jan. 17, 1914), will make this 
sufficiently clear, and the reader will meet with no 
trouble in consulting the doctor’s other papers on the 
subject elsewhere:— 

“Is the negro race less intelligent than the white? 
Le Bon, the French psychologist, says that the two 
races are forever separated by a ‘mental abyss,’ while 
Boaz, the American ethnologist, sees no essential 
mental difference between them. Interesting tests of 
white and colored children in Columba, S. C., made 
by Dr. Josiah Morse, of the University of South 
Carolina, with the aid of what is known as Binet’s 
‘scale of intelligence,’ are described by the author in 
The Popular Science Monthly (New York, January). 
The results are somewhat unsatisfactory, altho inter¬ 
esting. So far as it is possible to select white and 
colored children from the same ‘walks of life,’ the 
former seem to be more intelligent, but ‘poor white’ 
children from the mills come out almost as badly in 
the test as the colored children, which does not look as 
if race had much to do with it. ‘The Binet scale,’ it 
will be remembered, is a set of simple questions and 
commands, classified by their adaptation to children 
of six to twelve years. The ‘mental age’ of the child 
is determined by the highest group of tests that he can 
pass successfully, only one failure being permitted. 
But if he can pass five tests in various higher groups, 
he has an additional year’s credit. Comparison of 
mental age, thus determined, with the real age shows 
whether, and in what degree, a child is backward or 
forward. Says Professor Morse:— 



186 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


“ ‘The same tests were given to both the white 
and colored children under practically uniform condi¬ 
tions, with the exception that some of the colored 
children tested were older than twelve years. The 
course of study in the colored school, which is a part 
of the public-school system, is essentially the same as 
in the white schools, and the quality of teaching is 
good. The children seemed to be at ease in the pres¬ 
ence of the white examiner, and to do their best. No 
marked variation from the white children in the man¬ 
ner of responding could be noted. In almost every 
case the dress, cleanliness, and manners of the chil¬ 
dren indicated that they came from good homes. The 
replies were usually couched in fewer words than 
those of the white children. There was less tendency 
to enter into conversation, and it was soon found that 
they were more at ease when reacting to the tests than 
when an attempt was made to talk with them about 
other things. 

“ ‘The results of the investigation upon the white 
and colored children may be briefly summarized as 
follows:— 

Colored. White. 

Per cent. Per cent. 


More than one year backward. 29.4 10.1 

Satisfactory . 69.8 84.4 

More than one year advanced. 0.8 5.3 


“ ‘The number of white children testing at age is 
decidedly larger than any other group, whereas for 
colored children the largest group is the one testing 
one year below age. In the satisfactory group there 
is a difference of nearly 15 per cent, between the white 
and colored; nearly three times as many colored are 






Some Views and Opinions by the JVay. 


18 7 


more than a year backward, and less than I per cent, 
are more than a year advanced. 

“ ‘The picture tests gave the colored children con¬ 
siderable trouble, probably due to difference in racial 
esthetics. The tests relating to time and money, dis¬ 
tinguishing between morning and afternoon, enumer¬ 
ating the months, counting stamps, and making 
change, the drawing tests, both copying and repro¬ 
ducing from memory, were all too difficult. The 
answers to the questions of comprehension, to the 
absurd statements and to the problems of various 
facts, were often absurd or senseless; the best replies, 
however, compare very favorably with those of the 
white children. The definitions were often not better 
than terms of use, and frequently stated in the lan¬ 
guage of a younger child. 

“ ‘In general, it may be said that the colored chil¬ 
dren excel in rote memory, e.g., in counting, repeating 
digits (but not one was able to repeat twenty-six 
syllables), naming words, making rimes, and in time 
orientation. They are inferior to the whites, however, 
in esthetic judgment, observation, reasoning, motor 
control, logical memory, use of words, resistance to 
suggestion, and in orientation or adjustment to the 
institutions and complexities of civilized society. 

“ ‘To what extent these differences are due to 
difference in racial intellectual ability, and how much 
to environmental influences, difference in physio¬ 
logical age, or other subtle factors, cannot be dog¬ 
matically stated. They are certainly not due to dif¬ 
ference in school training. In order, therefore, to 
make the comparisons as just as possible, and at the 
same time ascertain the extent of the influence of 



188 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


environment, the white children were divided into two 
groups—city children and mill children. The 
economic, educational, and environmental conditions 
of the cotton-mill children are but little, if any, better 
than those of the colored children. The results of the 
comparison showed that the proportion of colored 
children who are satisfactory is less than that of the 
mill children, which in turn is less than that of the 
city children. Less than 6 per cent, of the city chil¬ 
dren are more than a year backward, 18 per cent, of 
the mill children, and 26 per cent, of the colored chil¬ 
dren. None of either the mill or colored children test 
more than one year above age, while 10 per cent, of 
the city children do. 

“ ‘Another table of statistics showed that the 
colored children made a better showing in the first 
five grades than in the first seven, but their in¬ 
feriority to the whites existed throughout the school 
years, contrary to the widespread opinion that colored 
children are as well, if not better, endowed during 
the first school years. Again, according to the Binet 
scale, a larger number of white children are in a 
school grade below their mental ability than above, 
whereas the reverse is true of the colored children. A 
rough classification into three groups, according to 
color—dark, medium, light—showed that the darkest 
children are more nearly normal; the lightest show the 
greatest variation, both above and below normal.’ 

“The limitations of the study are freely admitted 
by Dr. Morse, who considers it but a crude beginning 
of a subject that will soon be opened up and made to 
yield interesting and profitable data. He comments: 

“ ‘It need not be pointed out what radical changes 





Some Views and Opinions by the Way. 


189 


would have to take place in our educational theory 
and practice, as well as in our social philosophy, if it 
could be shown conclusively that races differ in mental 
capacity and aptitude just as they do in physical 
appearance. No final conclusions, however, are here 
offered, nor is any attempt made to settle once and for 
all the question of race superiority or inferiority. 
That requires investigation along many lines hardly 
opened up as yet. But this much we may surely 
conclude from the above study: that negro children 
from six to twelve and possibly fifteen years are 
mentally different, and also younger than Southern 
white children of corresponding ages, and that this 
condition is partly due, at least, to causes that are 
native or racial. That is, if MM. Binet and Simon 
had originally tested Southern negro children they 
would have worked out from the results a scale which 
would have been different from their present one in 
several respects, and which, when applied to Southern 
white children, would be found to be, for the most 
part, a year or more too young, tho possibly there 
would be some tests which would yield the opposite 
results. 

“ ‘Perhaps some day each branch of the human 
family will have a Binet scale of its own. Then, by a 
wholesale interchange of tests, as we do now with 
professors, it will be possible to determine wherein a 
given people are proficient and wherein deficient; and 
later, perhaps, by adding co-efficients and credits, to 
settle mooted questions of racial rank. But this again 
belongs to the realm of speculation. 

“ ‘Probably the point of greatest value brought 
out by this study is that perchance a key has been 


5 



190 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


found in the Binet scale which will prove of the 
greatest service in the solution of problems in contem¬ 
porary folk-psychology and race and social adjust¬ 
ment. Certain it is that these important human 
problems need the spirit, methods, and instruments 
of science applied to them. The Binet scale is the 
first instrument that has appeared.’ ” 

Surely, in the light of Binet’s “scale of intelli¬ 
gence,” would any intelligent and well-read American 
on the subject favor the miscegenation which is now 
so rapidly going on in this country between the negroes 
and certain classes of the white population? 

In regard to what Dr. Morse says on the subject 
of the limitations of the study of this negro problem 
as a whole, I have received the following contribution 
from Doctor James Bardin, of the University of 
Virginia, kindly prepared especially for this work:— 
“One of the most striking things to be noted in the 
scientific circles of North America is the indifference 
of scientific investigators to the negro problem. The 
mere presence of the negro in this country offers a 
truly exceptional and, in some ways, extraordinary 
opportunity to study the problem of race from every 
angle. The problem in the South is one of extreme 
acuteness and importance, and any light that can be 
thrown upon it will be welcomed by all who are trying 
to do something practical toward ameliorating the 
situation. Throughout the entire world, race prob¬ 
lems were never more prominent than at the present 
moment. Yet American scientists are doing prac¬ 
tically nothing toward elucidating the one great race 
problem that they have constantly before them, 
despite the fact that by studying it and finding out 



Some Views and Opinions by the Way. 


191 


just what it really is, they could illuminate indirectly 
practically all the problems growing out of race 
throughout the world. 

“The sociologists, economists, historians, and 
religious workers are putting forth their best efforts 
in their respective fields to obtain accurate informa¬ 
tion about the relationships of the negro and white 
races to each other; in the South, a really tremendous 
amount of work of this sort is being done. These 
men realize that here at home they have a sort of 
gigantic laboratory in which can be observed the 
innumerable reactions resulting from a juxtaposition 
of dissimilar peoples. But the men who are devoting 
themselves to those sciences having a more or less 
biological basis are, on the contrary, doing nothing. 
This is particularly to be regretted, since from a 
biological point of view almost nothing is with cer¬ 
tainty known about race. In one of the most recent 
works dealing with anthropology the following state¬ 
ment occurs, and sums up very adequately the pre¬ 
vailing ignorance: ‘I shall not attempt to conceal the 
difficulties relating to the race problem. I know that 
the ordinary reader is supposed to prefer that all the 
thinking should be done beforehand, and merely the 
results submitted to him. But I cannot believe that 
he would find it edifying to look at half-a-dozen books 
upon the races of mankind, and find half-a-dozen 
accounts of their relationships, having scarcely a 
single statement in common. Far better to face the 
fact that race still baffles us almost completely.’ 1 

“It is true, to a limited degree, that those who 
have the most manifest opportunity to investigate the 


1 “Anthropology,” by R. R. Marett, M.A. (page 61). 




192 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


biological field of our own race problems—that is to 
say, the medical men, police officials, charity workers, 
and the like, residing in the South—have contributed 
something toward clearing up the difficulties. But 
they have done so principally because the problem 
forced itself upon their attention in forms which 
demanded the acquisition of knowledge for practical 
reasons. A very few men devoted to pure science 
have done a little work—painfully little!—in this 
field. But aside from the most negligible contribu¬ 
tions made by these, and the incidental contributions 
made to the scientific side of the problem by those 
carrying on practical work in certain phases, almost 
nothing has been brought forward upon the subject 
of the biological relationships of the whites and the 
negroes in this country. 2 There is not now being car¬ 
ried out on a large scale any investigation of the 
negro’s relationship to public health. His anatomy is 
nowhere being adequately studied. 3 There is not 
now, and never has been, an institution anywhere 
in this country devoted to the study of these and 
similar problems. 

“The principal factor, in the opinion of the writer, 
which has operated to bring about and perpetuate 
this indifference on the part of American scientists to 
this problem is, that there is a widespread, practically 
general misconception in regard to the fundamental 
nature of the negro problem as a whole. The prob¬ 
lem is regarded as being almost entirely sociological. 

2 The literature in the Surgeon General’s office contains very few 
contributions by American investigators. 

3 Practically all the work extant upon the comparative or “racial” 
anatomy of the negro has been done by the Italian or French 
anatomists. 





Fig. 45.— Type of Northern Mulatto. Female. (New York City.) 

(Photo from life by the author.) 







Some Vieivs and Opinions by the Way. 


193 


The reason for this supposition is not hard to discover. 
The current interpretation of the anthropological and 
anatomical facts thus far brought forward by students 
of race questions tends to indicate that the physical 
and mental differences existing between dissimilar 
races are not sufficiently great to be of any vital im¬ 
portance in their relationships. It is obvious, of 
course, that the races differ markedly in certain 
anatomical details. It is also obvious that races differ 
somewhat in mental operations and performances. 
But it is almost universally believed at present that the 
mental differences are of such a nature that they are 
not essential. And it is concluded that the races are 
so nearly alike mentally that it is not difficult to bring 
them all to the same plane of mental development. It 
is inferred from this conclusion that the negro, if he 
is given the proper opportunities, will equal, or very 
nearly equal, the whites in his mental performances. 4 

“This conception has had the effect of discourag¬ 
ing work in the biological field. As long as it remains 
current and is generally accepted, no one is likely to 
concern himself particularly about it, because it seems 
to dispose of the whole question. And the problems 
of race, and particularly the problem of the negro, is 
regarded as one of adjusting the social relationships 
in such fashion that the undeveloped race will have 
a chance to become like the advanced race, mentally, 
and in every other respect, save the color of the skin. 

“The situation, however, is not as well settled as 
the foregoing would lead one to infer. Despite the 
anatomical and anthropological evidence brought for¬ 
ward by Franz Boas, Mall, and others, it is not at all 

4 Cf. Boas: “The Mind of Primitive Man.” 


13 




194 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


certain that the problem of the mental differences 
between the races has been solved, and can be dis¬ 
posed of in the statement that such differences are 
not great enough to be of vital importance. There is 
a great deal to be said for the contrary supposition. 
The work of a large number of sociologists and 
psychologists, particularly, tends to show that these 
differences are of vast importance. Gustav Le Bon, 
the French psychologist, is so convinced that they are 
of great significance that he has written a book to 
indicate their nature and importance . 5 And he has 
been engaged for a long time in writing, from the 
point of view of his theory of ‘racial soul,’ a re-inter¬ 
pretation of the entire sweep of history. A great 
many books are being written which assume and 
attempt to prove by one means or another that these 
mental differences are not only of great importance, 
but are absolutely irreconcilable. Furthermore, 

•Z 1 

nearly everyone who has lived long in the South holds 
the opinion, based upon empirical grounds, it is true, 
that the differences are of such a nature that they 
preclude all possibility of bringing the negro into 
accord with the civilization of the whites in any 
ultimate sense. 

“In sum, where there is so much smoke, there must 
be fire. And the investigator is confronted with 
diametrically opposed theories in regard to the mental 
capacities of the negro. The one, upheld by certain 
anthropological and anatomical evidence (most of 
which turns out to be negative evidence when it is 
closely examined), declares that while there are a few 
differences between the mental operations of whites 


5 Gustav Le Bon: “Race Psychology.” 




Some Views and Opinions by the Way. 


195 


and negroes, these differences are too slight to be of 
any importance, and can easily be overcome. The main 
fact upon which this supposition is based is that no one 
has ever yet pointed out a structural difference be¬ 
tween the brain of a white man and the brain of a 
negro. (Cf. Boas, ‘The Mind of Primitive Man;’ 
Hoffman, 'Race Traits and Tendencies of the Ameri¬ 
can Negro,’ and a paper by Mall, the title of which I 
cannot recall, refuting the conclusions of Bean, as 
set forth in his paper, ‘On a Racial Peculiarity in the 
Brain of a Negro.’) The other theory, supported by 
the observations of a few scientific psychologists, and 
by a great mass of empirical observations, unchecked 
by anthropological and anatomical studies, contends 
that the differences are great enough to be of first- 
rate importance. Which of these theories is the true 
one, no one knows. 

“The evidence brought forward by anthropology 
and anatomy seems at first sight to be conclusive; but 
when it is subjected to a thorough examination, in 
the light of recent anatomical, physiological, and 
psycho-physiological discoveries, it is at once seen to 
be almost wholly irrelevant to the point at issue. It 
casts no light upon the real heart of the problem, 
mainly because it does not go deep enough. Every 
scrap of evidence thus far brought forward reveals 
nothing that the student of evolution would not 
expect, simply because the evidence deals only with 
those anatomical, physiological and psychological facts 
which the student of evolution would a priori assume 
to be common to mankind in general. And the fields 
of anatomy (such as the anatomy of the association 
tracts of the brain, and of the connection between 



196 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


basal and bulbar ganglia and the cerebrum), physio¬ 
logical (such as the question whether the ductless 
glands of the negro function like those of the white 
man), and psychological (such as the question of how 
the negro reacts to his social environment, and 
whether he possesses the same ‘instinct’—using the 
word as it is used by McDougal—as the white man), 
which would be expected to yield some significant 
result have never been explored at all. 

‘‘The arguments advanced to prove the irrecon¬ 
cilable nature of the mental differences of the two 
races rest upon an even slighter scientific foundation. 
No one has ever yet demonstrated an essential struc¬ 
tural difference between the brain of a negro and the 
brain of a white man. All the other evidence offered 
rests upon empirical data having no essential relation¬ 
ship to the point at issue. And in the last analysis, 
no one upholding this theory has been able to bring 
forward the slightest evidence of a scientifically ac¬ 
cepted nature in support of his position . 6 

“The question, ‘Are there radical differences be¬ 
tween the mental operations of whites and negroes?’ 
is, therefore, the true basis of the negro problem as 
a whole, and in all its special aspects. The problem 
is one of race psychology and anatomy, and not one 
of sociology, since the question lying at the root of 
the sociological problems has not yet been answered. 

6 To illustrate the worthlessness of most of the evidence submitted, 
there have recently been made by several investigators a series of 
Binet tests of negroes, for the purpose of detecting mental difference 
between the races. Not one of these investigators made the prelim¬ 
inary experiment of finding out whether the Binet scale will, in 
unaltered form, apply to the negro mind! As a consequence, any 

4 

conclusions drawn from these tests will be valueless. 





Some Viezvs and Opinions by the IVay. 


197 


Until it is answered, and answered so conclusively 
that no one can ever ask it again, all other questions 
in regard to the negro’s relationships to the whites 
cannot be answered, nor even understood correctly. 
We cannot interpret any sort of facts until we know 
whether they apply similarly or differently to the two 
races. And all conclusions drawn, and all hypotheses 
erected upon them, will be and can be nothing but 
more or less shrewd guesswork. The whole problem 
will necessarily remain in a state of chaos until this 
one fundamental point is settled. 

“For this reason, it is the imperative duty of the 
South to have this question studied and, if possible, 
answered. The negro problem is day by day grow¬ 
ing more complex and probably more dangerous. 
None of the measures being taken at present to meet 
the situation rest upon rational scientific knowledge, 
and they amount to nothing more than makeshifts and 
compromises. No one knows exactly what the sit¬ 
uation is, and until this is known nothing can be done 
with certainty to ameliorate present conditions or to 
safeguard the future. 

“There are more than ten millions of people of 
negro ancestry in this country. Numbers such as 
these make vain the hope that we shall ever get rid of 
the negro by peaceful emigration, or prevent him, by 
political and social restrictions, from exerting a mas¬ 
sive and intestinal influence upon our social institu¬ 
tions. We have not in the past taken pains to find out 
what this influence is. We should, however, regard it 
as an imperative duty to find out. There should be es¬ 
tablished in the South, liberally endowed and com¬ 
petently manned, an institution whose purpose will be 




198 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


to study this phase of the problem, which is the 
fundamental phase. Until this is done, and some¬ 
thing which will stand the test of rigorous scientific 
criticism is brought forward by way of answer to the 
question, ‘Are there radical differences between the 
mental operations of whites and negroes?’ the negro 
problem will continue in its present state of chaos and 
hopelessness, and our ignorance concerning its real 
nature will, every year that passes, multiply our 
dangers and add to our already too heavy burdens.” 

In the Popular Science Monthly for October, 1914 
(pp. 368-374), Doctor Bardin contributes a most 
excellent article on “The Psychological Factor in 
Southern Race Problems,” which, I regret to say, is 
perhaps too long to reproduce entire in the present 
chapter; so we must be content to quote only a few 
selected paragraphs from it. Among other things, 
the Doctor says:— 

“On conventional ethical grounds, the hypothesis 
of human equality cannot be assailed. The Christian 
world, particularly that part of it which really thinks, 
is essentially altruistic, and this altruism demands 
that all men be g'iven the fullest and most equal op¬ 
portunities to get the best out of life. But it is seldom 
realized that this is an ideal, not a working formula; 
that it is, further, an ethical ideal, not a scientific 
one. Out of this misconception of the ideal of human 
equality have sprung many grievous and oftentimes 
dangerous fallacies, chief among which are two: (1) 
that all men possess the same potentialities for culture; 
and (2) that a so-called ‘higher culture’ may and 
ethically should be substituted for a so-called ‘lower 
culture’ whenever opportunity presents itself. 



Some Vicu's and Opinions by the Way. 199 


“As has been said, each of these ideas has a basis 
in ethical principles. But both are fallacious when 
scientifically considered. Each assumes too much, and 
each tries to make out of an ethical ideal the scientific 
working formula for the uplifting of backward 
peoples. Neither takes into account that culture and 
civilization are as much the products of evolution as 
a white skin or a black skin. 

“Culture, in its broadest sense, is a phenomenon 
of race. Even in our more or less homogeneous 
western European and American culture, racial dif- • 
ferences are to be observed; if this were not true, 
why should we take the trouble to call some people 
Germans and others Spaniards, some Danes and 
others Italians? Yet, despite these evident differ¬ 
ences, western European and American culture is a 
definite, characteristic thing, and underlying it we 
recognize a common stock of traditions and general 
ideas, which have come down through the ages ‘in 
the blood,’ so to speak. The white-skinned peoples of 
western Europe and America all have approximately 
the same origin, in that, through the remote mixing 
of a few strains of blood, the modern racial types 
were set; and since then the peoples of western 
Europe have given evidence of their biological kinship 
by displaying approximately similar reactions to 
similar environmental conditions and to the influence 
of general ideas and movements of thought. What¬ 
ever variations have appeared in the physical and 
psychical types among the various peoples are due to 
differences in the mixtures of the original strains of 
blood, with the accompanying differences in the con¬ 
tributions of hereditary mental predispositions re- 



200 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


ceived by the respective peoples, plus subsequent 
adaptations to environmental conditions. • But behind 
all the differences lies a common kinship of blood and 
of tradition, which has operated to produce the unit 
we call western European culture; and this racial kin¬ 
ship is the principal reason why it is not difficult for 
one group of western Europeans to adopt without 
revolutionizing it the culture of another group. 
Furthermore, as a powerful factor assisting in the 
formation and growth of this western European cul¬ 
ture, and aiding constantly in keeping it homogeneous, 
is the fact that several strains of blood, particularly 
in the higher levels of society, where most of the pro¬ 
ductive thinking is done, are incessantly mixing, and 
there are being interchanged incessantly, through 
heredity, the mental predispositions peculiar to the 
groups thus crossing. The people of western Europe 
and the white portion of American population, for 
the most part, are a sort of ‘blend’ of similar racial 
stocks, presenting similar though not identical biolog¬ 
ical characteristics; and the varieties of this ‘blend,’ 
expressed in such terms as ‘English,’ ‘Dutch,’ and 
so forth, are due to differences in the numerical rela¬ 
tionships of the contributing stocks forming these 
peoples. So, too, western European culture is a sort 
of ‘blend’ of cultures, and the varieties of this ‘blend’ 
parallel the varieties in the physical characteristics of 
the various peoples. 

“The same statements apply to any other group 
of people presenting a special, characteristic type of 
culture. The Chinese are an example; they differ 
among themselves in certain respects; they are a 
‘blend’ of races, and their present culture is a ‘blend’ 




Fig. 46.—Same Subject as Shown in Fig. 45. Full Face. 
(Photo from life by the author.) 











Some Views and Opinions by the Way. 201 


of cultures. Yet Chinese culture is definite, peculiar 
and recognizable, and it is essentially Mongolian, just 
as our culture is essentially European. Behind the 
differences among the various groups in China lie 
their common Mongolian blood and their common 
store of traditions, the influences of which have 
moulded them into what they are today. Exactly the 
same statements apply to the Negroes. They have, 
physically and mentally, definite and easily recog¬ 
nizable characteristics, indicative of a common origin 
different from our own, and expressed in a similarity 
of Negro cultures throughout the world. 

“The fact of race as a physical and mental phe¬ 
nomenon is evident to everyone. The peoples of the 
world differ, and often differ fundamentally; and 
these differences are ineradicable as long as the 
strain of blood remains unimpaired. On the physical 
side, this principle has long been an axiom. 'Can 
the Ethiopian change his skin?’ asks Jeremiah. We 
cannot, do what we will with environment, change to 
any appreciable extent our anatomical make-up. A 
Chinaman’s skin will remain yellow, a Negro’s skin 
will remain black, no matter what we may do to alter 
them, so long as the races remain pure. The only 
way we can modify the color of the skin or the facial 
angle or the texture of the hair in any great number 
of individuals is by crossing with another race. And 
the product of this crossing, should it become per¬ 
manent, is a different race. 

“From the point of view of psychology, on the 
other hand, we have assumed that this principle is not 
true. We know that we cannot change a Negro’s 
physical characteristics, so as to make him like our- 



202 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


selves, by bringing him to live among us. But we 
believe we can change his mental characteristics. In 
other words, while we are certain that we cannot 
change the Negro's facial angle, we are equally cer¬ 
tain that we can change his mental angle and make it 
like our own; while we consider it absurd to think 
that we can do anything to make the Negro’s physical 
skin become white, we believe firmly that we can 
make the physical analogue of his skin exactly like 
our own. 

“But is this a fact? Racial psychology says no. 
Mental characteristics are as distinctly and as organic¬ 
ally a part of a race as its physical characteristics, and 
for the same reason: both depend ultimately upon 
anatomical structure. Racial mental-set, racial ways 
of thinking, racial reactions to the influence of ideas, 
are as characteristic and as recognizable as racial 
skin-color and racial skull-conformation. This does 
not mean that mental characteristics and superficial 
anatomical characteristics necessarily bear any rela¬ 
tionship to each other, as has sometimes been assumed; 
that is to say, the shape of the head, the weight of the 
brain, the cranial capacity, the length of the arms, the 
arrangement of the muscles in the calf of the leg, do 
not determine mental characteristics: physical and 
mental characteristics are, however, parallel expres¬ 
sions of the particular evolutionary process which has 
resulted in the formation of a race; each set of 
characters is the specific result, in different struc¬ 
tures, of the evolutionary process. Ultimately, mental 
differences must depend upon anatomical and physio¬ 
logical differences; but these differences are differ¬ 
ences in the structure of the brain itself. If we are to 



Some Views and Opinions by the Way. 203 


assume any relationship whatsoever between brain 
and mind (and such a relationship, whatever it may 
be, certainly exists), we must assume some anatomical 
and physiological differences in the brains if we are 
to account for mental differences. 

“The more the races of men are studied, the more 
certain becomes the evidence to show that races have 
characteristic mental peculiarities, which would serve 
to distinguish species and varieties almost as well as 
physical characteristics. In practical life, in juris¬ 
prudence, in language itself, we empirically allow for 
these racial mental differences. But we have never 
taken the trouble to study them nor to understand 
their nature from a scientific point of view, and almost 
nothing is known about their potentialities. 

“Taking' as a fact these mental differences, let us 
for a moment consider the possibility of their modifi¬ 
cation. It has been pointed out that mental differences 
must ultimately depend upon material anatomical 
differences in brain-structure; if we deny this, we in¬ 
stantly remove racial psychology from the field of 
science to that of metaphysics, and controvert all the 
observed data of physiological psychology; there must 
be some structural differences between the brain of 
a Negro and that of a white man, though such dif¬ 
ferences are admittedly very hard to detect by present 
methods. We know that it is impossible for us to 
modify anatomical structures at will; we can un¬ 
doubtedly change them (within narrow limits, by 
selection of characters already present and the 
accentuation of these), but we cannot make any two 
differing anatomical characters become exactly alike. 
Why, then, should we assume that we can modify at 




204 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


will the mental processes of a race, since these men¬ 
tal processes are expressions of a certain definite 
anatomical and physiological organization, which we 
know cannot be altered save by the crossing of bloods 
or by the laborious and infinitely slow processes of 
evolution ? 

“Yet, north and south, we wish to do this very 
thing, and to do it in its extreme form. For we are 
not merely trying to change the direction of the 
Negro’s peculiar mental characteristics, and to im¬ 
prove them by selection among the elements already 
present—we are trying, on the contrary, to deprive 
the Negro of his own racial mental characteristics, 
and to substitute our own in their place, at the same 
time keeping him anatomically a Negro. That this 
is an impossibility follows after the former argument. 

“It will undoubtedly be said, by way of refutation, 
that the Negroes of the Southern States have ad¬ 
vanced and advanced considerably since they have 
been in this country. This is unreservedly true. But 
it is often forgotten that they have advanced as 
Negroes, not as anything else. They have adopted 
the form of our civilization and to a certain extent 
(due principally to the influence of language), the 
mould of our thought. But however much the form 
of the civilization and the mould of the thought re¬ 
semble our own, the substance of both is different. 
The Negro has received much from us, and has 
profited greatly therefrom; but all that he has re¬ 
ceived he has modified in accordance with his racial 
mental-set, and his physical reactions to the influences 
of our civilization are entirely different from our own, 
and will necessarily remain so as long as the Negro 





Some Viezvs and Opinions by the Way. 


205 


is Negro. No matter how much we may educate him, 
no matter how much we better his position in society, 
he will remain a Negro psychically as long as he 
remains a Negro physically. We may cause him to 
absorb the full, rich store of our cultural elements, but 
by the time these elements have gone through the 
channels of his thought, they will be profoundly 
modified, and they will take on a different meaning in 
the Negro’s consciousness from what they have in the 
white man’s consciousness. Concomitantly, these 
cultural elements will modify the brain of the Negro: 
but this modification will not follow the same path¬ 
ways, and will not give the same results as it would 
in the untutored brain, say, of a white child. The 
modifying forces acting upon the Negro’s brain will 
have to start with an anatomical structure already 
formed and set by heredity, an anatomical structure 
different from that of the white race, which produced 
the modifying forces in question, and the final result 
in the Negro’s brain will be determined and directed 
by this preexisting anatomical make-up. So that the 
brain and the consciousness resulting from the absorp¬ 
tion of our culture by the Negroes will be a brain and 
a consciousness different from our own to the same 
extent that the Negro differs from us in other 
respects, and both will be characteristically Negroid 
in nature, not European. 

“It follows, therefore, that present ideals in regard 
to the ‘solution’ of our Negro problem (ideals, as has 
been pointed out and which it is well to reiterate, 
resulting from the confusion of ethical and scientific 
principles) are biologically fallacious and impossible 
of attainment. We can never make the Negro like 



206 


America's Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


the white man mentally. We can never have a bi- 
racial state based upon identity of ideas and political 
philosophies in both races. 

“The Negroes will continue to progress, un¬ 
doubtedly. But they will progress along the lines laid 
down by their evolutionary history. They will take 
our cultural elements and make them part of them¬ 
selves; but they will modify these elements accord¬ 
ing to their nature, and when they have assimilated 
them, they will be our cultural elements no longer, 
but will be profoundly and permanently modified. 
The tw’O races will continue to develop side by side, 
but the development can never be parallel—it must be 
divergent, even though its successive steps may 
perchance maintain approximately the same level, as 
long as the races remain pure. It will be like two 
men, thrown together by fortuitous circumstances, 
who start walking up the same slope toward the same 
hilltop; but because of differences in the nature of 
their interests, one goes east while the other goes 
northeast; each step will carry them closer to the 
top of the hill, but further and further apart. 

“This fact, rather than ethical theory, should 
form the foundation of American thought in regard 
to the Negroes and the Negro problem. The Negro 
as an intellectual being should be studied as a Negro 
—not as a potential white man; and if we wish to help 
him, we should at least try to be sure that he is allowed 
to develop as a Negro in the freest, broadest manner 
possible, and to the full extent of his racial poten¬ 
tialities.” 

A few years ago, Mr. Arthur M. Allen published 
his paper on “The Race Problem” in the Arena 



Some Vicivs and Opinions by the Way. 


20 7 


(Aug., 1906), and kindly furnished me with two 
reprints of it. What he said is, in many respects, as 
true today as it was the day it came off the press; it 
is, in any event, interesting from what it points out 
historically. Mr. Allen remarks that “The article 
by Professor Grimke on 'The Heart of the Race 
Problem,’ reads like Theodore Tilton’s Miscegenation, 
published during the war, and so offensive to the 
public that it has been practically suppressed. All 
these articles are based on the old idea of one race, 
and that all men, being children of Adam, were 
brothers and therefore equal. 

“The progress of science has put Adam among the 
allegories of the past, and left us to solve the race 
problem by the scientific laws of natural history and 
zoology alone. 

“Jefferson, although an Abolitionist, believed in 
deportation only. He had such a horror of race 
equality that he considered it impossible, and lamented 
that there had, at that time, been no scientific exami¬ 
nation of the negro in the line of natural history. 

“In 1850, Professor Agassiz, after long research, 
said that Caucasians and Negroes could never have 
been descended from the same stock, and, although 
men, could never have been brothers. 

“This is the new doctrine of diversity of race; and 
when glamour and emotional conditions produced by 
the one-race theory have subsided, this will prevail, 
and solve this and other race problems. 

“In 1901, Professor McGee, of the Smithsonian 
Institution at Washington, confirmed Professor 
Agassiz by saying that if there was any Garden of 
Eden, there must have been many original couples, 



208 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


for no two of the present races could have been de¬ 
scended from the same stock. 

“The same evil English Tory influences, which 
originated and engineered the whole negro equality 
movement (miscalled Anti-Slavery), even though they 
succeeded so well that it is embodied in our Constitu¬ 
tional Amendments, have yet, ever since now almost 
forty years, in spite of every kind of failure of negro 
freedom, when unsupported, by white proximity, con¬ 
stantly suppressed and destroyed all free thought, 
speech and action on this subject, and the one-race 
theory is being burned into the public mind as one 
of the unchangeable results of the Civil War. 

“This is their object, for they know that if real 
race equality is a settled matter, democracy is 
destroyed and monarchy justified. This is the bed¬ 
rock of the whole matter. 

“There is now a great spirit of discontent abroad, 
due to the great amount of graft and corruption so 
universal at the present time, and when this spirit 
applies common sense and a new doctrine of diversity 
of races to our conditions, the problem will be quickly 
solved. Under this new doctrine all mixed races are 
criminal and should be prevented by law; and the 
three Tory amendments to the Constitution (13, 14 
and 15) should be at once repealed. Professor 
Grimke’s assertions (unproven) about the sexual 
evils of negro slavery seem trifling compared to the 
worse conditions since, and any of our large Northern 
cities are far worse today; and when he winds up with 
segregation and equality, he is the antithesis of 
Jefferson, our best-known Democrat. 

“Arthur M. Allen. 

“New Brighton, N. Y. (Arena), Aug., 1906.” 




Some Views and Opinions by the Way. 209 


On the 21 st of October, 1914, I called, by kind 
invitation, upon Senator James K. Vardaman, at the 
Senate Annex. Senator Vardaman’s views on the 
negro question had apparently remained unchanged 
since the day he expressed them in his Message to the 
Legislature of Mississippi, in 1908, when he was 
Governor of that State. 

In that Message, the Senator stated that “I think 
that the greatest crime that was ever committed 
against any people was perpetrated against the white 
people of the South by the adoption of the Fourteenth 
and Fifteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitu¬ 
tion. These iniquitous measures were conceived in a 
spirit of hatred and ignorance, and brought forth in 
a spasm of venom and revenge. They are known 
today throughout the length and breadth of this 
republic by all white men who think honestly and cor¬ 
rectly , to be improper and out of joint with the better 
interests of the country. To give the negro the right 
of suffrage, and place him on terms of absolute 
equality with the white man, was the capital crime of 
the ages against the white man’s civilisation. The 
effect has proven disastrous; and the perpetuation of 
the evil effects of the error can only work harm to 
both races. You cannot adjust laws suited to the 
government of the white man—‘the heir of all the ages 
in the foremost files of time’—to this low-browed, 
civilization-veneered savage. And it is worse than a 
crime to undertake it. Indeed, it is the cultivation of 
crime and the encouragement of lawlessness to under¬ 
take it. In 1856, in a speech delivered at Boston, 
Mass., Robert Toombs uttered these undying words: ‘I 
maintain that so long as the African and the Caucasian 

14 



210 America's Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


races co-exist in the same society, the subordination 
of the African is its normal, necessary, and proper 
condition, and that such subordination is the condition 
best calculated to promote the highest interest and the 
greatest happiness of both races, and, consequently, 
of the whole society; that the zvliitc is the superior, and 
the black the inferior, and that subordination, with or 
without laze, zvill be the status of the African in this 
mixed society. Therefore, it is to the interest of both, 
and especially of the black race, that this status shoidd 
be fixed, controlled, and protected by lazv.’ How 
faithfully he described the condition of affairs in the 
South today, and how completely the condition in the 
South vindicates the wisdom of his utterances! 
Unless ‘this status’ shall be ‘fixed, controlled, and pro¬ 
tected by law’ it will be ‘fixed’ without the law, and in 
the process of the ‘fixing’ a spirit of lawlessness will 
he generated which will exterminate the negro, and 
well-nigh destroy the white man’s civilization.” 

He further points out and apparently honestly 
believes what he says, when he asks and answers 
the question, ‘‘What shall we do with the negro? 
Certainly the system of education suited to the white 
child does not suit the negro. This has been demon¬ 
strated by forty years of experience, and the expendi¬ 
ture of more than three hundred millions of dollars in 
the Southern States. It was natural and quite 
reasonable, immediately after the civil war, especially 
by those who had made but a superficial study of the 
negro, to expect that freedom, equal educational 
facilities, and the example and precept of the white 
man, would have the effect of improving his morals, 
and make a better man of him generally. But it has 



Some Vieivs ami Opinions by the IVay. 


211 


not, T am sorry to say. As a race, he is deteriorating 
morally every day. Time has demonstrated that he is 
more criminal as a free man than as a slave; that he is 
increasing in criminality with fearful rapidity, being 
one-third more criminal in 1890 than be was in 1880. 
The startling facts revealed by the census show that 
those who can read and write are more criminal than 
the illiterate, which is true of no other element of 
our population. I am advised that the minimum of 
illiteracy among the negroes is in New England, 
where it is 21.7 per cent.; the maximum is found in 
the black belt—Louisiana, Mississippi, and South 
Carolina; there it is 65.7 per cent. And yet, the negro 
in New England is four and one-half times more 
criminal, hundred for hundred, than he is in the black 
belt. In the South, Mississippi particularly, I know 
he is growing worse every year. You can scarcely 
pick up a newspaper whose pages are not blackened 
with an account of an unmentionable crime committed 
by a negro brute, and this crime, I want to impress 
upon you, is but the manifestation of the negro’s 
ambition for social equality, encouraged largely by the 
character of free education in vogue, which the State 
is levying tribute upon the white people to maintain. 
The better class of negroes is not responsible for this 
terrible condition, or for the criminal tendency of their 
race. Nor do I wish to be understood as censuring 
them for it. I am not censuring anybody; nor am I 
inspired by ill-will for the negro; but I am simply 
calling attention to a most unfortunate and unen¬ 
durable condition of affairs. What shall be done 
about it? Surely something must be done. The 
white people of Mississippi cannot sit idly by without 




212 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


at least making an effort to arrest this destructive 
tendency. The State, for many years, at great ex¬ 
pense to the taxpayers, has maintained a system of 
negro education, which has produced disappointing 
results, and I am opposed to the perpetuation of that 
system. My own idea is that the character of educa¬ 
tion for the negro ought to be changed. If, after 
forty years of earnest effort, and the expenditure of 
fabulous sums of money to educate his head, we have 
only succeeded in making a criminal of him, and im¬ 
pairing his usefulness and efficiency as a laborer, 
wisdom would suggest that we make another experi¬ 
ment, and see if we cannot improve him by educating 
his hand and his heart. There must be a moral sub¬ 
stratum upon which to build, or you cannot make a 
desirable citizen. The negro, as a race, is devoid of 
that element. He has never felt the guilt of sin, and 
the restraining influence of outraged conscience is 
unknown to the real negro. Slavery is the only 
process by which he has ever been partially civilised.” 

Senator Vardaman very well knows that, inas¬ 
much as the negro now has the franchise, he can easily 
be induced to sell his vote at the polls for what money 
value he can receive for it, or he can use it at the 
White House, as Trotter did with President Wilson 
in a blackmailing way, to help the negro race along 
toward their goal of “equality” with the whites, 
socially and otherwise. How swiftly history in such 
matters paints upon the wall! (1908-1914.) 




CHAPTER X. 


Amplification of Some Previously Dis¬ 
cussed Questions. 

In one of the foregoing chapters of this book, the 
matter of lynching—in the case of negroes—for one 
crime or another, though usually for assaults upon 
white women, has already been referred to by me. 
A few paragraphs may, with advantage, be added to 
what was said there. 

Whether sincere or otherwise, the legal profession 
in this country has, as a rule, held but one opinion in 
the premises with respect to lynching; so, in quoting 
this stock opinion, I can do no better than to repro¬ 
duce what Mr. Justice Brewer, of the United States 
Supreme Court, had to say on the point a number of 
years ago, and which was reported in full at the time 
in The New York Daily Tribune (August 17, 1903). 
It is a hum-drum, cut-and-dried legal document, but 
it gives, nevertheless, an old American lawyer’s 
opinion on this crime; and, as scores of old lawyers 
entertain precisely the same opinion today, I feel I 
am not laying myself open to the charge of digging 
up past history when I reproduce it for the purpose 
of making it stand for the legal view of the matter. 

The Tribune published it thus:— 

“The following article by Justice Brewer on the 
crime of lynching will appear in the current issue of 
Leslie’s Weekly. In it Justice Brewer sets forth 
more fully the views he has already made public in 

regard to lynching as a blot on our civilization and 

( 213 ) 



214 America's Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


what can be clone to stay the epidemic of the crime. 
The full text of the article is as follows:— 

“ ‘Our government recently forwarded to Russia 
a petition in respect to alleged atrocities committed 
upon the Jews. That government, as might have been 
expected, unwilling to have its internal affairs a 
matter of consideration by other governments, de¬ 
clined to receive the petition. If, instead of so doing, 
it had replied that it would put a stop to all such 
atrocities when this government put a stop to lynch- 
ings, what could wc have said? 

“ ‘No one can be blind to the fact that lynching is 
becoming altogether too common, and presents a 
serious question for the consideration of thoughtful 
lovers of their country. There have been two kinds 
of lynch-law, and it is well to distinguish between the 
two. In San Francisco, for instance, many years ago 
the better citizens became convinced that the officials 
were in league with gamblers and other wrong-doers 
—hence, crime was rampant, neither life nor prop¬ 
erty being sacred. Deliberately they came together, 
organized, and in effect took possession of the 
government, administering law promptly and severely, 
with the results—as claimed—that crime was checked 
and order reestablished. Whatever may be said of 
such a movement, it is not like the lynch-law that 
now prevails. It was more in the nature of a revolu¬ 
tion, by which the regularly elected officers were put 
out of office and a new government established. But 
the lynching which now attracts attention is the 
temporary uprising of a mob, called into being by the 
commission of some terrible crime, the perpetrator 
of which it seeks to punish. 




Some Previously Discussed Questions. 




215 


“ ‘It is well to look the matter fairly in the face. 
Many g'ood men join in these uprisings, horrified at 
the atrocity of the crime and eager for swift and 
summary punishment. Of course, they violate the 
law themselves, but rely on the public sentiment 
behind them for escape from punishment. Many of 
these lynchings are accompanied by the horrible 
barbarities of savage torture, and all that can be 
said in palliation is the atrocity of the offence which 
led up to them. For a time they were confined largely 
to the South, but that section of the country no 
longer has a monopoly. The chief offence which 
causes these lynchings has been the rape of white 
women by colored men. No words can be found too 
strong to describe the atrocity of such a crime. It is 
no wonder that the community is excited. Men 
would disgrace their manhood if they were not. And 
if a few lynchings had put a stop to the offence, society 
might have condoned such breeches of its law; but 
the fact is, if we may credit the reports, the crime, 
instead of diminishing, is on the increase. The black 
beast (for only a beast would be guilty of such an 
offence) seems to be not deterred thereby. More than 
that, as might be expected, lynching for such atrocious 
crimes is no longer confined to them, but is being 
resorted to for other offences. 

“ ‘That lynching is a blot on our civilization no one 
questions, and European nations are pointing to it as 
evidence of a lower civilization. Shall we let this go 
on and thus practically admit that, in many respects, 
this is no longer a government of laws, but partly 
one of mobs? We seldom hear of lynchings across 
the waters; somehow or other it is an epidemic which 



216 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


prevails in America, but not in Europe. We all know 
that punishment of crime justly and promptly ad¬ 
ministered by legal methods tells of a higher condition 
of society than the wild outcries and hasty judgment 
of mobs. Take the case of the assassin of our late, 
much-loved President; how much more it speaks for 
our civilization that in an orderly way, before a legal 
tribunal, the assassin was tried, having the benefit 
of counsel, and thereafter put to death in accordance 
with the dictates of law, than if an angry mob had torn 
him from the officers of the law and tortured him to 
death! 

“ ‘What can be done to stay this epidemic of 
lynching ? One thing is the establishment of a greater 
confidence in the summary and certain punishment of 
the criminal. Men are afraid of the law’s delays and 
the uncertainty of its results. Not that they doubt 
the integrity of the judges; but they know that the 
law abounds with technical rules, and that appellate 
courts will often reverse a judgment of conviction for 
a disregard of such rules, notwithstanding a full 
belief in the guilt of the accused. If all were certain 
that the guilty ones would be promptly tried and 
punished, the inducement to lynch would be largely 
taken away. In an address which I delivered before 
the American Bar Association at Detroit some years 
since, I advocated doing away with appeals in 
criminal cases. It did not meet the favor of the asso¬ 
ciation, but I still believe in its wisdom. For nearly 
a hundred years there was no appeal from the judg¬ 
ment of conviction of criminal cases, and no review, 
except in a few cases in which, two judges sitting, a 
difference of opinion on a question of law was certified 




Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


217 


to the Supreme Court. In England the rule has been 
that there was no appeal in criminal cases, although a 
question of doubt might be reserved by the presiding 
judge for the consideration of his brethren. The 
Hon. E. J. Phelps, who was Minister to England dur¬ 
ing Mr. Cleveland’s first administration, once told me 
that while he was there only two cases were so 
reserved. Does anyone doubt that justice was fully 
administered by the English courts ? 

“ ‘Opponents of this suggestion fall back on the 
ancient maxim that Tt is better that ninety-nine 
guilty men escape than that one innocent man be 
punished.’ Maxims, like other things, are good in 
their places; but, like other things, may often be over¬ 
worked. When criminal trials were conducted as 
they were in England a century and a half ago—de¬ 
fendant without counsel, trial with little publicity and 
the press an unknown factor—that maxim was good 
enough; but today, when a prisoner is guaranteed 
counsel, when trials are viewed by throngs of spec¬ 
tators, and the press makes public every detail, it 
seems well to as often consider President Grant’s 
direction, ‘Let no guilty man escape.’ 

“ ‘Further, laws have been passed requiring an 
immediate convening of courts and giving priority of 
hearing to certain civil cases deemed of public moment. 
Why may not direction be given to the presiding judge 
of the proper court, when such an atrocious crime has 
been committed as those giving rise to lynchings, to 
immediately convene that court and put the accused at 
once on trial? If this were done and no appeal were 
allowed, would not the community be more confident 
that full punishment would be promptly meted out? 




218 America's Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


If it be said that under the haste of such a trial some 
innocent men might be punished, a sufficient reply 
would seem to be that justice will be more likely done 
than when a mob takes the law into its own hands. 
If it were deemed necessary to guard against even a 
possibility of injustice, the statute might require that 
the testimony be taken down by a stenographer and 
at once presented to the Supreme Court; and if, in its 
judgment, not that some technical rules of law have 
been disregarded, but that an innocent man has been 
convicted, authorize it to stay the execution and grant 
a new trial. 

“ ‘It is said, in extenuation of lynching, in case 
of rape, that it is an additional cruelty to the unfor¬ 
tunate victim to compel her to go upon the witness 
stand and in the presence of a mixed audience tell 
the story of her wrongs, especially when she may be 
subject to cross-examination by overzealous counsel. 
I do not belittle this matter; but it must be remembered 
that often the unfortunate victim never lives to tell 
the story of her wrongs; that if she does survive, she 
must tell it to some, and the whole community knows 
the fact. Even in the court-room any high-minded 
judge will stay counsel from any unnecessary cross- 
examination; and, finally, if any lawyer should 
attempt it, the community may treat him as an 
outcast. I can but think that if the community felt 
that the criminal would certainly receive the punish¬ 
ment he deserves, and receive it soon, the eagerness 
for lynching would disappear, and mobs, whose 
gatherings too often mean not merely the destruction 
of jails and other property, but also the loss of inno¬ 
cent lives, would greatly diminish in number. 




Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


219 


“ 'One thing is certain—the tendency of lynching 
is to undermine respect for the law, and unless it be 
checked we need not be astonished if it be resorted to 
for all kinds of offences, and oftentimes innocent 
men suffer for wrongs committed by others/ 

Here is another from The Nezv York Evening 
Journal , August io, 1903:— 

“Lynching is Anarchy, says Roosevelt. 

"Hattiesburg, Miss., Aug. 10.—Amos Jones, a 
negro, was lynched by a mob for shooting and 
mortally wounding Jailer M. M. Sexton. 

“President Roosevelt has sent the following letter 
to Governor Durbin, of Indiana:— 

“ ‘Permit me to thank you, as an American citizen, for 
the admirable way in which you have vindicated the majesty 
of the law by your recent action in reference to lynching. 

“ ‘Mob violence is simply one form of anarchy, and an¬ 
archy is now, as it always has been, the handmaiden and fore¬ 
runner of tyranny. 

“ ‘All thoughtful men must feel the gravest alarm over 
the growth of lynching in this country, and especially over the 
peculiarly hideous forms so often taken by mob violence 
when colored men are the victims—on which occasions the 
mob seems to lay most weight, not on the crime, but on the 
color of the criminal. 

“ ‘In a certain proportion of these cases the man lynched 
has, been guilty of a crime horrible beyond description, a 
crime so horrible that as far as he himself is concerned, he 
has forfeited the right to any kind of sympathy whatever. 

“ ‘The feeling of all good citizens that such a hideous 
crime shall not be hideously punished by mob violence is due 
not in the least to sympathy for the criminal, but to a very 
lively sense of the train of dreadful consequences which follow 
the course taken by the mob in exacting inhuman vengeance 
for an inhuman wrong. 



220 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro . 


“ 'In such cases, moreover, it is well to remember that the 
criminal not merely sins against humanity in an inexplicable 
and unpardonable fashion, but sins particularly against his own 
race, and does them a wrong far greater than any white man 
can possibly do them. Therefore, in such cases, the colored 
people throughout the land should, in every possible way, 
show their belief that they, more than all others in the com¬ 
munity, are horrified at the commission of such a crime, and 
peculiarly concerned in taking every possible measure to pre¬ 
vent its recurrence and to bring the criminal to immediate 
justice. The slightest lack of vigor, either in denunciation of 
the crime or in bringing the criminal to justice, is itself 
unpardonable. 

“ 'Every effort should be made under the law to expedite 
the proceedings of justice in the case of such an awful crime. 
But it cannot be necessary, in order to accomplish this, to 
deprive any citizen of those fundamental rights to be heard in 
his own defense, which are so dear to us all and which lie 
at the root of our liberty. 

“ ‘It certainly ought to be possible, by the proper adminis¬ 
tration of the laws, to secure swift vengeance upon the crim¬ 
inal , f and the best and immediate efforts of all legislators, 
judges and citizens should be addressed to securing such re¬ 
forms in our legal procedure as to leave no vestige of excuse 
for those misguided men who undertake to reap vengeance 
through violent methods. 

“ ‘We must show that the law is adequate to deal with 
crime by freeing' it from every vestige of technicality and 
delay. 

“ ‘It is, of course, inevitable that where vengeance is taken 
by a mob it should frequently light on innocent people; and 
the wrong done in such a case to the individual is one for 
which there is no remedy. But even where the real criminal 
is reached, the wrong done by the mob to the community itself 
is well-nigh as great. Especially is this true where the lynching 
is accompanied with torture. 

“ ‘There are certain hideous sights which, when once seen, 
can never be wholly erased from the mental retina. The mere 
fact of having seen them implies degradation. This is a 



Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


221 


thousandfold stronger when, instead of merely seeing the deed, 
the man has participated in it. 

“ ‘Whoever, in any part of our country, has even taken 
part in lawlessly putting to death a criminal by the dreadful 
torture of fire, must forever after have the awful spectacle 
of his own handiwork seared into his brain and soul. He can 
never again be the same man. 

“ ‘Every violent man in the community is encouraged, by 
every case of lynching in which the lynchers go unpunished, 
to take the law into his own hands whenever it suits his con¬ 
venience. In the same way, the use of torture by the mob, in 
certain cases, is sure to spread until it is applied more or 
less indiscriminately in other cases. 

“ ‘The spirit of lawlessness grows with what it feeds on, 
and when mobs, with impunity, lynch criminals for one crime, 
they are certain to begin to lynch real or alleged criminals for 
other causes. 

“ ‘The nation, like the individual, cannot commit a crime 
with impunity. If we are guilty of lawlessness and brutal 
violence, whether our guilt consists in active participation 
therein or in mere connivance and encouragement, we shall 
suffer later. 

“ ‘The corner-stone of this Republic, as of all free govern¬ 
ments, is respect for and obedience to the law. Where we 
permit the law to be defied or evaded, whether by rich man 
or poor man, by black man or white, we are, by just so 
much, weakening the bonds of our civilization and increasing 
the chances of its overthrow, and of the substitution there¬ 
fore of a system in which there shall be violent alternation 
of anarchy and tyranny. Sincerely yours, 

“ ‘Theodore Roosevelt' " 

Six days after the above opinion had been pub¬ 
lished in nearly every newspaper in the United States 
—and one would have thought that the practice of 
lynching would have been stayed for a week at least 
—the following news was published in the New York 
Daily Tribune, August 16, 1903:— 



222 


America's Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


“Wants Blacks Kept Out. 

“Laporte, Ind., Aug. 15.—To prevent the set¬ 
tlement of any negro in Northwestern Indiana is the 
object of a movement begun by A. J. Bowser, editor 
of The Chesterton Tribune , in which lie is finding 
much sympathy and support. The county jail at 
Valparaiso was under heavy guard last Sunday, and 
the streets were filled with crowds of angry farmers 
and Normal School.students clamoring for the life 
of a negro tramp who on the previous clay had . 
assaulted and dangerously injured the wife of a 
fanner in Porter County. The councils of cool men 
prevailed, and no attack was made on the jail, but 
the intense excitement extended through the country 
districts, and did not subside for several days. This 
state of affairs led to the suggestion of Mr. Bowser. 

“Had the negro never been in the country, no 
such practice as this would have come into vogue.” 

“Bishop’s View of Lynching. 

“Cleveland, Sept. 17.—Bishop William M. 
Brown, of the Arkansas Diocese of the Episcopal 
Church, formerly an Ohioan, was in the city today 
cn route to Washington, D. C., to attend the Mission¬ 
ary Council of the Episcopal Church, and the Con¬ 
vention of the American House of Bishops. Speak¬ 
ing of the race problem, he expressed himself quite 
plainly. 

“ 'While I do not justify lynching, I can find no 
other remedy adequate to suppress the crime for 
which this has been made a punishment by the people 
of the South/ he said. 





Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


223 


“ T am a Northern man, and used to look with 
horror on lynching; but since I have been South, my 
eyes have been opened. Imprisonment does no good. 

“ ‘I am of' the opinion that it would be well to 
leave the solution of the negro question to the South¬ 
ern people; they know best what to do. 

“ ‘The enfranchisement of the negro has been a 
serious mistake. Very few of them have any convic¬ 
tions, and their votes are cast as a rule for the men 
who pay the most money.’ 

Women who have been assaulted by negroes are 
invariably in favor of the destruction, sometimes even 
the torture, of the assaulter. The following, in con¬ 
nection with the case of Mrs. Labduisse, set forth 
in Chapter’VIIJ, stands in evidence of this; it is from 
The New York Times , of November io, 1903:— 

“Pass Christian, Miss., Nov. 9.—Mrs. Peter 
Labouisse, the young matron of New York who was 
assaulted last Thursday by Sam Adams, a negro 
who was soon afterward lynched, spent the day in 
this resort. Although not injured in the struggle, 
Mrs. Labouisse's nerves are still completely unstrung. 
She has remained in her room since the experience. 

“ ‘It was only when I heard that that wretched 
creature was hanged that I began to experience a 
feeling of relief,’ said Mrs. Labouisse today. ‘I was 
so glad that the people had taken the law into their 
own hands. There was no doubt as to his identity. I 
don’t see how they could possibly have acted other¬ 
wise than they did.’ 

This case needs no further comment here. There 
is not one woman in five hundred who is strong 
enough to resist, in a lonely place by herself, the per- 





224 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


sistent attack of a burly, brutal and powerful negro. 
Unless aid comes quickly, the damnable fiend is cer¬ 
tain to be successful, overpower his intended victim 
and accomplish his purpose. 

Now, here are the opinions, in regard to the crime 
of lynching, of a judge of the Supreme Court of the 
United States; of a former President of the United 
States,—a man worthy of being listened to on any 
subject; an editor; an Episcopal bishop, and a young 
married woman who was the victim of an assault. 
These are not opinions of the past, but are, on the 
other hand, identical with those entertained by such 
persons at the present moment. Hundreds of people 
at this writing (November, 1914) agree with what 
Judge Brewer set forth; still other hundreds agree 
with what Colonel Roosevelt stated. The bishop and 
the editor would also have their following; and as to 
the poor, assaulted woman, there are thousands of her 
sex in the country today, any single one of whom 
would, without a second’s hesitation, advocate the 
burning alive of the negro who had been successful 
in such an assault or in such cases of rape. 

But all these opinions, all these lynchings, all the 
steps taken to impress upon the negroes the gravity 
of the crime, will have no more effect upon them in 
the future than it has had in the past. Assaults of 
negroes upon white women and lynchings will occur 
in the United States until the end of time, just so 
long as there are negro men and white women with 
us, and the whites and blacks are distributed as they 
are in the country at the present time. 

As I have said in a previous chapter, I am in no 
way an advocate of lynching; but I am an earnest 




Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


225 


advocate of the following practice, although I know 
there is no hope of carrying it out in one case in 
ten, maybe more:— 

When the negro is captured, he should immedi¬ 
ately be taken to the nearest court-house, and a legal 
trial be given him at once, or just as soon as judge 
and jury can be assembled. Every possible step 
should be taken to make a correct identification of the 
prisoner, even by the woman herself, if she has sur¬ 
vived his attack, or by such other evidence as may be 
forthcoming. If the negro’s guilt is proven abso¬ 
lutely, beyond all manner of doubt, his execution 
should not be stayed more than a few. hours following 
his trial, and this should be performed in the same 
manner as in the case of other executed criminals, 
duly tried in courts of law. In other words, I be¬ 
lieve the trial for this crime should be immediate; 
identification certain; the penalty death, and execution 
to take place on the same day as the trial. 

Do I believe that this practice and this procedure 
would exercise any deterrent effect with respect to 
the crime? No, I most emphatically do not. There 
are hundreds of negroes in this country today, any 
, one of whom would rape a white woman with the 
noose of the rope about his neck by which he was to 
be hanged at the completion of his act, and the fagots 
aflame, by which he was to be roasted alive while 
being strung up, in plain sight. In other words: 
lynching never has and never will act as a deterrent 
in such cases, where the men are full-blooded negroes 
and their victims Anglo-Saxon women. With almost 
any other race it might and doubtless in some cases 
does act as a deterrent, but not with the pure 

15 



226 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


Ethiopian of the race we have in millions in the 
United States. 

In this opinion I am fully borne out by the cases 
occurring every few days, in different sections of the 
country. 

Why is it, then, that the negro man in the United 
States, whether he be a low, brutal one, or an “old, 
trusted servant,” is not deterred by the only too fre¬ 
quent result of his crime? For the very reason that 
his sexual passions are so balanced psychologically, 
with respect to his mentality and will-power or the 
power of self-restraint, that when the opportunity 
presents itself (which is usually when he finds him¬ 
self alone with a white woman), he quickly loses all 
control of his sexual passion, and the usual assault 
ensues. This is not the case with the men of other 
races, but it is the case with many other animals below 
man,—the negro excepted. I could give some curious 
instances of this, even of animals as high in the system 
as rabbits and other forms. 

The legal handling of these cases as it should be 
done, and as I have given it as my opinion above it 
should be done, would have much to recommend it 
and practically nothing against it. It would satisfy 
the people and the victim as far as possible; it would 
snuff out, each time, one more of the kind that are 
a menace to any white woman with whom they may 
find themselves alone; and, what is very important, 
it would soon silence the criticism abroad that we are 
a nation given to torturing some of our criminals for 
certain crimes, without giving them even the benefit 
of a fair, legal trial. 

What is the radical remedy for this incurable pro- 




Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


22 7 


clivity on the part of the majority of the pure negroes 
in this country? There is but one, namely, complete 
segregation of the two races,—so complete that the 
oceans will stand between them forever. 

In order to emphasize the fearful extent of this 
most horrible and ever-present menace, it will be as 
well to take a glance at the number of negroes we have 
on our hands at this time. To present this informa¬ 
tion in the clearest manner possible, and at the same 
time have it bear the stamp of authority, I com¬ 
municated with the Chief Clerk of the United States 
Bureau of the Census (Washington, D. C.), who very 
kindly sent me copies of the Bulletins of the Thir¬ 
teenth Census of the United States: 1910. These 
are very complete documents, and present the popula¬ 
tions of the United States from every essential view¬ 
point, up to include that year. 1 From this great body 
of information, however, it will only be necessary to 
present such matter as will give the reader an accu¬ 
rate idea of the number of these negroes which we 
have upon our hands, as compared with the total pop¬ 
ulation of the United States. 

One of the Bulletins referred to above is a “Re¬ 
print of Chapter II, pages 77-119, of the Abstract of 
the Thirteenth Census,” and presents the following 
important data:— 

“General Summary: 1910 and 1900.—Table 1 
shows the number of persons of each color or race at 

1 It affords me pleasure to thank the Bureau of the Census for 
this assistance, and for the permission to use the maps, which occur 
in the above Bulletins, in the present work. The next census will 
not be taken until 1920, at which time the usual increase will be 
shown,—in so far as the negroes in this country are concerned,—un¬ 
less it be influenced by some war, insurrection, or epidemic of a 
fatal disease. 




228 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


the last two censuses, the total number of native and 
foreign-born inhabitants, and the number of whites 
distributed according to nativity and parentage. 

TABLE 1. 


CLASS OF 
POPULATION. 

NUMBER. 

increase: 1 
1900-1910 

PER CENT. 
OF TOTAL 
POPULATION. 

1910 

1900 

Number. 

Per 

cent. 

1910 

1900 

Total Population 

91,972,266 

75,994,575 

15,977,691 

21.0 

100.0 

100.0 

White. 

81,731,957 

66,809,196 

14,922,761 

22.3 

88.9 

87.9 

Negro . 

9,827,763 

8,833,994 

993,769 

11.2 

10.7 

11.6 

Other colored races.. 

412,546 

351,385 

61,161 

17.4 

0.4 

0.5 

Indian . 

265,683 

237,196 

28,487 

12.0 

0.3 

0.3 

Chinese . 

71,531 

89,863 

—18,332 

-20.4 

0.1 

0.1 

Japanese . 

72,157 

24,326 

47,831 

196.6 

0.1 

(“) 

All nthpr 

3 175 


3,175 


( 2 ) 


Total native . 

78,456,380 

65,653,299 

12,803,081 

19.5 

85.3 

86.4 

Total foreign born .. 

13,515,886 

10,341,276 

l 3,174,610 

30.7 

14.7 

13.6 

Total White. 

81,731,957 

66,809,196 

14,922,761 

22.3 

88.9 

87.9 

Native . 

68,386,412 

56,595,379 

11,791,033 

20.8 

74.4 

74.5 

Native parentage.. 

49,488,575 

40,949,362 

8,539,213 

20.9 

53.8 

53.9 

Foreign parentage. 

12,916,311 

10,632,280 

2,284,031 

21.5 

14.0 

14.0 

Mixed parentage .. 

5,981,526 

5,013,737 

967,789 

19.3 

6.5 

6.6 

Foreign born . 

13,345,545 

10,213,817 

3,131,728 

30.7 

14.5 

13 1 4 


1 A minus sign (—) denotes decrease. 2 Less than one-tenth of 1 per cent. 


“Of the population of the United States in 1910, 
81,731,957, or 88.9 per cent., were whites; 9,827,763, 
or 10.7 per cent., were negroes; and 412,546, or four- 
tenths of 1 per cent., were other colored races. 

“Of the total population, 78,456,380, or 85.3 per 
cent., were native and 13,515,886, or 14.7 per cent., 
foreign born, the latter consisting chiefly of whites. 

“The native white population numbered 68,386,- 
412, and constituted 83.7 per cent, of the white popu¬ 
lation and 74.4 per cent, of the total population of the 
country. The 13,345,545 foreign-born whites con¬ 
stituted 16.3 per cent, of the white population and 
14.5 per cent, of the total population. 

“Native whites of native parentage in 1910 num¬ 
bered 49,488,575, constituting 60.5 per cent, of the 













































Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


229 


white population and 53.8 per cent, of the total popula¬ 
tion. Native whites of foreign parentage formed 15.8 
per cent, of the white population and those of mixed 
parentage 7.3 per cent., the corresponding percentages 
based on the total population being 14 and 6.5, 
respectively. 

“Of the total increase of 15,977,691 in the popula¬ 
tion of the country between 1900 and 1910, the whites 
contributed 14,922,761, the negroes 993,769, and other 
races 61,161. The increase in the native population 
was 12,803,081, and that in the foreign born 3,174,- 
610, or about one-fifth of the total increase. 

“The percentage of increase for the whites, 22.3, 
was a little less than twice as high as that for the 
negroes, 11.2. This difference is partly due, however, 
to the direct or indirect effect of immigration upon 
the increase of the white population. The native 
white population increased 20.8 per cent, and the for¬ 
eign-born white 30.7 per cent. There was very little 
difference in the rates of increase for the three parent¬ 
age groups of the native white population.” 

The above table graphically exhibits the fearful 
contract we have upon our hands, in the matter of 
absorbing this mass of savage people through the 
proposed plan of miscegenation. No full-blooded 
American, of pure Anglo-Saxon ancestry, actuated 
by pride of race, national and family history, in the 
light of his country’s achievements, could for a 
moment favor such an infamous proposition. 

In Tables 2, 3, 5, and others, further light is thrown 
on this subject; they are as follows:— 

“White and Negro Population. —The number 
of whites and negroes in the total population of the 




230 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro 


United States at each census from 1790 to 1910 is 
given in Table 2. 

TABLE 2. 


CENSUS 

YEAR. 

\ 

NUMBER. 

PER CENT. OF TOTAL. 

Total 

population. 

White. 

Negro. 

Indian, 
Chinese, 
Japanese, 
and all 
other. 

White. 

Negro. 

Ind., 

Chi., 

Jap., 

and 

all 

other. 

1910. 

91,972,266 

81,731,957 

9,827,763 

412,546 

88.9 

10.7 

0.4 

1900. 

75,994,575 

66,809,196 

8,833,994 

351,385 

87.9 

11.6 

0.5 

1890. 

62,947,714 

55,101,258 

7,488,676 

357,780 

87.5 

11.9 

0.6 

1880. 

50,155,783 

43,402,970 

6,580,793 

172,020 

86.5 

13.1 

0.3 

1870 1 . 

38,558,371 

33,589,377 

4,880,009 

88,985 

87.1 

12.7 

0.2 

1870 *... 

39 , 818.449 

34 , 337,292 

5 , 392,172 

88,985 

86.2 

13.5 

0.2 

1860. 

31,443,321 

26,922,537 

4,441,830 

78,954 

85.6 

14.1 

0.3 

1850. 

23,191,876 

19,553,068 

3,638,808 


84.3 

15.7 


1840. 

17,069,453 

14,195,805 

2,873,648 


83.2 

16.8 


1830. 

12,866,020 

10,537,378 

2,328,642 


81.9 

18.1 


1820. 

9,638,453 

7,866,797 

1,771,656 


81.6 

18.4 


1810. 

7,239,881 

5,862,073 

1,377,808 


81.0 

19.0 


1800. 

5,308,483 

4,306,446 

1,002,037 


81.1 

18.9 


1790. 

3,929,214 

3,172,006 

757,208 


80.7 

19.3 








1 As enumerated. 

2 Estimated corrected figures. See explanation in text. 


“Table 3 gives the decennial increase, both abso¬ 
lute and relative, in the white and in the negro popula¬ 
tion for each decade from 1790 to 1910. 

TABLE 3. 


DECADEi 

INCREASE. 

PER CENT. OF 
INCREASE. 

Total. 

White. 

Negro. 

Total. 

White. 

Negro 

1900-1910. 

15,977,691 

14,922,761 

993,769 

21.0 

22.3 

11.2 

1890-1900. 

13,046,861 

11,707,938 

1,345,318 

20.7 

21.2 

18.0 

1880-1889. 

1 12,466,467 

1 11,580,920 

1 889,247 

24.9 

26.7 

13.5 

1870-1880. 

11.597,412 

9,813,593 

1,700,7S4 

30.1 

29.2 

34.9 

1870-1880 2 . 

10 . 337,334 

9 , 065,678 

1 , 188,621 

26.0 

26.4 

22.0 

1860-1870 2 . 

8 , 375,128 

7 , 414,755 

950,342 

26.6 

27.5 

21.3 

1860-1870. 

7,115,050 

6,666,840 

438,179 

22.6 

24.8 

9.9 

1850-1860. 

8,251,445 

7,369,469 

803,022 

35.6 

37.7 

22.1 

1840-1850 . 

6,122.423 

5,357.263 

765,160 

35.9 

37.7 

26.6 

1830-1840. 

4,203,433 

3,658,427 

545,006 

32.7 

34.7 

23.4 

1820-1830. 

3,227,567 

2,670,581 

556,986 

33.5 

33.9 

31.4 

1810-1820. 

2,398,572 

2,004,724 

393,848 

33.1 

34.2 

28.6 

1800-1810. 

1,931,398 

1,555,627 

375,771 

36.4 

36.1 

37.5 

1790-1800. 

1,379,269 

1,134,440 

244,829 

35.1 

35.8 

32.3 


1 Exclusive of 325,464 persons (among whom were 117,368 whites and 
18,636 negroes) specially enumerated in 1890 in Indian Territory and on 
Indian reservations. 

2 Estimated corrected increase. 


























































































Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


231 


“The addition to the total white population in the 
decade 1900-1910 was considerably greater than dur¬ 
ing any other decade and indeed exceeded the total 
white population of the country in 1840. The increase 
in the negro population, however, was less than that 
from 1890 to 1900 and was much less than that from 
1870 to 1880 as based on the returns. 

“If, however, the irregularity in the increase for 
the decades 1860-1870 and 1870-1880, due to the 
defective enumeration of the population in 1870, be 
corrected to correspond with the estimated population 
of 1870, the increase of negroes from 1870 to 1880 
becomes less marked, although still greater than that 
from 1900 to 1910. 

“Assuming the estimates for 1870 to be approxi¬ 
mately correct, each decade since 179° h as shown for 
the white population an absolute gain larger than that 
for the decade immediately preceding, and the percent¬ 
age of increase for the white population has exceeded 
that for the negro population in every decade since 
1790 except 1800-1810. In the 50 years 1860-1910 
the white population increased 203.6 per cent, and the 
negro population 121.3 per cent. 

“Black and Mulatto Population. —Table 5 
gives a classification of the negro population as black 
or mulatto for the several censuses at which this dis¬ 
tinction has been made. 

“No data are available for 1880 or 1900. Of the 
9,827,763 negroes enumerated in 1910, 7>777>°77 
were returned as black and 2,050,686 as mulatto. 
In 1850 the percentage of mulattoes was 11.2. It had 
advanced but little in 1870, being only 12 per cent., 
but since 1870 the proportion of mulattoes in the 



232 America's Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


TABLE 5. 


CENSUS YEAR. 1 

NEORO POPULATION. 

PER CENT. OF 
TOTAL. 

Total. 

Black. 

Mulatto. 

Black. 

Mulatto. 

1910. 

9,827,763 

7,777,077 

2,050,686 

79.1 

20.9 

1890. 

27,488,676 

6,337,980 

1,132,060 

84.8 

15.2 

1870. 

4,880,009 

4,295,960 

584,049 

88.0 

12.0 

1860. 

4,441,830 

3,853,467 

588,363 

86.8 

13.2 

1850. 

3,638,80S 

3,233,057 

405,751 

88.8 

11.2 


1 No data for 18S0 or 1900. 

2 Includes 18,636 negroes enumerated in Indian Territory, not distinguished 
as black or mulatto. 


total negro population appears to have increased very 
materially, reaching 15.2 per cent, in 1890 and 20.9 
per cent, in 1910. Considerable uncertainty neces¬ 
sarily attaches to this classification, however, since the 
accuracy of the distinction made depends largely upon 
the judgment and care of the enumerators. More¬ 
over, the fact that the definition of the term 'mulatto’ 
adopted at different censuses has not been entirely 
uniform may affect the comparability of the figures 
in some degree. In 1870, as in 1910, however, the 
term was applied to all persons having any perceptible 
trace of negro blood, excepting, of course, negroes of 
pure blood. 

“Population by Color or Race, Nativity, and 
Parentage.— The population of the divisions and 
states in 1910 and 1900 is classified in Table 12 by 
color or race, and in Table 13 by nativity and 
parentage. 

“The general geographic distribution of the prin¬ 
cipal race, nativity, and parentage classes of the popu¬ 
lation in 1910 is indicated in Table 11. 

“Of the total white population in 1910, about two- 
thirds (54,640,209, or 66.9 per cent.) were in the four 





























Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


233 


TABLE 11.— Pee Cent. Distribution by Geographic Divisions : 1910. 





White. 




SECTION AND DIVISION. 



Native. 



Ind., 

Chi., 

Total 

popu¬ 

lation. 

Total. 

Native 

parent¬ 

age. 

For¬ 
eign or 
mixed 
parent¬ 
age. 

For¬ 

eign 

born. 

Negro. 

Jap., 

and 

all 

other. 

United States. 

100.0 

100.0 

100.0 

100.0 

100.0 

100.0 

100.0 

The North . 

60.6 

66.9 

55.3 

84.5 

84.8 

10.5 

21.6 

New England . 

7.1 

7.9 

5.3 

10.9 

13.6 

0.7 

1.4 

Middle Atlantic . 

21.0 

23.1 

17.1 

29.6 

36.2 

4.3 

4.3 

East North Central .. 

19.8 

21.9 

19.7 

27.0 

23.0 

3.1 

5.4 

West North Central... 

12.7 

13.9 

13.2 

17.0 

12.1 

2.5 

10.6 

The South . 

32.0 

25.1 

37.5 

6.7 

5.4 

89.0 

22.4 

South Atlantic . 

13.3 

9.9 

14.8 

2.3 

2.2 

41.8 

2.6 

East South Central .. 

9.1 

7.0 

11.0 

1.1 

0.7 

27.0 

0.7 

West South Central .. 

9.6 

8.2 

11.7 

3.2 

2.6 

20.2 

19.1 

The- West . 

7.4 

8.0 

7.2 

8.8 

9.7 

0.5 

56.0 

Mountain . 

2.9 

3.1 

3.0 

3.3 

3.3 

0.2 

22.2 

Pacific . 

4.6 

4.9 

4.3 

5.6 

6.5 

0.3 

33.8 


northern divisions, and 'of the negro population, ap¬ 
proximately nine-tenths (8,749,427, or 89 per cent.) 
were in the three southern divisions.” 

Table 12 of the Bulletin is altogether too extensive 
to incorporate here, as one may well imagine, for it 
presents the census for 1910 and 1900, compared with 
respect to color or race by divisions and states. 

Without giving explicit figures, the maps I have 
borrowed from these Bulletins present this informa¬ 
tion in sufficient detail and clearness. 

This very instructive Bulletin gives three other 
such maps as the one here shown in Fig. 47, exhibiting 
the “Percentage of Foreign-born Whites in the Total 
Population: 1910;” the “Percentage of Native 
Whites of Foreign or Mixed Parentage in the Total 
Population: 1910,” and the “Percentage of Foreign- 























































234 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


born Whites of Foreign or Mixed Parentage Com¬ 
bined in the Total Population: 1910.” 

These several maps show most clearly, beyond all 
doubt, that the immense number of white immigrants, 
annually flowing into the country, are practically en¬ 
tirely avoiding the Southern States of the whole 
southeast section of the United States; and the two 



Fig. 47. —Percentage of Negroes in the Total Population: 1910. 


other maps (page 85 of the Bulletin) go to show that 
this likewise applies to those of foreign and mixed 
parentage in the country. In other words, the foreign 
immigration, flowing into the United States, is care¬ 
fully avoiding the States of Virginia, North and South 
Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, 
and Mississippi. So that the white population of these 
several States has the negro on its hands, and is, at 
the present time, that section of the country most in¬ 
terested in the solution of the “negro problem”—as 
any woman in the “black belt” will tell you! 















Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


235 


In further support of this, a part of Table 14 is 
here introduced, giving the White and Negro Com¬ 
parison for the per cent, distribution by divisions and 
States (19101900):— 

TABLE 14. 


DIVISION AND'STATE. 

White. 

Negro, 

1910 

1900 

1910 

1900 

United States . 

88.9 

87.9 

10.7 

11.6 

Geographic Divisions: 





New England . 

98.9 

98.8 

1.0 

1.1 

Middle Atlantic .... 

97.7 

97.8 

2.2 

2.1 

East North Central.. 

98.2 

98.3 

1.6 

1.6 

West North Central. 

97.5 97.3 

2.1 

2.3 

South Atlantic . 

66.2 64.2 

33.7 35.7 

East South Central. 

68.4 

66.8 

31.5 

33.1 

West South Central. 

76.5 

73.0 

22.6 

25.9 

Mountain . 

95.7 

94.3 

0.8 

0.9 

Pacific . 

96.0 

94.9 

0.7 

0.6 

New England: 





Maine . 

99.7 

99.7 

0.2 

0.2 

New Hampshire .... 

99.8 

99.8 

0.1 

0.2 

Vermont . 

99.5 

99.7 

0.5 

0.2 

Massachusetts . 

98.8 

98.7 

1.1 

1.1 

Rhode Island . 

98.1 

97.8 

1.8 

2.1 

Connecticut . 

98.6 

98.2 

1.4 

1.7 

Middle Atlantic : 





New York . 

98.4 

98.4 

1.5 

1.4 

New Jersey . 

96.4 

96.2 

3.5 

3.7 

Pennsylvania . 

97.4 

97.5 

2.5 

2.5 

East North Central : 





Ohio . 

97.6 

97.7 

2.3 

2.3 

Indiana . 

97.7 

97.7 

2.2 

2.3 

Illinois . 

98.0 

98.2 

1.9 

1.8 

Michigan . 

99.1 

99.1 

0.6 

0.7 

Wisconsin . 

99.4 

99.5 

0.1 

0.1 

West North Central : 





Minnesota ♦*•••••■••♦ 

99.2 

99.2 

0.3 

0.3 

Iowa .. 

99.3 

99.4 

0.7 

0.6 

Missouri . 

95.2 

94.8 

4.8 

5.2 

North Dakota . 

98.8 

97.7 

0.1 

1 0.1 

South Dakota . 

96.6 

94.8 

0.1 

0.1 

Nebraska . 

99.0 

99.1 

0.6 

0.6 

Kansas . 

96.7 

96.3 

' 3.2 

3.5 


DIVISION AND STATE. 


South Atlantic : 

Delaware . 

Maryland . 

District of Columbia. 

Virginia . 

West Virginia . 

North Carolina . 

South Carolina .... 

Georgia . 

Florida . 

East South Central : 

Kentucky . 

Tennessee . 

Alabama . 

Mississippi .. 

West South Central : 

Arkansas . 

Louisiana . 

Oklahoma 1 . 

Texas . 

Mountain : 

Montana •••••••••••«* 

Idaho . 

Wyoming . 

Colorado ■•••••••••••• 

New Mexico . 

Arizona ............ 

Utah . 

Nevada . 

Pacific : 

Washington . 

Oregon . 

California . 


White. 


1910 


1900 


Negro. 


1910 1900 


84.6 

83.4 

15.4 

16.6 

82.0 

80.2 

17.9 

19.8 

71.3 

68.7 

28.5 

31.1 

67 4 

64.3 

32.6 

35.6 

94.7 

95.5 

5.3 

4.5 

68.0 

66.7 

31.6 

33.0 

44.8 

41.6 

55.2 

58.4 

54.9 

53.3 

45.1 

46-7 

58.9 

56.3 

41.0 

43.7 

88.6 

86.7 

11.4 

13.3 

78.3 

76.2 

21.7 

23.8 

57.5 

54.7 

42.5 

45.2 

43.7 

41.3 

56.2 

58.5 

71.8 

72.0 

28.1 

28.0 

56.8 

52.8 

43.1 

47.1 

87.2 

84.8 

8.3 

7.0 

82.2 

79.6 

17.7 

20.4 

95.9 

93.0 

0.5 

0-6 

98.0 

95.5 

0.2 

0.2 

96.1 

96.2 

1.5 

1.0 

98.0 

98.0 

1.4 

1.6 

93.1 

92.3 

0.5 

0.8 

83.9 

75.6 

1.0 

1.5 

98.2 

98.5 

0.3 

0.2 

90.7 

83.6 

0.6 

0.3 

97.1 

95.8 

0.5 

0.5 

97.4 

95.4 

0.2 

0.3 

95.0 

94.5 

0.9 

O.7 


i Less than one-tenth of 1 per cent. 


This Bulletin also gives us a number of most in¬ 
structive diagrams, showing at a glance the distribu¬ 
tion of the negroes in the United States, and their 
relative proportions with respect to the white popula¬ 
tion, both in the urban and rural districts and places, 
etc. It is not necessary to reproduce any of these 



























































































































236 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


diagrams here; for, should the reader require such 
extended information, it can easily be obtained from 
the Bulletin itself, which, as I say, is almost exhaustive 
in this respect. 

With this immense horde of negroes upon our 
hands, there comes up another question for considera¬ 
tion and one of the most vital importance. 



Fig. 48 .—Population per Square Mile by States : 1910. 


How is the hygiene of the country influenced by 
these negroes ? There is a large literature now extant 
on this subject, much of which, during the last few 
years, I have read. It can easily be shown that the 
race, as a whole, is an extremely uncleanly one. To 
appreciate this fact, the investigator needs but to make 
a house-to-house survey of negro homes in any of our 
cities, in the rural districts, or on any Southern plan¬ 
tation. The great bulk of their homes or other habita¬ 
tions are filthy and disease-breeding. I would say that 
it was the case in at least 85 per cent, of them. 










Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


237 


Few groups of diseases undermine the health of a 
nation more thoroughly than the so-called venereal 
diseases, and the negro in this country is the dis¬ 
seminator of these very diseases,—a fact due to his 
promiscuous carnal relations among all classes of 
women; to his lack of cleanliness; ignorance of infec¬ 
tion and methods of prevention, and the renewal of 
his immoral practices before a cure is effected. This 
knowledge, now so abundantly spread before us, 
would alone be sufficient to segregate all the negroes 
in the Government departments and elsewhere, as well 
as in all hotels, sleeping cars, places of public comfort, 
and other resorts of any and all characters, built and 
maintained by the whites. 

A few years ago, I read two excellent articles on 
this subject, compiled by Mr. Robert W. Wooley, now 
of the U. S. Auditor’s Office ( Pearson’s Magazine, 
January and February, 1910), who based his facts, in 
regard to the matter of the negroes spreading the 
venereal diseases—and especially syphilis—on the 
published writings of the most eminent syphilologists 
and syphilographers in the United States. What 
Mr. Wooley brought to the notice of the American 
public on this question is simply appalling. And, not¬ 
withstanding this showing, such negroes and mulat- 
toes as William Monroe Trotter, Booker T. Wash¬ 
ington, and scores of others of their kind, cannot be 
made to see that this fact, as one among many, is 
sufficient to account for their being kept out of public 
places, and debarred from participating in the social 
functions given at the White House. 

As I write these lines, Doctor James Bardin, of 
the University of Virginia, invites my attention to an 




238 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


address given by Dr. Robert Wilson, Jr., of Charles¬ 
ton, S. C., at the symposium on tuberculosis of the 
Southern Medical Association, which formally opened 
its eighth annual convention at Richmond, Va., on 
the ioth of November, 1914. Dr. Wilson said that, 
in the relation of the negro to disease, the South had 
a health problem of the very highest importance. He 
said that it was the clear duty of the South and jus¬ 
tice to the negro to ascertain, by careful clinical and 
post-mortem study, if the commonly accepted belief 
that the negro is a menace to the health of the white 
race is true. He recognized that the negro had 
sowed the seeds of certain diseases in the South, and 
was particularly a carrier of the germs of malaria 
and tuberculosis. Special attention, he thought, 
should be paid to the relation of the negro to the 
spread of pellagra, since statistics from Southern 
States and cities show that he is more susceptible to 
this disease than the whites. 

Doctor Wilson, with great propriety, might have 
been asked at the close of his address as to what his 
line of treatment would be, were he called into a case 
where the patient was suffering severely from the 
presence of a tapeworm. He probably would promptly 
answer: “Get rid of the parasite.” I agree with 
him; and in its broader sense, this applies to the treat¬ 
ment of the “negro problem.” 

Since writing this brief reference to Dr. Wilson’s 
address, he has very generously forwarded me the 
MS. of it entire. And as this contains so much on 
the matter here being discussed, and is so important 
a document for physicians everywhere, I am taking 




Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


239 


the liberty of reproducing the address here as it was 
delivered. Dr. Wilson said:— 

“So many of the peculiar problems of Southern 
medicine are influenced in greater or less degree by 
the close association which of necessity exists be¬ 
tween the two races in this part of the country, that I 
need offer no excuse for introducing the work of 
our section by a short discussion of some of the 
medical aspects of the negro. I appreciate thor¬ 
oughly the magnitude of the subject and do not 
propose to attempt anything like a full and compre¬ 
hensive treatment. I wish merely to point out very 
briefly the importance of the negro from the medical 
viewpoint, and to urge upon you the need of careful 
and accurate knowledge of his medical characteris¬ 
tics, indicating some of the lines of study which 
might prove profitable. 

“While some work has been done, notably by 
Hoffman in his treatise on the ‘Race Traits and 
Tendencies of the American Negro/ and in shorter 
publications by a number of writers, we are still very 
far from accurate knowledge based upon careful 
scientific work. Some of our conceptions are only 
unproved assumptions resting upon no more secure 
foundation than general impressions and current 
opinions. The negro is a large factor in our Southern 
life, economically as well as socially and politically, 
entering intimately into our domestic relations, 
coming into closest contact with us in practically 
every walk of life, and it is our clear duty to ourselves 
as well as to him to ascertain if the commonly ac¬ 
cepted conceptions and beliefs be true, and to what 
extent he reacts upon the community at large. 



240 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro . 


“That the negro is a public health problem of the 
highest importance can scarcely be gainsaid. In the 
words of Sir Harry Johnston, 2 the negro 'is a hive 
of dangerous germs, perhaps has been the greatest 
disease-spreader among the other subspecies of Homo 
sapiens.’ 

“Coming from tropical Africa to America, he 
brought with him the diseases which afflicted him at 
home, to some of which he himself seems to have 
acquired no little degree of resistance, and sowed 
them in the Caucasian. Leprosy, hemoglobinuric 
fever, filariasis, uncinariasis, and yellow fever were 
probably introduced by the negro. Tuberculosis has 
found a fruitful soil in his tissues, rendering him a 
serious menace in our homes. Whether he is racially 
predisposed to tubercular disease, or whether, as I 
believe, his environment and habits will explain its 
prevalence, need not be discussed here; the important 
fact is that he has become a great carrier of tuber¬ 
culosis. It is the general opinion that the negro is less 
susceptible to malaria than the white man. Hoffman, 3 
however, adduces 'abundant proof that the negroes 
of today are far more liable to malarial and typhoid 
fever than the whites;’ and Terry’s 4 figures for the 
city of Jacksonville, covering the five-year period 
1908-1912, show an average death rate from malaria 
per 100,000 of population among the whites of 1.72 as 
against 8.3 among the negroes. Von Esdorf 5 has 
pointed out that negroes are much more frequently 

2 Johnston, Sir Harry: “The Negro in the New World.” 

3 “Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro” 

4 “The Negro: A Public Health Problem.” Southern Medical 
Journal, June, 1914. 

5 Southern Medical Journal, June, 1914. 





Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


241 


carriers of malarial infection than the whites, and it is 
highly probable that this is especially true of negro 
children in the rural districts. The important bearing 
which this must have upon the great problem of 
eradicating malaria should stimulate systematic re¬ 
search in order to ascertain the extent to which it is 
true. 

“That the negro is a frequent carrier of filarial 
infection is, I believe, undoubtedly a fact. Some 
years ago I endeavored to ascertain the proportion of 
filaria-bearing negroes admitted to the Roper Hos¬ 
pital in Charleston, selecting for examination only 
those who gave no history of chyluria, and who pre¬ 
sented no signs of elephantiasis. The investigation 
was cut short almost as soon as begun; but of about 
35 cases examined, 18 per cent, were found to harbor 
the parasites. This work recently has been carried 
on upon a more extended scale and with more refined 
methods by Dr. F. B. Johnson, who has obtained some 
interesting results. 

“With the ever-growing importance of the pel¬ 
lagra problem, the negro’s relation to this disease 
must receive attention. The relative prevalence of 
pellagra among whites and negroes, the relations 
which exist between the habits and environment of 
the negro and the incidence of the disease are profit¬ 
able subjects for investigation. 

“In the following table is shown the death rate 
from pellagra for both whites and colored per 100,000 
of population in three Southern cities, and in the 
three States in which the returns are tabulated sep¬ 
arately for the two races:— 


16 



242 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


Table I. 

Deaths from Pellagra per 100,000 of Population. 



Charleston. 

Augusta. 

Jacksonville. 


w. 

C. 

w. 

C. 

w. 

c. 

1906 .... 

• • • 3-5 

6.7 

4 4 4 4 

4 4 4 4 

4 4 4 4 

4 4 4 4 

1909 .... 

••• 3-5 

33-9 

• 444 

4 4 4 4 

4 4 4 4 

4 4 4 4 

1910 .... 

. . . 18.0 

38.6 

397 

l6.2 

4 4 4 4 

4 4 4 4 

1911 .... 

... 28.5 

76.6 

105.4 

324 

l6.6 

9.6 

1912 .... 

17.6 

138.8 

48.4 

59-6 

19.2 

33-6 

1913 .... 

• • • 35-2 

149.0 

32.1 

59-0 

27.2 

11.6 


Kentucky. 

Maryland. North Carolina. 

w. 

c. 

w. c. 

w. 

c. 

1910 . 2.8 

2.7 

4444 4444 

5-3 

4.2 

1911 . 2.8 

2.7 

0-7 1.2 

74 

8.9 

1912 . 4.2 

6.7 

O.4 1.2 

5-5 

5-9 

The averages are 
Charleston. 

' as follows 
1908-1913, 

4 

4 

Whites, 17.7 

Negro, 

73-9 

Augusta . 

1910-1913, 

Whites, 56.4 

Negro, 

41.8 

Jacksonville. 

1912-1913, 

Whites, 21.0 

Negro, 

18.2 

Kentucky. 

1911-1912, 

Whites, 3.5 

Negro, 

47 

Maryland . 

1911-1912, 

Whites, .55 

Negro, 

1.2 

North Carolina .... 

1910-1912, 

Whites, 6.0 

Negro, 

6-3 


"The high death rate in Charleston and Augusta 
may depend upon a heavy influx of negroes from the 
country, or possibly upon conditions which are pecul¬ 
iar to these cities. While these quotations are not 
extensive enough to be convincing, it is nevertheless 
of interest to note that in two of the cities, and all 
of the three States, the negro mortality from pellagra 
is in excess of the mortality among the whites. A 
comprehensive comparative study of the disease in the 
two races might throw important light upon some 
of its phases. 

“In approaching the subject of syphilis in the 
negro, there is especial need to guard ourselves 

















Some Previously Discussed Questions. 243 

against preconceived notions. It is the prevailing 
opinion that practically every negro who has reached 
middle life is syphilitic, an opinion which finds sup¬ 
port in the exceedingly lax moral standards of the 
race. This opinion may be true, but I have not been 
able to find any definite and exact data upon which it 
is based. Even if syphilis be as prevalent among the 
negroes as is commonly believed, they do not seem 
to suffer in the same degree as the whites from its 
evil consequences. Keyes 0 remarks that ‘negroes, 
though utterly careless about treatment, are relatively 
immune to syphilis, and rarely exhibit syphilitic 
lesions.’ Fox * 7 concludes from his studies of skin 
diseases in the negro that while syphilis is more com¬ 
mon than in the whites, it is ‘probably not more viru¬ 
lent;’ and Hazen 8 is ‘convinced that syphilis is not 
more prevalent among them than among the whites.’ 
David Livingstone 9 makes the following interesting 
observation: ‘A certain loathsome disease, which 
decimates the North American Indians, and threatens 
extirpation to the South Sea Islanders, dies out in the 
interior of Africa without the aid of medicine; and 
the Bangwaketse, who brought it from the west coast, 
lost it when they came into their own land southwest 
of Kolobeng. It seems incapable of permanence in 
any form in persons of pure African blood anywhere 
in the center of the country. In persons of mixed 
blood it is otherwise; and the virulence of the second¬ 
ary symptoms seemed to be, in all cases that came 
under my care, in exact proportion to the greater or 

8 “Syphilis.” 

7 “Observations on Skin Diseases in the Negro.” 

8 The Journal of the American Medical Association, August 8, 1914. 

9 “Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa.” 




244 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


less amount of European blood in the patient. Among 
the Corannas and Griquas of mixed blood it produces 
the same ravages as in Europe. Among the half- 
blood Portuguese it is equally frightful in its inroads 
on the system; but in the pure Negro of the central 
parts it is quite incapable of permanence.’ 

“Sir Richard Burton 10 expresses similar views: 
'As might be expected among an ignorant and de¬ 
bauched race coming in direct contact with semicivil¬ 
ization, the lues has found its way from the Island 
of Zanzibar to Ujiji, and into the heart of Africa. 

The disease, however, dies out and has 
not taken root in the people as among the devoted 
races of North America and the South Sea Islands.’ 

“The observation of Livingstone, that the viru¬ 
lence of syphilis seems to vary directly in proportion 
with the mixture of European blood, may have an 
important bearing upon the prevalence and severity of 
the disease in the American negro. While it is rather 
difficult to separate the mulatto from pure negroes 
always, it might be done in our clinics with sufficient 
accuracy to make the results of some value. 

“An examination of the vital statistics of the cities 
and States already mentioned may throw a little side¬ 
light upon this uncertain subject, although no definite 
conclusion can be drawn. Turn for example to Table 
II, showing the comparative death rates from disease 
of the arteries, including aneurism, and from organic 
heart disease, which are selected on account of their 
frequent association with syphilis; for, as Osier * 11 
states: ‘The infection with which aneurism is espe- 

10 Burton, Sir Richard: “Lake Regions of Central Africa.” 

11 “The Principles and Practice of Medicine.” 




Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


245 


daily connected is syphilis,’ and lues far more often 
attacks the aortic segments than those of the mitral 
ring. 

Table II. 


Deaths from Disease of Arteries, Including Aneurism, per 

100,000 of Population. 



Charleston. 

Augusta. 

Jacksonville. 


w. c. 

w. 

c. 

w. 

c. 

1909. 

73.9 64.6 

* ♦ • • 

• • • • 

• € • • 

• • • • 

1910. 

82.8 61.2 

13.2 

32-5 

• • • • 

• • • • 

1911 . 

57 -o 73-2 

14.9 

32.0 

9-5 

9.1 

1912. 

63.7 58.1 

257 

36-3 

21.2 

I 7-5 

1913. 

324 97-2 

» I t • 

• • • « 

• ♦ • • 

• • • • 


Kentucky. 

Maryland. North Carolina. 


w. c. 

w. 

C. 

w. 

C. 

1910 . 

f • • • • » t • 

i 5-9 

12.6 

i -3 

18.3 

1911 . 

9.7 12.1 

19.7 

20.4 

2.0 

2.0 

1912 . 

12.6 17.6 

26.3 

23-3 

2.2 

1.9 

The averages are as follows 

• 

• 




Charleston . .. 

.1909-1913, 

Whites, 61.9 

Negro, 

70.8 

Augusta . 

.1910-1913, 

Whites, 17.9 

Negro, 

33-6 

Jacksonville . 

. 1912-1913, 

Whites, 15.3 

Negro, 

* 3-3 

Kentucky .... 

. I9II-I9I2, 

Whites, 11.15 

Negro, 

14.8 

Maryland .... 

. I9IO-I9I2, 

Whites, 20.6 

Negro, 

l8.7 

North Carolina 

.... I9IO-I9I2, 

Whites, 1.8 

Negro, 

7-4 


“In Jacksonville and in Maryland the white death 
rate was higher than the negro; in other cities and 
States the negro death rate was higher, considerably 
so in Augusta and in N. Carolina. These statistics 
perhaps do not cover a sufficient number of years, 
neither do they include a sufficient number of cities, 
to be of very great significance; still they do suggest 
that the grave effects of syphilis upon the arteries are 
not as frequent in the negro as we might expect if 
the disease is as prevalent as we are accustomed to 















246 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


believe, or if the negro is equally susceptible to this 
particular manifestation of lues as the white man. 

“In the following table the comparative death 
rates from organic heart disease are shown:— 

Table III. 

Deaths from Organic Heart Disease per 100,000 of Population. 


Charleston. Augusta. Jacksonville. 

W. C. W. C. W. C. 

1 pop ....... 151.5 417.8 .... .... .... .... 

ipio. 151.2 332.0 7p.4 146.6 . 

ipn . 160.6 513.0 87.8 216.4 119.6 179.8 

1912 . 127.3 461.6 119.1 256.7 79.2 128.4 

19*3 . 70.4 3I4.3 80.9 140.7 75.7 105.2 

Kentucky. Maryland. North Carolina. 

W. C. W. C. W. C. 

1910 . 124.3 33 6 -4 14-3 3°-7 

1911 . 74.4 179.1 127.5 212.2 15.2 38.4 

1912 . 80.3 187.7 135-5 208.4 16.2 35.9 

The averages are as follows:— 

Charleston.1909-1913, White, 132.2 Negro, 407.7 

Augusta.1910-1913, White, 91.8 Negro, 190.1 

Jacksonville .1911-1913, White, 91.5 Negro, 137.8 

Kentucky .1911-1912, White, 77.3 Negro, 183.4 

Maryland .1910-1912, White, 129.1 Negro, 253.3 


North Carolina .. .1910-1912, White, 15.2 Negro, 34.9 

“The excess of negro over white deaths from this 
class of cases is uniformly very great. The vital 
statistics tables do not enumerate the aortic and the 
mitral deaths separately, and consequently no con¬ 
clusion can be drawn as to their relative frequency; 
but my impression, drawn from my experience in the 
hospital wards, is that the mitral lesions are largely 
in excess of the aortic among negroes. If this opinion 
be correct it will give support to the views expressed 
















Some Previously Discussed Questions . 


247 


in connection with the statistics relative to arterial 
disease. 

“Acute and chronic nephritis claim a large share 
of negro deaths, and everywhere the preponderance 
over white deaths is very marked, as will be seen bv 
reference to the following table:— 

Table IV. 

Deaths from Acute Nephritis and Chronic Nephritis per 

100,000 of Population. 

ACUTE NEPHRITIS. 

Charleston. Augusta. Jacksonville. 

w. c. w. c. w. c. 

l 9°9 . 24.6 81.5 •••• •••• •••• **** 

1910 . 39.6 90.2 30.88 48.87 * * • • • • • • 

1911 . 21.4 93.2 21.95 10.82 .... .... 

1912 . 21.2 116.2 11.17 105.34 25.36 24.46 

1913 . 24.6 97.2 7.36 63.56 21.2 26.29 

Kentucky. Maryland. North Carolina. 

w. c. w. c. w. c. 

1910 . .... 10.9 28.1 1.7 2.3 

1911 . 49 14-3 11 -9 3°*6 0.9 2.6 

1912 . 6.3 10.9 13.6 30.7 1.6 3.0 

CHRONIC NEPHRITIS. 

Charleston. Augusta. Jacksonville. 

W. C. W. C. W. C. 

1909 . 218.4 295.5 .... .... .... .... 

1910 . 190.8 364.2 II4-7 108.6 .... .... 

1911 . 232.0 413.1 144.87 180.17 •••• •••• 

1912 . 194.6 355.0 201.1 192.36 156.55 223.22 

1913 . 225.3 291.6 165.6 263.32 154*53 172*28 

Kentucky. Maryland. North Carolina. 

W. C. W. C. W. C. 

1910 . •••• iii*6 1 35-2 1.2 16.7 

1911 . 56*2 87.5 104.8 148.4 10.8 20.0 

1912 . 62.0 115.2 111.6 172.1 13.6 20.6 



















248 America's Greatest Problem: The Negro . 


Table IV. ( Concluded .) 

The averages are as follows:— 

ACUTE NEPHRITIS. 


Charleston.1909-1913, White, 26.2 Negro, 95.6 

Augusta.1910-1913, White, 17.8 Negro, 57.1 

Jacksonville.1912-1913, White, 23.2 Negro, 25.3 

Kentucky.1911-1912, White, 5.6 Negro, 12.6 

Maryland .1910-1912, White, 12.1 Negro, 29.8 

North Carolina.1910-1912, White, 1.4 Negro, 2.6 

CHRONIC NEPHRITIS. 

Charleston .1909-1913, White, 212.2 Negro, 343.8 

Augusta.1910-1913, White, 156.5 Negro, 186.1 

Jacksonville.1912-1913, White, 155.5 .Negro, 197.7 

Kentucky.1911-1912, White, 59.1 Negro, 101.3 

Maryland.1910-1912, White, 109.3 Negro, 151.9 

North Carolina.1910-1912, White, 8.5 Negro, 19.1 


“His extremely high mortality from the combined 
cardio-vascular-renal diseases is one of the most strik¬ 
ing features of the negro, medically considered. We 
are not yet in a position to assign a cause. Perhaps 
his apparent susceptibility to many of the acute infec¬ 
tions is largely responsible, and perhaps his mode of 
living plays an important part. Possibly, too, we are 
in error when we assume that the negro is the 
physiological counterpart of the white man. 

“If we are to solve these problems we must first 
break ourselves of the habit of taking things for 
granted, and accepting assumptions for facts. In 
studying the negro we should begin by separating, as 
far as possible, the mulatto from the pure stock. 
Careful and comprehensive clinical observations 
should be followed by laboratory and post-mortem 
investigation. Such combined study, carried on in 
our Southern schools and clinics, would, in the course 















I 

Some Previously Discussed Questions. 249 

of a few years, enable us to rest our knowledge of the 
negro upon a secure foundation of fact, and I believe 
would aid materially in the solution of some of our 
medical and public health problems.” 

Were any American physician to discover, in the 
locality where he practised, a family, five or six mem¬ 
bers of which had developed well-marked leprosy, 
what would be the first steps he would take in order 
to prevent the spread of the disease, to insure the pro¬ 
tection of the community? There can be but one 
answer: We know the disease; and segregation of 
the patients, and, if possible, deportation to some 
island where many more of their kind are located, is 
the only safe and proper thing to do. Leprosy is no 
worse a disease than what the presence of the negro 
stands for in this country today, and especially in the 
South. The only trouble is: This Government is a 
bad physician in a case demanding—long demanding 
—prompt and very different treatment from that 
which it has heretofore received. We know that the 
parasite is gnawing at the patient’s vitals, but our 
procrastination and moral cowardice prevent us from 
applying the proper treatment. That’s all. 

It is senseless to trifle with this matter; and it is a 
thoroughly proven fact that the negro in the United 
States is, among other things, a constant menace to 
the health of the white race by reason of his being a 
pronounced disseminator of some five or six of the 
most dreaded diseases known to man. Were all the 
negroes and mulattoes in the United States sent bodily 
out of it, there can be no question whatever but that 
the hygiene of the country would at once improve, and 
this improvement would rapidly enhance as time 




250 America's Greatest Problem: The Negro . 

\ 

passed (November 18, 1914). We cannot eliminate 
syphilis if we maintain thousands of blacks among us 
who are spreading it. What progress can we make 
with the “white plague’’ when a large per cent, of its 
propagation is due to the black race? Can we expect 
strong, healthy women to be the future mothers all 
through the “black belt,” if hundreds of them, nay 
thousands, are to have their nerves ever on the stretch, 
through the fear of assault from some negro among 
the hordes that surround them on all sides? Never! 

Sometime during the month of September, 1912, 
I accompanied Dr. White and Dr. Henry P. de Forest, 
of New York City, through the exhibition rooms of 
the American Congress of Hygiene, which met in 
Washington, D. C. that autumn. In one room, 
among others of a similar character, was hung a chart 
giving data with respect to the extent of prostitution 
and the venereal diseases among the negroes of this 
country. 

This showing greatly displeased the negroes of 
Washington and they demanded its removal,—a de¬ 
mand which was promptly complied with by the 
Exhibition Committee of the Congress. Seeing the 
chart on the floor, leaning against the wall in such a 
way that the data was completely out of sight, Dr. 
de Forest lifted it up and hung it again in its place 
with the written-upon side facing outward. No one 
interfered with him. The three of us copied each his 
third of the statistics given, which, when completed, 
went into Dr. de Forest’s possession. On his return 
to New York City, where he is professor of obstetrics 
in the Post-Graduate Medical School, he wrote me a 




Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


251 


letter (October i, 1912) from which I quote the 
following:— 

“My dear Doctor Shufeldt:— 

“I am sending you herewith the result of the com¬ 
bined efforts of Drs. White, de Forest and yourself 
on Saturday last. My new secretary is a word- 
reader, and was able to decipher what each one of us 
had written. 

“It would be a good thing, I believe, if this chart, 
with a comment as to the reasons for its removal* 
was published in one of the Washington papers, and 
it certainly will be of value in your preparation of the 
new edition of ‘The Negro.’ ” 

The following is the copy of the chart and the 
“comment” which Dr. de Forest was kind enough to 
supply:— 

“The Negro, Prostitution and Venereal Disease. 

“There are about 10,000,000 negroes in the United 
States. Eighty-seven thousand of these are in Phila¬ 
delphia alone. 

“Plospital experience enters at some time into the 
life of nearly every city r.egro. Hospital records 
show that practically all male city negroes indulge in 
promiscuous illicit intercourse and carry with them 
venereal disease. 

“It is the exception in hospital experience for a 
male negro to fail to admit having been infected with 
both syphilis and gonorrhea. These occurrences are 
with him almost a matter of course. Almost never is 
treatment carried to the point of cure. 

“The result of the general infection of the male 
city negro is the almost equally widespread syphiliza- 



252 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


tion of the female population. The vast majority of 
city negro girls have been violated long before 
maturity, and very few have escaped infection with 
both syphilis and gonococcus disease. 

“The gravest problem to be faced in dealing with 
the city negro is not his or her industrial future or 
right to social equality with the white man or woman. 
It is the danger to the public of his or her contagious¬ 
ness and infections from the standpoint of physical 
and moral disease. 

“Illicit intercourse between the negro and the 
white is taking place to an extent that is hardly be¬ 
lievable until the question is deliberately studied. It 
has been estimated that one-third of the American 
negroes have an admixture of blood. A scrutiny of 
the features and the color of the negroes that walk the 
city streets, forces home the conviction that nearly all 
carry the blood of the white race. 

“(The above chart was one of a series of charts 
shown at the 15th International Congress of Hygiene 
and Demography, held at Washington, September 
23d to 28th, 1912. It was one of a series of similar 
charts included in the section devoted to Sex Hygiene. 
The chart attracted a great deal of attention on the 
part of the colored population of the city, about 30 
per cent., and although the statements therein con¬ 
tained are truthful, and would be substantiated by any 
physician in any of the Southern cities where there 
is a large colored population, so much political 
pressure was brought to bear that the chart was 
removed.)” 

So much, then, for the presence of these millions 
of negroes in our country from the view of public 



Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


253 


hygiene. And yet, with all this widely known, there 
are among us not a few of my own race who at this 
writing not only favor hut urge free intermarriage of 
the whites and the negroes in the United States, as the 
only solution of the problem that now confronts us, 
and which is becoming a more serious one each year 
that passes. Many such men and women are of a 
class holding positions of the highest order, and who 
perhaps have a claim to refinement, intelligence, edu¬ 
cation, and a distinguished ancestry. This is the 
marvel of it! There are biologists and those who 
accept the laws of organic evolution among us, who 
seem to be so blinded by their science that they cannot 
appreciate the fact that the mixing, through marriage, 
of the negro and white stock in the United States 
can only result in type elimination in the case of the 
first, and the destruction of the civilization of the 
second group. 

Those who believe in the philosophy, permanence, 
and morality of the monogamic marriage, as now 
performed in America, seem to utterly ignore what 
the consequences would be, in a very short time, were 
any such condition established. It is bad enough as 
it is for far-seeing people, as history has already 
proven that it is not the typical black-skinned negroes 
in the United States who have ever contributed a line 
to literature worth the printing; a single cog in the 
machine of invention; an idea to any science; or, in 
short, advanced civilization a single millimeter since 
the first Congo pair was placed on this soil. It is, on 
the other hand, those whom the pure negroes delight 
in claiming as negroes —the half-bloods, the mulattoes 
—of every shade of mixture, who have been given 



254 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


places of position, trust, and responsibility in the com¬ 
munity. It is principally these mulattoes who crave 
all the advantages that American civilization and 
society can extend, even to being invited in numbers 
to the “social functions at the White House.” 

Think of the ladies of the land and the “first lady 
of the land” engaging in conversation with a group 
of these mulattoes in the East Room of the White 
House! Think of how the whole question of birth 
and ancestry must be constantly and skilfully avoided 
by these ladies throughout the conversation engaged 
in during such a function! For, although the mulat¬ 
toes present are in no way responsible for the fact, 
yet, is it altogether desirable that these ladies should 
freely mingle in a social way with such a class, when, 
in the case of any and every one of them, his or her 
pedigree goes back, in the very near past, to a mating 
out of wedlock of a negress and some white father 
possessing intelligence and an education above the 
average ? 

Then, too, all these mulattoes have at this moment 
black relatives living with their tribes in Africa, many 
of which, where not under restraint by the whites, are 
still cannibals of the most fiendish variety! 

Does America want this to become general 
throughout the landf Morality shrieks No! And 
civilization shudders at the very thought of it. 

Let me say to some of those gentlemen who have 
recently ignored my correspondence on this subject, 
and who are of the opinion that this is what we must 
naturally expect from the operation of the law of 
evolution,—that unfortunately they are largely cor¬ 
rect in the premises; and I may add, in so far as it 



Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


255 


falls within the law of organic evolution for considera¬ 
tion, the question is to be relegated to that phase of it 
which pertains to the matter of very undesirable and 
faulty breeding. Evolution in nature is one thing; 
but the deliberate crossing of various stocks in 
domesticity (man included) is quite another thing. 
No intelligent breeder of sporting dogs, for instance, 
would think for a moment of crossing his refined 
breed of setters with the yellow pups of the street, 
with the view of perpetuating in the first-named a 
stock that it had required several centuries to bring 
about. 

Many years ago, I listened to a lecture at the 
U. S. National Museum, delivered by the late John 
Wesley Powell, then Director of the Geological Sur¬ 
vey, who said, in the course of his remarks, that in 
the higher civilizations of the present day, man made 
his own environment, and was largely responsible 
for the results of his evolution. 

It has taken untold ages for the white peoples of 
the world to develop the kind of civilization now found 
in it; at the best it rests upon a very unstable founda¬ 
tion, with, I fear, but little in some of its parts to 
support its respectability, as the present war in 
Europe will vouch for (November, 1914). Surely, in 
so far as America is concerned, we would not expect 
to strengthen this civilization in any way whatever by 
the introduction of miscegenation with a black race, 
still closely linked to cannibal tribes in Africa, who 
are, at the same time, non-moral, unhygienic, ignorant, 
and basically savage? I think decidedly not; and I 
think so as an evolutionist. The American eagle has 
a lot of chestnut burrs in her nest; it is high time she 




256 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


settled down to the legitimate business of incubating 
pure stock, and toss the disturbing burrs over the edge 
of her aery. 

Unfortunately, in the case of these negroes in the 
United States, the evils of miscegenation do not rest 
upon the question of marriage of the two races; for, 
as I have several times pointed out above, it is now 
being accomplished at a rapid rate without the aid 
of that institution. As Arabs, Jews, and Egyptians 
are in no way comparable with negroes, the argument 
used by many falls to the ground, when it is pointed 
out that Spaniards in Spain were unchanged in any 
way during the six hundred years that their con¬ 
querors, the Arabs, were in their country, or that the 
Egyptians and Jews were modified to any extent dur¬ 
ing the long bondage of the latter in Egypt. It was 
the chief pride of all of these people to preserve the 
purity of the race to which they belonged; but the 
negro is absolutely devoid of pride in such a matter. 
He has nothing to lose and everything to gain; and 
in the light of this, those negrophiles among us would 
have us come down to the level of this host of savages, 
or at least through intermarriage meet them half-way. 

We actually enlighten the negro in this country 
in every possible way in regard to the physical 
charms of the women of our race; what wonder, then, 
that results follow which any intelligent anthro¬ 
pologist could predict? Were the gates thrown open 
today, there are thousands of our race who would 
stand aghast at what would happen. One hundred 
negroes to one would immediately seek white wives, 
and the same percentage holds true in the case of the 
young negresses,—they would delight in making 



Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


257 


alliances with white men. The truth of this state¬ 
ment I know from personal interrogation of many of 
the black race in all parts of the Union. 

In many instances I have taken the trouble to trace 
the parentage of intelligent and fine-looking mulattoes 
in New York, Washington, Mobile, New Orleans, 
Baltimore, and elsewhere. In five instances, the 
fathers proved to be officers of the army, and among 
the others there were men from nearly every profes¬ 
sion, trade, and calling in the country. In several 
cases, the mothers were as black as the blackest Congo 
negress that ever lived. I could give some very in¬ 
teresting details along these lines, which, if widely 
known, might to some extent dampen the ardor of 
those who confuse undesirable breeding—faulty 
eugenics—with the law of evolution. 

The time has now passed when any negro in this 
country thinks for a single instant of looking up his 
relatives in Africa,—a desire that would have been an 
all-pervading one had that many Americans been for¬ 
cibly taken from their country, and brought, as slaves, 
to another and far-off land. In this respect, the 
Africans in the United States have conducted them¬ 
selves much in the same way as so many apes would 
have done under similar circumstances. Even now, 
with all their holdings and advantages, no one of 
them ever makes any effort to investigate the land of 
their fathers, or to search out their kin in fair 
Ethiopia. The great bulk of their millions, beyond 
the wearing of clothes, are not one whit wiser, better, 
or more useful than they were the day they were 
brought here as slaves; it is only the illegitimate 
mulattoes that show any improvement. 

17 


/ 



258 America’s Greatest Problem: I ke Negro. 


As Walker 12 says in ‘‘Our Home Colony:" “In the 
Anglo-Saxon civilization the Negro is out of place. 
It is impossible for an alien race, placed as is the 
Negro race, in America, to have independent thought 
or action. 

“The Negro has no ideals of his own; nor can he 
have. Everything that pertains to his own ethnic 
type he despises, and this is done in most cases 
unconsciously. 

“Hundreds of Negro women do for white men 
what they refuse to do for men of their own race. 
Some Negro men, called ‘leading Negroes,’ engaged 
in menial occupations, are so bereft of manly and 
independent traits that they persistently refuse to 
work for members of their own race. They give as 
their excuse: ‘It would ruin my business to work for 
Negroes.’ The Negro prostitute says the same thing. 

“Rarely, indeed, will you find a young American 
Negro girl or boy striving to cultivate a Negro type. 
They are trying to turn Anglo-Saxon. Any person 
at all acquainted with the nature of the human soul 
can see to what license this thing must lead. 

“Lynching is mild as compared with the remedy 
that will be applied by the whites when they realize 
the dangers a continuance of the present relation of 
the races has in store for them. 

“The Negro race will be a menace and a source 
of discontent as long as it remains in large numbers 
in the United States. The time is growing very near 

12 Walker, M, F.: “Our Home Colony: A Treatise on the Past, 
Present and Future of the Negro Race in America, 1 ” pp. 28, 29. 
This little pamphlet, published by The Herald Printing Company, of 
Steubenville, Ohio, is one of the best and clearest discussions of the 
negro problem in the United States that I have ever read. 




Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


259 


when the whites of the United States must either 
settle this problem by deportation, or else be willing to 
accept a reign of terror such as the world has never 
seen in a civilized country." 

The state of affairs with respect to the negro in 
the South, and many places in the North, to which 
attention has been invited in this chapter, is thus com¬ 
mented on by Mr. A. V. Snell, managing secretary to 
the Chamber of Commerce of Charleston, S. C., in a 
letter to Mrs. Annie Riley Hale, dated May 21, 1913. 
After giving the population of that city from 1900 to 
1910, 1;! Mr. Snell remarks: "You will see, therefore, 
that not only has the black population decreased in 
this city, but also in the county. On the other hand, 
however, for every negro that has left, there has been 
one white man at least and more. Charleston has 
infinitely gained in the last ten years. The negro here 
is shiftless and useless, ignorant and unsanitary. 

“If you will compare the census you will find that 
our mortality and illiterate rate are due almost en¬ 
tirely to the negro. The worst of it is that his char¬ 
acter is not so much improved by his contact with the 
white man as it is that it acts upon the white man, 
making him shiftless and generally careless, in all 
phases of life. The negro, in my opinion, is abso¬ 
lutely the worst drawback the South has, and no one 
can doubt that, if it were possible to move every 
colored man from the South today, replacing him by a 
white man, in ten years the South, with its rich soil 
and climate, its great possibilities, it would be the 
richest section in the United States, if not anywhere 
in the world. Our cities are dirty; our yards and 


13 Whites and Negroes from the U. S. Census Bureau Bulletin. 




260 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


negro homes are a constant menace; our own kitchens 
run by negroes are, in most cases, a menace to the 
public health. I, therefore, believe that the popula¬ 
tion figures of Charleston show much more decided 
improvement than the total increase would at first 
glance. Very truly yours, 

“(Signed) A. V. Snell, 

“Managing Secretary.” 

This opinion of Mr. Snell’s is very generally enter¬ 
tained by many prominent men and women in South¬ 
ern cities, as letters before me will vouch for, but 
which the limitations of space debar from reproduc¬ 
tion here. 

The well-known authoress, Mrs. Annie Riley Hale, 
of New York City, whom I refer to above, has been 
deeply interested in the negro problem in this country 
for many years past. She has lectured upon the sub¬ 
ject throughout the Union, and contributed many 
forceful articles to the newspapers and leading 
magazines, some of which I have read with interest 
while engaged upon the present book. Mrs. Hale has 
kindly given me permission to publish the following 
letter, addressed to myself last month:— 

“6 West 66th Street, New York City, ' 

“October 7, 1914. 

“Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, 

“3356 Eighteenth Street, Washington, D. C. 

“My dear Doctor Shufeldt : I am so glad to hear that 
you have completed your book on the American Negro, and 
that it is soon to be published. The years of study and the 
exhaustive research you have put into the work, should make 
it invaluable as a scientific exposition of a difficult and danger¬ 
ous problem, and I sincerely trust it may vindicate the purpose 
of its writing, in arousing and warning the white race as to 





Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


261 


the real peril of the Negro in this country. Unhappily, the 
native American, North or South, is seemingly much less aware 
of the peril than thoughtful observers abroad. Zangwill, 
Frederic Harrison, William Archer, and Hon. James Bryce, 
among Englishmen, have each sounded a note of warning on 
the subject. 

“As you know, it is a question in which I am deeply in¬ 
terested, and to which I have devoted much study, viewing 
the Negro from the sympathetic standpoint of the Southerner, 
yet differing radically from the bulk of Southerners in my 
attitude toward the problem . I decided long ago that there 
was nothing to the negro question in this country, except the 
sectional issue; and if we could divest it of its sectional com¬ 
plication, we should have a speedy unification of white senti¬ 
ment in regard to it, which would make short work of 'the 
problem/ 

“The only way to take the question out of its sectional 
setting, of course, is to take the negroes out of their narrow 
Southern environment, and distribute them equally to all sec¬ 
tions of the country. In this way only could we ever obtain 
a national consideration of the problem, looking toward a 
national solution, having as its ultimate aim the welfare of 
the nation—and not simply one of section. Such is my faith 
in the efficacy of this plan, that I believe the mere proposal for 
such distribution, if made in good faith, would have the 
desired effect of securing the attention and ultimately the 
cooperation necessary for a plan of peaceable segregation of 
the negroes, which is the only possible road to a permanent 
settlement of the problem. 

“The chief obstacle in the way of this plan at present lies 
in the economic stupidity and the unreasoning conservatism of 
the Southern whites, who blindly cling to the negro in the face 
of every good reason for giving him up. Thus the very people 
who have most at stake in a wise and peaceable solution of this 
problem, are doing most to block it; and while the South main¬ 
tains this attitude, the outlook is not hopeful. The North is 
not greatly interested, quite naturally, so long as the South 
harbors nine-tenths of the negroes. 




262 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


“One good effect, at least, your book should have, emanat¬ 
ing as it does from a Northern man, the son of a Union 
Admiral, who fought for the freedom of the slaves; it should 
tend to stop some of the cant about ‘Southern prejudice 7 against 
the negro, and to force the frank recognition of the fact that the 
so-called ‘prejudice/ which prompts necessary precautions 
against racial fusion with the blacks, belongs to self-respecting 
white people in every section, and, as a matter of fact, is 
stronger in the Northern than in the Southern white. 

“With best wishes for the success of your publication, and 
with my regards, I remain, very sincerely yours, 

“(Signed) Annie Riley Hale/" 

At the present time, all thoughtful and intelligent 
people throughout the country, who take any interest 
whatever in this most momentous of all unsatisfactory 
and dangerous condition existing in our country, do 
not hesitate to affirm that deportation of the negro is 
the only rational solution of the state of affairs now 
existing. The strange part of it is that such a plan 
meets with its most strenuous opposition in a very 
large number of representative men throughout the 
South. They do not desire that the negroes shall go, 
even though they are a menace to the lives and virtue 
of their wives, daughters, and other white women and 
relatives; even though they do spread disease and rot 
the Anglo-Saxon race; even though they do eat up the 
money which accrues from taxation for the means to 
attempt to educate them,—even though the time may 
come when they will force social recognition through 
their very numbers and acquired power. 

Many men in the South, blinded by their greed of 
gain, shut their eyes to all this and say: “Let our 
young men keep black and mulatto mistresses if they 
choose to do so; let the diseases come,—we have 




Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


263 


doctors enough to take care of that. If they assault 
our women, we’ll lynch them for doing so, that’s all. 
And there is money enough in the South to pay for 
such education as they will receive. They say we are 
used to them, and we want them. We cannot spare 
their labor in the cotton fields and elsewhere, and they 
are needed as domestic servants everywhere.” 

Apart from such barbarous opinions as these, 
there are, on the other hand, many men and women 
throughout the South who entertain exactly the 
opposite opinions, and who well know that in a com¬ 
paratively short time the black labor in the South can 
be entirely supplanted by white in every known 
activity, from the kitchen to the cotton plantation. 
This is especially true just now, as the great war in 
Europe has made available thousands of Belgians and 
others, who would be more than glad to seize upon 
such an opportunity. Moreover, the blacks once away 
and out of the country, there are thousands of most 
excellent workers of all kinds among the whites in 
the North, foreign and otherwise, who would at once 
move down to fill the room left available by the 
negroes’ departure. This part of the problem has long 
been relegated to the shelf containing the scare docu¬ 
ments. As Mr. Snell says above, the city of Charles¬ 
ton, S. C. has already proved that the blacks can be 
replaced by white labor with immediate and profound 
advantage; and there are men in various sections of 
the South who, at this writing, employ a great deal 
of white labor in preference to negro labor, as, for 
example, such men as Mr. Lewis W. Parker, of Green¬ 
ville, S. C.; Mr. J. W. McQueen, of Birmingham, 
Alabama; Mr. Jos. D. Morgan, of Nashville, Ten- 




264 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


nessee; Mr. D. A. Tompkins, of Charlotte, N. C., and 
others. 

“The Negro should be taught he is an alien,” says 
Walker, “and always will be regarded as such in 
this country; and that equal, social, industrial, and 
political rights can never be given them. It is doubt¬ 
ful whether or not the Negro as a race would ever 
turn to emigration as his salvation if left to take the 
initiative. He is not of a migratory race, and has 
never been found further than twenty degrees from 
the torrid zone unless under force. When forced 
from home he is loath to return, even when free to do 
so, and under immense oppression” ( loc. cit., p. 31). 

As I have said above, there are in the South today 
(1914) many who are strongly in favor of the depor¬ 
tation of the entire negro element in that section of 
the country; such people are encouraged through ob¬ 
serving recently the forming and operation of many 
“Immigration Commissions” in the Southern States, 
having for their object the importation of whites 
which may come from other parts of the world. Here 
would be the opportunity of the thousands of Belgian 
peasants, now without homes or means of support, 
due to the ravages of the German armies in Belgium 
in the war now in progress. 

There are other thinking men in the South today 
who recognize another menace in the presence of the 
millions of negroes now r living in the South. I have 
heretofore avoided the discussion of this particular 
menace in this volume, for the reason that it did not 
seem wise to introduce it for discussion, and it is only 
mentioned now in that no part of the “negro problem” 
will be left untouched by me. 




: ig. 40. —Same Subject as Shown in Figs. 45 and 46. Semi-profile. 

(Photo from life by the author.) 










Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


265 


There are those who say that the time may come 
when our relations with the Japanese may not be as 
cordial as they are at present ; 14 that when the 
negroes become more restive than they are at present, 
owing to their continued exclusion from social place, 
positions of responsibility in the Government, etc., and 
there should arise among them leaders of ability 
(blacks or mulattoes) to point out to them that the 
only way to gain equality with the whites is by means 
of an insurrection,— then, should we at such a time 
have some unfortunate trouble with the Japanese, this 
great mass of blacks, ripe for a reign of terror, would 
be a very convenient element for the Japanese to use 
against us, and no nation on earth would know better 
how to handle this than Japan. It will never happen? 
I trust not; but I have a very wholesome regard for 
what the armies of Japan can accomplish when they 
undertake anything. Ask the Russians and the 
Germans! 

This possibility, however, is well worthy of 
thought. 

Do the people of the New England and the North 
Atlantic States desire six or seven millions of blacks 
to leave the South, come North in a body, and settle 

14 Many now believe that the feeling of cordiality is but a veneer; 
that the Japanese feel very strongly the part the United States took 
in closing the Russo-Japanese war, and even still more the exclusion 
of their people from California. Can one blame them? It is incom¬ 
prehensible to me, in some ways, how it is that the United States will 
tolerate in the country over ten millions of a people which have been 
proven to be dangerous, unhygienic, non-moral, ignorant, superstitious, 
mendacious, and everything else that is undesirable, and at the same 
time close its doors to such a fine people as the Japanese! We are 
even so foolish—or have been for years—as to allow our country to 
be made the dumping-ground for the diseased and criminal class of 
all Europe. 




266 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


over that area? Will they receive them with open 
arms? I think not! Were such a thing to happen, the 
same conditions would at once prevail in the North 
as now afflict the white population of the Southern 
States. Mercy knows it is bad enough in Washington 
at this time, without inflicting the same curse and 
drawbacks on the rest and now happy parts of the 
country. 

Before closing this chapter, I will record the 
opinions of still others who have studied this ques¬ 
tion,—among these the negro bishop, Henry McN. 
Turner. 

Bishop Henry McN. Turner, of the African 
Methodist Episcopal Church, declares that the separa¬ 
tion of the races is the only solution of the race prob¬ 
lem. Bishop Turner urged and still urges that oppor¬ 
tunities should be offered to negroes to settle in 
Africa by a reduction of rates on steamship lines, 
stating that “this Nation or its aggregated people 
will either have to open a highway to Africa for the 
discontented black man, or the negro question will 
flinder this Government.” He contends that by sep¬ 
aration he does not mean that every one should go 
or must go, but that there should be an opportunity 
granted for the departure of “such black men and 
women as are self-reliant.” 

Mr. John Temple Graves, of Georgia, a clear 
thinker and very cogent writer on the negro question, 
has expressed his views in public in the boldest man¬ 
ner, both on the matter of lynching and on the ulti¬ 
mate separation of the two races. In one of his 
earlier lectures he set forth that, in his opinion, “the 
problem of the hour is not how to prevent lynching 



Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


267 


in the South, but the larger question: How shall 
we suppress the crime which always has and always 
will provoke lynching? The answer which the mob 
returns to this vital question is already known. The 
mob answers it with the rope, the bullet, and some¬ 
times, God save us! with the torch. And the mob is 
practical; its theory is effective to a large degree. 
The mob is today the sternest, the strongest, and the 
most effective restraint that the age holds for the 
control of rape. 

“The lyncher,” he said, “does not exterminate the 
rapist, but he holds him in check. As a sheer, cold, 
patent fact, the mob stands today as the most potential 
bulwark between the women of the South and such 
a carnival of crime as would infuriate the world and 
precipitate the annihilation of the negro race. The 
masses of the negro are not afraid of death coming 
in a regular way. They love display, and the spec¬ 
tacular element of a trial and execution appeals to 
their imaginations. 

“Expediting the processes of the law would not 
be adequate to eliminate lynching,” said Mr. Graves. 
The repeal of the Amendments and the establishment 
of the negro’s inferiority in law and society, though 
desirable, are not sufficient, for the negro is a thing 
of the senses, and with this race and with all similar 
races the desire of the senses must be restrained by 
the terror of the senses, if possible under the law. 

“But this,” he maintained, “like curfew edicts, 
separate laws for white and black, or the treatment of 
the crime of criminal assault as separate and outside 
of all other codes, are but expedients; there is no real 
remedy but one. No statute will permanently solve 




268 


Americas Greatest Problem: The Negro . 


this problem. Religion does not solve it. Education 
complicates it. Politics complicates it. 

“The truth, which lies beyond and above all these 
temporizing expedients/’ he concluded, “is that sep¬ 
aration is the only solution of this great problem of 
the races.” 

My own opinion, and the opinions of others on this 
subject, have been set forth in a previous chapter. 
As such opinions, not only what the views of Mr. 
Graves brought out, but also to sustain what I am 
coming to in the next chapter—that is, the proposition 
of deporting the black man and his kin from the 
United States of America to some other country— 
have not been relinquished by thoughtful persons, I 
here introduce the words of another writer:— 

To the Editor of The New York Times: Your edi¬ 
torial of the 7th inst. fails to do full justice to John Temple 
Graves, who proposes to segregate and colonize the negro. I 
am a Northern man, and my viewpoint might have been like 
your own, had I remained a thousand miles removed from the 
South. A residence of twenty-seven years, however, in the 
“Black Belt/’ where the negroes far outnumber the whites, has 
given me unexceptional opportunities for studying the race 
question, which is also a caste problem most imperfectly 
understood. 

Mr. Graves’s proposed solution, to remove the negro to 
some more congenial clime, does not necessarily mean the 
Philippines or Liberia, nor does it mean wholesale deportation 
of the race in our lifetime, as most of his critics assert. 
Separation of the races for the highest development and hap¬ 
piness of both is the dominant idea of his scheme. Omitting 
the economic use of the negro, in the scantily supplied labor 
of the South, and judging from the moral side of life wholly, 
no thinking man could truthfully fail to agree with the school 
of John Temple Graves, that the separation of the races would 
advance the ethical conditions of the white race. 




Some Previously Discussed Questions . 


269 


Scholarly people, like the editor of The Times, fail 
to understand this caste problem from the point of view of 
the “poor whites” of the South. These are laborers in full, 
unrestricted competition with the low-caste negroes. Every 
hour’s work performed by a white carpenter, mason, miner, 
or mechanic, is paid according to the competition existing in 
the local labor market. The white workers of the South, de¬ 
siring better homes, more varied food, and educational ad¬ 
vantages for their children, must compete with men satisfied 
with cabins, filth, rags, and cornbread. The negro in the 
Southern States, and the Indian across the border in Mexico, 
can supply all his inherited cravings for half the wages of a 
civilized white man. 

What complicates the case of the negro is that the amount 
of the mechanic’s wages, when paid to him, tends to lower his 
morality. The political economists have not treated this side 
of the question of wages. Philanthropists declare the low- 
caste laboring people of English India, Mexico and the United 
States are all underpaid by the dominant race. They do not 
remember that work without wages, i.e., slavery, is the first 
step of the barbarian toward civilization. An increasing wage 
equalized to his moral development is doubtless the ideal con¬ 
dition for furthering ethical culture in the barbarian of any 
race. 

Liberal thinkers resident north of Mason and Dixon’s line 
look to education and more universal schooling as the one 
thing needful to elevate the negro. Do they know what a school 
taught by negroes instills into the formative minds of the col¬ 
ored children? Do they realize that the friction between the 
races probably starts in this schoolroom? Young negroes in 
the South now are evidently trained to regard the white race 
as enemies, not as friends. There appears to be no endeavor 
to teach these colored children respect for the aged or for 
superiors, and no emulation for social position founded on 
morals. The money of the State spent for education should 
also carry an obligation to teach civic duties to all children, 
white and black. In case of the colored schools the appearance 
goes far to justify a belief that the altruistic money of the 
white people is spent in teaching the colored children anarchism. 



270 America's Greatest Problem: The Negro . 


Affection does now exist, and has always existed, between 
the cultivated whites and the uneducated blacks of the South. 
Between these is no competition whatever, but the caste line is 
recognized by both parties as strictly as the division between 
Brahmans and Sudras in India . Hence caste instinct, instead 
of being an evil as generally taught, is a blessing on both high 
and low. If the primitive doctrine of caste were to be 
religiously observed, there would cease to be any race problem. 
A caste instinct divides the white people of the North by minor 
differences into many groups; but the great gulf between the 
high and low caste in the South obliterates all small variations 
of property, profession, or calling; divides society practically 
into two castes, with an unchangeable division of color between 
them, half-breeds taking the caste of the mother. 

Prosperous negro mechanics trained in slavery are always 
respected by their white neighbors in the South. Their chil¬ 
dren, educated in modern negro schools, I have yet to find as 
industrious, as useful, or as worthy as their fathers. It would 
be true to say of my section not a colored pupil of an indus¬ 
trial school, boy or girl, is now following any trade or domestic 
service for which he or she was supposed to be trained. The 
industrial schools do turn out “preachers and teachers/' and 
thus they make the statistics they publish good by calling these 
“preachers and teachers” followers of the professions for which 
they were trained; but industrial training does not in white 
schools include “preaching and teaching.” The negro schools 
of the South, however, are already beneficial in an unex¬ 
pected way not intended by the Northern philanthropist. 
Educated ( ?) negroes are neither farm laborers nor domestic 
servants, nor do they follow mechanical trades. Hence they 
seek employment as porters and mail clerks on railroads all 
over the vast territory of the United States. While the most 
expensive hotels of the Northern and Eastern cities have dis¬ 
carded the black servants they formerly employed, as have the 
wealthy class of residents in those cities, the cheaper hotels 
and restaurants of the West are glad to obtain any service. 
Thus, educating the negro, permanently removing him from 
the cotton-fields, has benefited the white farmers by raising 
the price of cotton. The increased production of this crop 



Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


271 


would far exceed consumption at this time had the negro re¬ 
mained a cotton raiser instead of becoming a Pullman porter. 

We read much of “Southern race prejudice.” A prejudiced 
person is one who “prejudices” or expresses anticipative judg¬ 
ment ; one not properly informed. The Southern resident 
alone in this country possesses opportunities for judging the 
black race fairly. The evidence is before him and is not 
present to any other. “Race prejudice” should not be charged 
against the English people in India, the American in the Philip¬ 
pine Islands, or the white man in the South. “Prejudice” in 
favor of the Indian, the Philippino, or the negro may exist in 
those who have no experience gained by personal observation. 
Hence, race prejudice, if it exists for or against the negro, is 
not chargeable to those who “post”-judge, but to those only 
who “pre”-judge; not to those who live South, but to those 
who live North. The development of manufacturing indus¬ 
tries in the cotton States has been the greatest blessing to the 
impoverished whites. The taking of the women from exposed 
isolated rural homes to factory villages removes the constant 
anxiety that was part of their daily burden. Since the abolition 
of the caste restraint of slavery, the crimes committed by 
negroes against women and girls of this class have principally 
precipitated the race troubles in the South. 

The employment of white hands in the factories benefits 
also by lessening the competition between white and black 
labor. Every negro finding employment north or west of the 
cotton States benefits himself and the South. If this gradual 
exodus continues, the race problem will become national in¬ 
stead of local, a burden to be borne by all the citizens instead 
of by a few. Census statistics show as great or even a greater 
percentage of mulatto births in Northern States than in 
Southern. All history appears to prove that every slave-hold¬ 
ing nation finally absorbed its slaves by mixing the blood of 
master and slave. Such a solution is only to be thought of 
in horror by him who reveres the morality of his ancestors, 
and prizes above earthly possessions the unblemished caste dis¬ 
tinction of a thousand years of Europe’s best culture. Even in 
the absence of ethical caste instinct, it would be opposing 
stirpiculture to advocate the absorption of eight millions of an 



272 


America's Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


inferior race by fifty millions of a superior people. What other 
solution except segregation can be seen by those who look into 
the future? The present observer counts nearly as many 
negroes carrying a percentage of white blood as pure African. 
When this crossing shall have progressed to show white¬ 
skinned, cross-bred people, with the absence of caste distinc¬ 
tions, who may then know the pedigree of his guests, his 
social acquaintances, or even his own future grandchildren? 

Of several measures I already see at work, all palliative, 
only one radical cure has been pointed out. It is the removal 
of the negroes to a negro territory. Not as the Creek and 
Cherokee Indians of Georgia were removed by force and en 
masse, but slowly, gently, and for the benefit of the dissatis¬ 
fied negroes as well as for the betterment of the whites. Pub¬ 
lic opinion may now be against this desideratum, as it originally 
was against the abolition of the institution of slavery. It is a 
move that should win the support of every altruist, and when 
sufficiently agitated, it or some kindred measure will protect 
us from the error of our fathers in bringing the African to 

America. __ 

Benjamin W. Hunt. 

Eatonton, Ga., Sept. 18, 1903. 

Many of our most able writers and thinkers of the 
present time (Nov. 19, 1914) hold identically the 
same views as here so ably expressed by Mr. Hunt. 

Thus it goes, we see. Through the greed of gain 
our ancestors permitted large numbers of savages and 
cannibalistic blacks to be landed on the shores of a 
country that eventually came to be a great Republic. 
They were slaves and remained slaves until a fearful 
and prolonged war, costing myriads of lives and 
millions of money, freed them. 

During the days of slavery, untold thousands of 
hybrids were produced, due to a crossing of the white 
and the black races; this took place principally in the 
South, though by no means altogether confined to that 




From 


Fig. so.—A Type of English Realt\. 

“Living Races of Mankind.” Courtesy of Hutchinson 
& Company, London. (Photo by the author.) 






























Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


273 


region. When they gained their liberty after the 
Civil War, much was brought to bear, from a great 
variety of sources and influences, that profoundly 
affected their history. In the forty years that fol¬ 
lowed, however, it has been amply proven that 
hybridization with a certain class of the white pop¬ 
ulation of the United States is still actively going on; 
that the typical negro remains very much the same 
kind of being that he was on his having been brought 
here from Africa, and that the few who have risen to 
prominence in the black race in this country are not 
typical negroes, but have from 60 to 80 per cent, of 
white blood in their composition. It has further been 
shown that the bulk of them derive no benefit from 
educational measures of any kind; as for the matter 
of that they have never, even when crossed with the 
best of the white race, produced men and women in 
any way entitled to be recognized as thinkers, or as 
possessing skill in any of the sciences above the plane 
of mediocrity. And, as has been pointed out, this has 
been the case only when the individual exhibiting such 
prominence had a very large proportion of white blood 
in his composition. On the other hand, there is a very 
considerable amount of proof available toward estab¬ 
lishing the fact that, in a very large proportion of 
cases, modern education has been downright harmful 
to the negro; has had the sole effect of improving his 
opportunities for criminal practices; of having him 
entertain entirely false notions of his worth and social 
status, and of furnishing thoroughly untrustworthy 
evidence of his value as a factor in modern civilization, 
. which baseless testimony has been employed by the 

short-sighted, narrow-minded, and uneducated sup- 

18 



274 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


porters of this race in the United States, in continuing 
their attempts to force these creatures upon a long- 
suffering and civilized community. 

It has been shown with equal clarity that the 
criminality and savagery of the negro in this country 
has, in the case of the more criminally disposed whites, 
begotten crime as well as lawlessness. It is the pres¬ 
ence of the negro among us that is responsible for 
lynch-law and not the tastes of our people for such 
brutal horrors. Among a progressive race, such as 
is the whites in the United States, it is the effect of 
their own higher and elevating civilization that, as 
time goes on, eliminates crime, bestiality, brutality, 
and all else that is ethically and morally undesirable 
in man’s composition. But when a cultured, ad¬ 
vancing, highly plastic and superior race of this kind 
introduces among it another race in large numbers, 
characterized by its lack of truthfulness, its sensuality, 
its morbid criminal characteristics, its mental density, 
its superstitions, and its physical repulsiveness, the 
influence of such an introduction is bound to be felt. 
The case is precisely the same as it would be to intro¬ 
duce into a large boarding-school, composed of refined, 
moral, progressive, and mentally and physically 
healthy boys and girls, a lot of new pupils, largely 
given to lying, to thieving, and to other criminal pro¬ 
pensities. It would clearly be due to that blindness, 
that outcome of pseudo-philanthropy which hinders 
one from stating candidly what the evil effects of such 
an introduction would be. 

Owing to his ever-present passion to ravish the 
women of the white race, be their social position what 
it may, the negro demonstrates to us every year, by 



Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


275 


scores of assaults upon our womankind,—often asso¬ 
ciated with murder and mutilation,—that, in spite of 
fire, hanging, and lead, in spite of any kind of penalty, 
he intends to gratify this heinous lust of his, be the 
consequences what they may. This seething mass of 
black bestiality, ever ready to erupt in hundreds of 
isolated instances and in localities of every kind, has 
at last had the effect of terrorizing white women 
throughout large sections of the country, to the detri¬ 
ment of the sex, individually and collectively, thus 
fostering a factor at once disadvantageous to the 
community and inimical to the progress of civilization. 

The negro is too grossly and hopelessly ignorant 
to recognize the ruin his presence among us entails, 
and too sensual to inaugurate, as a race, any general 
movement of segregation that would relieve the 
people who have taken so many centuries to arrive at 
the state of civilization it now enjoys, and which it is 
so important and essential that it should preserve at all 
hazards. 

There are plenty of uninformed people among us 
to say: “Oh, but give this race a chance, an oppor¬ 
tunity for its uplifting” (uplifting is a favorite ex¬ 
pression of such people), “and you will soon see the 
wonders it will effect.” The answer to this is plainly 
that the black race is many centuries old, and yet, 
what has it done for civilization? Nothing! 

Nowhere in recorded history has such a state of 
affairs as the one here presented fallen to the lot of 
mankind. At no historical time have two such dis¬ 
tinct races, each numbered by its millions, the one 
representing the highest stage of civilization and ad¬ 
vancement, the other practically but a day removed 




276 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


from savagery and cannibalism, been thrown to¬ 
gether in the same geographical region and not sep¬ 
arated by any political or natural barriers. This state 
of affairs requires some very independent thinking, 
and the exercise of more than usual judgment. We 
know from experience, however, that mixed races 
rarely, if ever, succeed in the world’s history. The 
blacks have interbred with the Sicilians and other 
races along the shores of the Mediterranean; and 
although those blacks were of an infinitely better race 
than the stock we have in this country, it has been to 
the decided detriment of the whites and resulted in 
distinctly retarding their progress. We have no 
reason to hope for better results in the United States, 
and none to believe that they will be as good. 

The great question now is: What will be the 
eventual outcome? Possibly, in a few places in the 
present volume, I may have regarded the state of 
affairs under consideration as a problem; while, as a 
matter of fact, there really is no problem. To my 
mind, the outcome of it all is not problematical. The 
mixing of a low and undesirable stock with a high 
and cultured one is sure to produce a mixed stock, 
which is not as good as either of the ones that pro¬ 
duced it. There is but one remedy available and that 
is complete and thorough separation. 

The placing in this country of the black race was 
a most supreme piece of stupidity; no one’s particular 
fault,—in fact, a perfectly natural, though none the 
less glaring ethnological blunder. Having first prac¬ 
tically exterminated the Indian occupying the South, 
we flood the territory with black savages and canni¬ 
bals ; and yet have declared that the Chinese could not 



Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


2 77 


land upon our soil,—a combination of idiotic and in¬ 
congruous exploits which has had the most baneful 
influence, and which threatens to undermine the 
entire foundation of Anglo-Saxon civilization. 

And here we are, at this late date (November, 
1914), still struggling with the same problem. 

We are still in the coils of the great, black snake. 
The daily papers still discuss the propriety of ship¬ 
ping as many negroes as possible out of our country. 
Send them here, send them there; but let us not 
tolerate them any longer. Africa has been proposed; 
Hayti has been suggested; the Philippines have been 
mentioned; yet nothing has been done. Still they 
remain, encouraging these half-breeds, who, having 
attained the opportunity of expressing their minds on 
the subject, keep advocating for the negroes “social 
uplifting” and permanent establishment in the United 
States. None of these men dare to tell the truth as 
Thomas did in “The American Negro.” If the de¬ 
portation of the negroes could be effected, I, for one, 
would not care a straw whether they liked it or not. 
I should be for sending them away all the same, and 
for keeping them away afterward, just as the Federal 
Government keeps the Chinese away. I should be in 
favor of shipping every negro back to the region 
whence they came, whether it pleased them or not. I 
am so loyal to anything that will sustain the purity 
of the best white blood in the United States; drain it of 
superstition of all kinds; purge it of crime and im¬ 
morality, and preserve its integrity, that I would see 
every negro in America transported to the desert of 
the Soudan, rather than allow them, for any consid¬ 
eration whatever, to jeopardize by race intermixture 




278 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


the race and civilization it has taken us centuries to 
establish! 

Today the best people, the far-seeing people, re¬ 
alize the career upon which the black race is now 
launched here in the States. Although they are 
eager to take up into their constitution the blood of 
the whites, they will remain loyal, in every single 
instance, to their own race, and use their advantages 
simply to seek further social equality with the whites. 
They crave political power and position; and were 
they sufficiently numerous, they would seize it every¬ 
where at all hazards. It is only their inferiority in 
numbers which prevents them from doing so. All 
this, long since evident to our people in the “Black 
Belt,” is now fast dawning on thinkers throughout 
the Northern States. 

In closing this chapter, I desire to say a word in 
reference to the extension of the franchise to the 
negresses of the United States, in the event of this 
country allowing all American women to vote, through 
an act of Congress to that effect. 

Should those women of the United States, then, 
who desire the ballot to be extended to the sex 
throughout the country, succeed in their efforts, it 
will, of course, be equally enjoyed by that part of our 
female population which is made up of several million 
negresses and hybrids. Have the women of the 
United States reckoned with this “problem?” I 
think, as a rule, not! 

Mrs. “General” Rosalie Jones may think she 
proves the question that the ballot should be extended 
to the negresses of South Carolina, Georgia, and else¬ 
where for the reason that she and a few other females, 



Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


279 


with unusually strong pelvic limbs, were able to walk 
from New York City to Washington, D. C.; but such 
an opinion is not entertained by the author of this 
book. 

The following bit of history will throw some light 
on this new method of increasing the difficulty of 
solving the “negro problem” in this country; it is 
from “The Washington Post,” February 27, 1913:— 

“Laurel, Md., Feb. 26.—The suffragist ‘army’ 
which started to march from New York to Washing¬ 
ton may not march into the Capital after all, despite 
the fact that the goal is so near at hand. The race 
problem, which has been as a cloud over the pilgrims 
since they crossed the Mason and Dixon line, may be 
the cause of the ‘army’ disbanding tomorrow. 

“ ‘General’ Jones, who, with her marchers, reached 
here late this afternoon from Baltimore, after a trying 
day in which they were hissed and in other ways 
coldly received, was told tonight that a large party of 
colored advocates of women’s rights would join her 
army in Laurel tomorrow morning, to finish the 
march with the army. 

“Not only the officers but every one of the pil¬ 
grims were aroused over the story, which was given 
credence by the fact that when passing through Win- 
ans, the town from which, according to reports, the re¬ 
cruits are to come, the marchers were met by a large 
party of colored women bearing a yellow banner on 
which was inscribed, in large letters, ‘Votes for Negro 
Women.’ The colored delegation, ignored by the 
regular army, marched but a short distance with it 
and then retired. 



280 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


“ 'General’ Jones and a majority of her force em¬ 
phatically stated that if the colored women joined the 
‘army,’ it would be summarily disbanded, and the pil¬ 
grims would take trains immediately for New York 
and Washington. 

“As the marchers entered Laurel this afternoon 
they were met by three carriage-loads of colored 
women, who wore 'votes for women’ pins, and who 
followed along with the hikers into the town, cheer¬ 
ing, and in other ways making it apparent that they 
were participating in the suffrage demonstration. 
The marchers, who had not yet recovered from their 
Winans experience, were dumbfounded, not only by 
this, but by the frigidness of their reception. 

“The race problem is one which has worried ‘Gen¬ 
eral’ Tones and the other leaders for a number of days. 
In Wilmington they were met by a delegation of suf¬ 
frage advocates who warned them that in Maryland 
they would be forced to take some positive stand. 
This ‘General’ Jones has been unwilling to do, and 
has refused to make any statement upon the ‘votes 
for negro women’ problem until tonight. 

“As she was told that the army of colored equal 
suffrage advocates would swell the ranks of her pil¬ 
grims tomorrow, ‘General’ Jones for the first time ex¬ 
pressed herself upon the subject, and in a positive ' 
manner. ‘What!’ she ejaculated. The statement was 
repeated to her. ‘^.n army of negro suffragists will 
join our army?’ she exclaimed. ‘Well, I guess they 
will—not!’ 

“When questioned by newspaper correspondents, 
‘General’ Jones refused to say anything, reverting to 
her former policy of silence regarding this delicate 




(Photo from life by the author.) 












Some Previously Discussed Questions. 


281 


question. ‘Colonel’ Ida Crafts, next in command, was 
more positive in her statements, however. ‘If the 
negroes attempt to march with us into Washington, 
then I will not,’ she declared, emphatically. Others 
of the pilgrims stated that if the colored women tried 
to participate in any way in their hike they would 
disband. 

“Few of the pilgrims will be able to gain a good 
night’s sleep tonight, as the answer to their perplexing- 
problem must be solved in the morning. If the col¬ 
ored ‘pilgrims’ from Winans appear with the large 
banner which so startled the marchers yesterday, their 
thirteen days’ weary walk to Washington will be of 
no avail, and the entry planned for them into the 
National Capital on Friday will have to be abandoned. 

“Should the recruits from the colored women’s 
suffrage cause appear when the pilgrims are about to 
start tomorrow’s hike to Hyattsville, each of the 
marchers will return to her room, don her street 
clothing, and take the first train for her home. The 
colored women who met the ‘army’ in three carriages 
at Laurel did not leave the vehicles, but proceeded 
at once down the road toward Winans. It was 
impossible to find any colored woman in Winans 
tonight.” 

This incident scarcely requires any comment from 
me. I have never been in favor of woman suffrage, 
and this experience of “General Jones” and her short¬ 
sighted “army” confirms me in my belief, that not 
only should all women be denied the vote in the United 
States, but that it will, in the event of the negro and 
mulatto women having it granted to them, but add 
another fagot to the flames of racial hatred and to the 
dangers of a negro insurrection in this country. 




CHAPTER XI. 


The Remedy. 

From what has been set forth and advocated in 
previous chapters, the reader is doubtless fully pre¬ 
pared for the statement, that I am firmly of the opinion 
that deportation of the negro, from the United States 
to some other country or countries, is the one and 
only remedy which will avert a general race war be¬ 
tween the blacks and whites in this country; which 
will prevent the horrors of miscegenation in our 
midst, and which will extend to the negro the oppor¬ 
tunity for his proper development and evolution. 

The soundest thinkers on this subject, having a 
full knowledge of all the facts in the case, agree with 
me in this opinion. Long ago it was the view taken 
by Senator John J. Ingalls, and he once wrote me 
to that effect. While I do not agree with him in some 
of his statements with respect to what would be the 
most useful products of civilization which the negroes 
of this country might take to their kindred in Africa, 
I do agree with the Senator in his proposition as a 
whole. Apart from the flowery picture of Ethiopia 
“stretching out her hands to God,” it would seem that 
the taking of anything, by the negroes now with us, 
to their African relatives would be quite superfluous. 
Indeed, all they could carry they would need them¬ 
selves; and surely their aforesaid relatives have long- 
known the alphabet in thousands of instances through 
their European teachers in Africa. As to “the Decla¬ 
ration of Independence and the Bible,”—the first 
( 282 ) 


The Remedy. 


283 


would be of no more use to them than a«£Opy of the'"’ 
Magna Charta, while the second has always proved 
to be either useless or else downright harmful. How¬ 
ever, it is now a fact in the history of this “trouble¬ 
some and dangerous problem,” that, over sixteen 
years ago (The Chicago Tribune, May 28, 1903), 
Senator John J. Ingalls was in favor of compulsory 
expatriation of the negroes of this country, and he 
said—referring to the evils 1 have pointed out above— 
that “If this condition is the inevitable consequence 
of the contact of the two races, separation, voluntary 
or compulsory, at whatever cost, is the dictate of 
wisdom, morality, and national safety. If reconcilia¬ 
tion upon the basis of justice and equal rights is 
impossible, then migration to Africa should be the 
policy of the future. To that fertile continent from 
whence they came they would return, not as aliens 
and strangers, but to the manner born. To their 
savage kindred who still s w ci 1 m 1 n t s . 

would bring the alphabet, the Declaration of Inde¬ 
pendence, and the Bible. Emancipated from the tra¬ 
ditions of bondage, from the habit of obedience and 
imitation, from the knowledge of its vices, which is 
the only instruction of a strong race to a weaker, the 
African might develop along his axis of growth and 
Ethiopia stretch out her hand to God. 

“The negro might not want to go. He is a native. 
He is a citizen. He has the right to stay. So he 
has the right to vote. He has the right to life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness. He has been deprived 
of them all. Only the right of domicile remains. He 
could, perhaps, submit to the loss of this with the 
same resignation which accompanied his surrender 




284 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


'of the rest. There are vague indications of cleavage. 
In some regions the inertia is being overcome. Com¬ 
munities are pervaded by aimless agitations like those 
which preceded the flight of the Tartar tribe across 
the desert. The ‘exodus’ of this colonization of 
Africa, the cost and conditions of a migration so 
prodigious, its effect upon the civilization of the two 
continents and the destiny of the two races, are sub¬ 
jects too vast and momentous for consideration here. 

—John J. Ingalls.” 

Fortunately there are many people in this country 
who entertain very different opinions from those 
held by Mr. W. P. Garrison. Hundreds upon 
hundreds of negroes in this country would leave it 
now were only the way properly opened to them. 
Years after Senator Ingalls published what I have 
quoted from him above, and years after Mr. Garrison 
wrote me the letter published in the first editon of 
this book, the question of deporting the negroes now 
in the United States was as warmly advocated as 
ever. In support of this fact, I here reproduce the 
admirable address of John Temple Graves, as it ap¬ 
peared in the New York Times, September 4, 1903:— 

“For a Negro Republic. 

“Chicago, Sept. 3.—In an address on ‘The Prob¬ 
lem of the Races’ before the Forty-eighth Convoca¬ 
tion of the University of Chicago, John Temple 
Graves advocated, as a solution of the race problem, 
the establishment in the Philippines of a Negro State, 
where no white man should be allowed to vote. He 
said in part:— 



The Remedy. 


285 


‘The experiment of political equality has had 
thirty-eight years of trial, backed by the power of the 
Federal Government, and by the sympathy of the 
world. It has failed. From the beginning to the 
hour that holds us, it has failed. 

“ ‘The races are wider apart and more antag¬ 
onistic than they were in 1865. There is less of 
sympathy and more of tension than the races have 
known since the terrible days of reconstruction made 
chaos in the South. 

‘Four decades after his emancipation, the negro 

is, in point of fact, less a freeman and infinitely less 
a citizen than he was in 1868. The tumult of the 
times about us proclaims the continued existence and 
the unreconciled equations of the problem that he 
makes, and in the common judgment of mankind, the 
legend “failure’’ is written large and lowering above 
the tottering fabric of his civil rights. 

“ ‘A Chinese wall of prejudice shuts out the South 
on this question from the sympathy of the American 
people; and, although fraternal platitudes may cross 

it, and political affiliations may scale it, and commer¬ 
cial interchange may run its electric wires under and 
above it, and although but recently military loyalty 
has seemed to shatter it, this wall stands, in the sight 
of God and of nations, hedging in the South as a 
separate and peculiar people, hindered with misap¬ 
prehension, held aloof in prejudice, and fretted by a 
criticsm which, if sometimes founded in philanthropy, 
is too often expressed in passion and answered in 
bitterness. 

“ ‘And so long as the problem stands, the old slave 
States of the South, unwillingly, protestingly, despair- 



286 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


ingly, and yet inevitably, must be and will be the con¬ 
tinuing gap in the magnificent line of our National 
unity. 

‘It is a problem of moral decay. It demoralizes 
politics. Wherever a black supremacy is threatened 
through a black majority, the black ballot is strangled 
without reserve in the black hands that hold it against 
the safety of the State. This is wrong. It is illegal. 
It is monstrous. But it is true. 

‘Never, never in a thousand years will the negro, 
North or South, be allowed to govern this Republic, 
even where his majorities are plain. We might as 
well fix that fact in our minds to stay. No statute 
can eradicate, no public opinion can remove, no armed 
force can overthrow the inherent, invincible, inde¬ 
structible, and, if you will, the unscrupulous capacity 
and determination of the Anglo-Saxon to rule. 

‘In a land of light and liberty, in an age of en¬ 
lightenment and law, the women of the South are 
prisoners to danger and to fear. While your women 
may walk from suburb to suburb and from township 
to township, without escort and without alarm, 
there is not a woman of the South, wife or daughter, 
who would be permitted or who would dare to walk 
at twilight unguarded through the residence streets 
of a populous town or to ride the outside highways 
at midday. 

“ ‘The terror of the twilight deepens with the 
darkness, and in the rural regions every farmer leaves 
his home with apprehension in the morning, and 
thanks God when he comes from the fields at evening 
to find all well with the women of his home. 



The Remedy. 


287 


“ ‘Here, then, the issues—Unity of the Republic, 
material development, purity of politics, political 
independence, respect for the ballot, reverence for the 
Constitution, the safety of our homes, the sanctity 
of our women, the supremacy of law, the sacredness 
of justice, and the unity of the Church. 

“ ‘There he stands, that helpless and unfortunate 
inferior. For his sake, the one difference has widened 
between the sections of our common country. Over 
his black body we have shed rivers of blood and 
treasure to emphasize our separate convictions of his 
destiny. 

“ ‘And yet, as the crimson tide rolls away into 
the years, we realize that all this blood and treasure 
and travail was spent in vain, and that the negro, 
whom a million Americans died to free, is, in present 
bond and future promise, still a slave, whipped by 
circumstance, trodden under foot by iron and in¬ 
eradicable prejudice; shut out forever from the oppor¬ 
tunities which are the heritage of liberty, and, holding 
in his black hand the hollow parchment of his fran¬ 
chise as a freeman, looks through a slave’s eyes at 
the impassable barriers which imprison him forever 
within the progress and achievement of a dominant 
and all-conquering race. 

“ ‘Separation of the races is. the way—the only 
way. Is the expense appalling? Is the cost pro¬ 
hibitive? England again offers an example. Eng¬ 
land, our mother country; England, next to ourselves, 
the greatest and most enlightened Government under 
the sun; England has just put its hand into its pocket 
to expend $500,000,000 in order to buy out the Irish 



288 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


landlords, and to heal the otherwise incurable running 
sore of Irish discontent. 

“ ‘It may be that the islands of the sea were placed 
by Providence in our keeping to furnish an answer 
to the problem of the times. No reasonable or con¬ 
siderate plan would call for the wholesale or summary 
deportation of the negro. With his consent, and with 
Governmental aid, the movement might proceed 
slowly and with consideration. If only the vessels 
that brought foreigners to our shores from 1880 to 
1885 had carried back to Africa as many negroes as 
they brought immigrants to us, not a single black 
man, woman, or child would have been left in the 
country in 1885! 

“ ‘The superb inducement to the negro would be 
found in the freedom, the individuality, and the 
opportunity of an independent commonwealth, in 
which he would be freed from the unequal competi¬ 
tion of a superior people, given a chance to develop 
a character, and to demonstrate the merits of his 
leaders and the capacities of the race. Let no white 
man vote in the negro State to harass the negro’s 
councils, and let no negro vote in any other State than 
his own. 

“ ‘The chief opposition in the South would rest 
upon the misapprehension which you doubtless share, 
that the negro is indispensable to the agriculture and 
labor conditions of that section. That was once true. 
It is no longer true. 

“ ‘I state here, for the first time, a fact which will 
be as surprising to the South as it is to you. The 
negro no longer makes the staple or cereal crops of 
of the South! The cotton of Texas, of Louisiana, 



The Remedy. 


289 


and of Mississippi is made chiefly by the white man 
and not by the negro! The negro is no longer an 
industrial necessity. This fact is from the census. 

‘For half a hundred years we have wrangled 
and fought and bled and died about this black man 
from Africa! Is the wrangle worth its fearful cost? 
Shall the great Northern section of our common 
country always turn its hand against the great 
Southern section of our country? Shall the young 
American of the North steel his heart against the 
young American of the South over an alien’s cause? 

“ ‘I appeal for Caucasian unity. I appeal for the 
imperial destiny of our mighty race. This is our 
country. We made it. We molded it. We control 
it, and we always will. We have done great things. 
We have mighty things yet to do. The negro is an 
accident—an unwilling, a blameless, but an unwhole¬ 
some, unwelcome, helpless, unassimilable element in 
our civilization. He is not made for our times. He 
is not framed to share in the duty and the destiny 
which he perplexes and beclouds. Let us put him 
kindly and humanely out of the way. Let us give 
him a better chance than he has ever had in history, 
and let us have done with him.’ ” 

In January, 1890, and in several other numbers of 
that year, The Open Court of Chicago published a 
contribution on this subject from the pen of a no less 
distinguished American philosopher and biologist than 
the late Professor E. D. Cope. It also published 
several rejoinders from his critics on the question. 
All of these contributions I have before me at the 
present writing, they having been kindly furnished me 
by Dr. Paul Cams, the editor of The Open Court. So 

19 




290 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


valuable do I consider these articles that it would give 
me great pleasure to materially add to the value of 
this work by reproducing them here. They are 
rather too long, however, so I must content myself 
with giving only one of the replies of Professor Cope 
and one from one of his critics. In the issue of Feb¬ 
ruary 20, 1890, eighteen years ago, appeared the 
following two of the series to which I refer:— 

“The Return of the Negroes to Africa. 

“Mr. Frederick May Holland has replied to my 
article on the proposed removal of the African race, 
in the United States, to Africa, citing various objec¬ 
tions to such a course. These objections are well 
known to the present writer. He is not a Democrat 
in politics, and was in the days of slavery—and still 
is—of anti-slavery opinions. He appreciates the 
amiable traits of the African, and, on the ground of 
personal convenience, prefers him as a servant to 
most representatives of the white race. He does not 
forget his great services during the war to both the 
South and the North. He is aware that no citizen can 
be banished under the Constitution on account of race 
or color, nor does he lay any stress on the matter of 
color. Many of the Eastern representatives of the 
Indo-European race are black, and some of the 
African negroes are very light. It is a question of 
race and not of color. 

“But all this is subordinate to two questions which 
are, as it seems to the present writer, of much greater 
importance, especially to a nation living under a 
republican form of government. These questions I 
have stated to be: first, that of negro rule, and 
second, that of negro mixture of race. 




The Remedy. 


291 


* 


S 


“When a man has a service to perform to his kind, 
it is essential that he shall observe the physical con¬ 
ditions which are necessary to the performance of it. 
A teacher or preacher who should so live as to be in 
continued ill-health could not be said to be performing 
his duty. A judge, attorney, or member of Congress 
who should eat or drink himself sick as a habit would 
not long retain his position. 

“The people of the United States have to show 
mankind how order may be conserved consistently 
with the greatest amount of personal liberty. This 
we think is accomplished under our form of govern¬ 
ment. But all races are not equally capable of sus¬ 
taining this relation between order and freedom. In 
fact, what we know as the inferior races—the Mon¬ 
golian and African—have never made successful at¬ 
tempts to sustain republican forms of government. 
The negro has conspicuously failed in all but absolute 
governments, whatever they may be in name. It is 
not certain that all of the white race are capable of 
self-government at present. The neighboring so- 
called republic of Mexico is really a military despotism, 
although I believe that the material for a republic is 
there, and that at some future day that country will 
be in fact what it is now only in name. 

“The United States have made laws excluding the 
Chinese from our country. We have assumed the 
right to do this for our own protection. On the whole, 
the present writer approves of these laws, although 
some of the reasons assigned in support of them are 
not good, and the maltreatment of particular Chinese 
is a stain on the name of our country. Many nations 
have, at different periods of history, removed parts 



292 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


of their populations outside of their borders for vari¬ 
ous reasons. It has seldom, if ever, occurred—so 
far as I know—that an equivalent for loss of property 
was granted in such cases, and as is proposed in the 
case of the removal of the American negroes to 
Africa. 

“Whatever reasons may have existed, or do exist, 
for the removal of particular peoples, or the exclusion 
of particular races from any country, they exist with 
tenfold force in the case of the negroes of the United 
States. In no country, having a republican form of 
government, has the lowest race of mankind been 
found dwelling with the highest. The case is a new 
one, and demands some independence of thought for 
its treatment. So-called human rights appear to come 
into conflict with questions of physical fact or law. 
The pure idealists will sustain the former, in spite of 
the latter; but the wise man knows that he must bow 
to the latter, and acts accordingly. It seems hard to 
the idealist that inequalities between men exist, yet 
they do exist and appear to work injustice. But we 
cannot help it. 

“I will not discuss again the mental status of the 
black race; it is well known except to those who will 
not see. The ability to weave and raise crops does 
not make a man just or rational, or free him from 
degrading vices and maddening superstitions. As to 
race mixture, Mr. Holland is a trifle prejudiced in 
his remarks. The inferior race has never been known 
to resist the attractions of the superior, to any great 
extent, so far as I am aware; least of all the negro. 
If Mr. Holland doubts the certainty of race-mixture, 
let him read history, or, better, visit all countries 



The Remedy. 


293 


where races come in contact. The white race of the 
European coasts of the Mediterranean have not been 
benefited by their mixture with the African races, and 
these latter were and are superior to our negroes. 

'The reasons why the American negroes object 
to being returned to Africa are self-evident. As 
beneficiaries of a civilized nation, they have their 
rights better protected than they would have under a 
government of their own race. It must not be for- 
gotten that much of their orderly and ‘peaceable’ 
conduct is due to this fact. When left to themselves 
they are not distinguished for those qualities. They 
enjoy here the use of numberless inventions made by 
the white race. They have advantage of intellectual 
and ethical instructions controlled by them. These 
advantages are offset, to a small degree, by the out¬ 
rageous treatment they too often receive from a 
degraded type of white men in the South, whom the 
Southern authorities are not sufficiently active in 
bringing to justice. 

“I may be wrong, but I do not believe that our 
country ought to incur the risks incident to the exist¬ 
ence of such a body of such a race in its midst. It is 
simply a question of self-preservation, far more 
urgent than that presented by the Chinese question. 
The preferences of the negroes themselves must be, in 
this case, disregarded. In fact, the only natural right 
they have in the matter is to demand to be returned 
to Africa, from which their ancestors were carried 
against their own consent. The supposition that the 
South is not adapted for white labor will not bear 
examination. The negroes can be spared, and their 
place will be speedily filled with whites. 



294 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


“It is, however, difficult to convey to the general 
reader the seriousness of the difficulty as it appears to 
the student of species-characters in body and mind. 
The conclusion to be drawn from the facts is, that 
whatever of future progress the negro may have 
before him, it will take so long before he has reached 
the capacity to stand alone as competent for self- 
government, that we cannot take the risk of his pres¬ 
ence here. Let him work out his own salvation with¬ 
out risking the future of the Indo-European. If he is 
so capable as some persons believe, it will do him no 
harm. If he succeeds no better in the future than he 
has in the past, he will not surprise some who think 
they know him better.—E. D. Cope. 

“Philadelphia, February, 1890.” 


“The Negro Question. 

“The state of public opinion sixty years ago on 
the question of Negro Emigration is brought vividly 
to my mind by some remarks upon the subject in The 
Open Court of February 6th. 

“The writer is mistaken when he says that the 
negro population of the country were largely opposed 
to emigration. The negro at the North had not at that 
time any distinctive influence, either in number or 
opinions, upon the ideas of the day, but ranged them¬ 
selves in the lists of Williams Lloyd Garrison, at that 
time the editor of the Liberator, published in the city 
of Boston. 

“Mr. Garrison, with whom I subsequently became 
well acquainted, was a mild-spoken gentleman in 
social life, a trait that formed a great contrast to his 



The Remedy. 


295 


vehement, vituperative editorials as they appeared 
week by week in the Liberator . 

“At that time Liberia had for Governor John 
Russworm, a mulatto of superior intelligence, warmly 
upheld by the Colonization Society, of which Mr. 
Gusney was president, and B. B. Thatcher, poet and 
lecturer, was secretary. The colored people, what¬ 
ever they may have since become, were supinely indif¬ 
ferent to the movements made in relation to them, few 
attending meetings called together where their inter¬ 
ests were at stake, and only one, Mr. Raymond 
(accent on last syllable), a half-breed, warmly sup¬ 
ported by Wendell Phillips, ever pleading orally for 
his people. 

“It was not the negro who was opposed to emigra¬ 
tion, but such men as Garrison and George Thomson, 
of England. B. B. Thatcher presented the views of 
the Colonization Society and the growing value of the 
Liberian Colony, in eloquent and fervid oratory. Lie 
voiced the cultured and far-seeing ideas of statesmen 
and philanthropists, while the Abolitionists were 
looked upon as fanatics, and the negro stood between 
the two like the animal between the two bundles of 
hay. 

“If we except a few members of their race, the 
negro has never wasted his abundant sensuality upon 
any questions of race improvement. Toussaint 
L’Ouverture was a great man, despite of race, and 
Count Timines, who was in this country just before 
the opening of the Civil War, was a man of elegant 
culture, educated in Paris, and holding brave hopes 
for the emancipation of Hayti, which was the limit of 
his world, and he wrote a history of it, describing the 



296 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


terrible war of races, which has deluged that lovely 
island with blood. 

“The negro has never made endeavors to attain 
dominion or power. The negro has never made a 
start for liberty. Liberty has been thrust upon him,— 
and he receives it without dignity, uttering complaints 
and making statements known to be false, with con¬ 
stant appeals to Northern sympathy. 

“It may be Utopian to think of removing six 
millions of people to Africa; but once let emigration 
turn that way, and Africa will be remunerated for the 
wrong we have done her. We wrenched from her a 
sensual, ignorant, barbarous population, and we 
return thither a people with civilized instincts, and it 
is to be hoped with aspirations that may help the 
dark continent to wipe out her old pagan barbarism, 
cruelty, and sensuality, by creating in them the hope 
of culture and the intimations of Empire.— Elizabeth 
Oakes Smith. 

“Hollywood, N. C., February 12, 1890.” 

In the following contribution to The Open Court 
(Chicago, Tune 12, 1890, p. 2331), Prof. Cope closed 
the discussion:— 

“The Return of the Negroes to Africa. 

“Criticism on my paper on this subject in The 
Open Court of January 23, 1890, having apparently 
ceased, I am disposed to recur to the subject for two 
reasons. One of these is that I wish to reply to my 
critics; and the other is that Mr. Henry M. Stanley 
is said to have taken up the subject, and to be prepared 
to place his knowledge of Central Africa at the dis- 



The Remedy. 


297 


posal of the proper authorities when the project shall 
have been decided on. 

“I am not surprised to find that the objectors to 
the project of transferring the negroes from this 
country to Africa have nothing but sentimental objec¬ 
tions to urge against it. They call their objection 
ethical, and imagine that they have the support of 
justice in their position. Their understanding of the 
import of ethics and justice may differ from mine, but 
I suspect that their view chiefly results from igno¬ 
rance of some fundamental principles of biology, and 
their failure to perceive the bearings of these on the 
problem. 

“In order to present a rational objection to the plan 
of separating the Ethiopian from the Indo-European 
race by 3000 miles of water, its opponents should 
prove, first, that the negro and white races will not 
hybridize in the countries where they live together; 
or second, that the hybrid, if produced, possesses men¬ 
tal characteristics as good as those of the whites. 
Neither of my critics has done this, and until they do 
so, their objections are absolutely worthless. On the 
contrary, if the opposite of my position be proven, I 
will promptly abandon it. As to the question of 
injustice, we have to decide, if injustice there be, as 
to who shall be the sufferer. Shall we subject the 
higher race to deterioration; or shall we subject the 
lower to transportation without material loss to it? 
To do the former is to injure the entire human 
species. To do the latter is to continue the process 
which the abolition of slavery inaugurated, to teach 
the negro to stand on his own legs, a process which 
can no more be called injustice than the exercise of 



298 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


the methods of education, which the world has for us 
all from childhood. 

“The hardships of the transportation would be 
trifling, and not greater than those which thousands 
of immigrants to this country voluntarily undergo. 
I have lived in various parts of the world, and I could 
be happy in any of them, provided my family and 
friends were not too far removed. Now it is not pro¬ 
posed to separate families and friends in this exodus, 
so that the picture of sufferings from this cause, 
drawn from one of my critics, is quite imaginary. As 
to the country, Stanley states that parts of the Upper 
Congo region are admirable as places of residence, 
and free from the swamps of many of our Southern 
States. 

“Abstract objections on the one side weigh little 
against the facts on the other. Objections against 
compulsory education and against compulsory vac¬ 
cination are of the same character, and are generally 
admitted to be valueless as against the important 
benefits accruing to mankind from the enforcement 
of these provisions. 

“I repeat what appear to me to be the facts of the 
case. The characteristics of the negro mind are of 
such a nature as to unfit him for citizenship in this 
country. He is thoroughly superstitious, and abso¬ 
lutely under the control of supernaturalism, in some 
generally degrading form, and the teacher of it. He 
is lacking in rationality and in morality. Without 
going further, these traits alone should exclude him 
from citizenship. Secondly, these peculiarities depend 
on an organic constitution which it will require ages 
to remove. Corresponding qualities in the lower 



The Remedy. 


299 


strata of the white race are modified or removed in a 
comparatively short time on account of superior 
natural mental endowment. Thirdly, if he remains in 
this country he will mix with the whites until, in a 
half-century or less, there will not be a person of pure 
negro blood in it. It follows from this that there will 
be, in accordance with the usual rate of increase, an 
immense population of mulattoes, where there should 
be an equal number of whites. The deterioration thus 
resulting would tell disastrously on our intellectual, 
moral, and consequently on our political prosperity. 

“In view of these facts, it appears to me that the 
surplus in the treasury could not be better spent, and 
the navy of the country be better employed, than in 
the transportation of these people to Africa, where 
they can work out their own destiny, whatever that 
may be. The necessity seems to me to be great and 
urgent, and nothing but an ignorance of the facts of 
the case can prevent its being felt to be such by every 
white citizen of this republic. 

“It is not denied by me that the negro has various 
merits, and that in particular instances men of that 
race have risen to deserved prominence. But the gen¬ 
eral result is not altered by these exceptions. Senator 
Morgan’s bill, or something like it, should be passed 
promptly, and its provisions carried into effect before 
the burden becomes greater, and the material condi¬ 
tions beyond our control.” 

These last words are prophetic in the extreme. 
Cope has now been dead a number of years; it looks 
very much as though “the burden" had most decidedly 
become “greater, and the material conditions beyond 
our control.” The negroes themselves are not nearly 



300 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


so much averse to leaving this country as many would 
have us believe; indeed, a very large proportion of 
them are heartily in favor of some kind of emigration 
scheme. In support of this I here publish some of 
their views on the subject, set forth in the newspapers 
of this country for the past twenty years or more. 
Thousands of them at this date, Nov. 21, 1914, are 
ready to emigrate now. The issue of The Evening 
Star, of Washington, D. C., of October 23, 1893, 
printed an article on this subject:— 

“To South America. 

“Topeka, Kan., Oct. 20, 1893. —In 1885, fifty 
prominent negroes of Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, 
Kentucky and other States met in Topeka and organ¬ 
ized the ‘Central and South American Immigration 
Association and Equal Rights League of the Western 
Continent,’ the object being to organize the colored 
people of the United States into colonies and send 
them to South or Central America, there to found a 
new empire, build new homes, and in time solve the 
race problem in this country by simply allowing the 
Anglo-Saxon to have full and unlimited sway. 

“When this scheme was first advanced it was 
talked about all over the country and discussed pro 
and con in the newspapers, several prominent states¬ 
men, notably John J. Ingalls, taking a hand. But 
finally interest waned and effort ceased, until recently, 
when the association developed an entirely new plan, 
and announced that active efforts would soon be made 
toward the deportation of negroes to South America 
by the various States, and that influential negroes 
would be sent into the lecture field to explain fully the 
plan of operation. 



The Remedy. 


301 


“Col. John M. Brown, the negro county clerk of 
Shawnee County, Kan., is president of the association, 
and S. W. Wine, of Kansas City, secretary. Brown is 
one of the ablest colored men in the West, and has 
been a prominent candidate for State auditor. In 
political campaigns he renders valuable service on the 
stump for the Republicans, and is recognized by the 
opposition as a forceful and convincing speaker. He 
came to Kansas twelve years ago at the head of an 
exodus from Mississippi, where he held a county 
office. He lived in the ‘black belt,’ and the over¬ 
whelming negro majority made it possible for him to 
secure a political position. He is thoroughly conver¬ 
sant with the negro problem in the South, and after 
twelve years of study and investigation he believes his 
plan the only one that will ever bring peace and 
happiness to his race. It will, he says, solve the 
vexing problem in the South, and at the same time 
deport these people to a country where there are no 
social distinctions, but where with the Latin races 
they would become cemented and a part of the whole. 

“When Col. Brown first launched his colonization 
scheme on the public, he was met with strong opposi¬ 
tion from leading colored men all over the country; 
they did not believe it practical, and declared that a 
wholesale emigration of negroes would tend to fasten 
upon them a greater servitude than that complained 
of on the cotton and sugar plantations of the South. 
Then the negroes were unacquainted with the social 
conditions existing in the South American countries; 
but since Col. Brown and his co-workers have, through 
printed matter and from the lecture platform, removed 
the prejudice which first existed, a wonderful change 



302 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


has taken place, and he is constantly receiving letters 
inquiring about the movement. Several years ago he 
laid his plans in detail before ex-Senator John J. 
Ingalls. That gentleman scouted the idea of coloniz¬ 
ing the negroes in South America, and advanced the 
opinion that his plan of sending them back to Africa, 
their natural home, was the only feasible one by which 
the race question would ever be eliminated from 
society and politics in this country. Col. Brown, how¬ 
ever, caused Ingalls to weaken on his proposition when 
he showed him the disadvantages of his African 
scheme. He pointed out the fact that it would cost 
at least a hundred dollars a head to transport the 
negroes to that country, and that the great vessels 
necessary in the shipment of them across the ocean 
would, of necessity, have to come back empty, for the 
reason that this country receives nothing from Africa 
in the way of staple products. On the other hand, to 
land them on the eastern shore of South America, 
would not cost over fifteen dollars a head, and on the 
return trips sugar, coffee, and other South American 
products could be transported at a nominal cost. 

“Recently this association has formulated a new 
plan. Each State of the Union will be requested to 
organize a society for the purpose of pushing the 
scheme. Each State will be required to raise a fund 
sufficient to send from twenty-five to a hundred fam¬ 
ilies to South America as an experiment, and to pro¬ 
vide for their wants for several years, in case they are 

unable to secure homes and make their own wav. 

•/ 

When these societies are formed among the negroes 
of the various States, during the coming winter, a 
board of directors will be chosen by each State asso- 





The Remedy. 


303 


ciation. Later, all these boards will come together 
and select a national board to go to Brazil, Bolivia, 
Argentine Republic and other South American coun¬ 
tries, and arrange with the government offering the 
best advantages for either the purchase or lease of 
lands for the American colonies. Each State board 
will have charge of the deportation from that State, 
and in order that the plan may be favorably received 
by the Afro-Americans, and finally accepted by them 
as the best and surest way to solve the race problem, 
only industrious, intelligent and thrifty negroes will 
be taken in the first shipment. If they have sufficient 
money to make the trip, they will be expected to pay 
their passage; if they have not the necessary means, 
the society of the State from which they go will pay 
the expenses. None of the indolent and shiftless 
classes will be allowed in the first instalment. The 
success or failure of the movement depends upon the 
class of people who first go to the new country, and 
the leaders will see to it that good report comes back 
to stimulate others. 

“It is proposed to make every State society a stock 
company and solicit from Afro-Americans sums of 
from ten to fifty dollars, which will go into a common 
fund for advancing the movement. One of the plans 
on foot is to build several large vessels to ply between 
New Orleans and points on the eastern coasts of South 
America to be paid for out of this fund. If a head of 
a family wishes to aid the enterprise, and at some 
future time desires to cast his lot with his brethren in 
the new Eldorado, his subscription will be received, 
placed to his credit, and when he is ready to go the 
amount will be applied on the passage of himself and 



304 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


family to his new home. These vessels. Col. Brown 
thinks, would be a profitable investment for the asso¬ 
ciation, because they would bring in a good revenue 
for carrying to the United States on their return trips 
the products of South America, which this country 
must have. Thus, while the deportation of the 
negroes from the United States to the new Southern 
home was going on, the association would reap a rich 
harvest in bringing back to this market the products 
of South American countries. 

“Col. Brown says negroes can be transported from 
points between New Orleans and St. Louis for about 
fifteen dollars a head. He believes that after the first 
settlement is made, and the plan is proven a success, 
as he confidently believes it will be, the association 
will not be able to take all who will want to go. He 
says there is ten times more vacant land in Brazil 
alone than all the negroes in the United States could 
properly cultivate. He has received letters from that 
government recently, saying that all the negroes who 
will may come and be assured of protection, homes, and 
a competency. He also has letters from the Argentine 
Republic and Bolivia, offering very flattering induce¬ 
ments. He is favorable to Brazil, and if the present 
troubles do not disturb his plans he will undoubt¬ 
edly favor negotiations with that government. The 
climatic conditions are favorable, and there is plenty 
of land at very low prices. Speaking of the social 
question as it relates to that country, he said: ‘There 
the color line is obliterated and we would stand upon 
the same footing with the natives. Here we can 
never hope to enjoy that privilege.’ 

“He believes that the first deportation of negroes 



The Remedy. 


305 


for the new Eldorado would create great excitement 
among their brethren in the South, and that thousands 
would want to join the procession. On this line he 
said: ‘Let a boat-load of negroes, bound for the new 
country, leave St. Louis, singing their old plantation 
songs as they float down the Mississippi, and it would 
be almost impossible to hold the multitudes that cul¬ 
tivate and pick the cotton from the plantations along 
the banks. They would want to join the throng, be¬ 
cause they would see beneath the lowering clouds that 
have shut out the light of freedom and independence, 
a silver lining, and they would feel that a brighter 
era was dawning. They would realize that there was 
in store for them in their new home something better 
than a life of drudgery and ceaseless toil, from which 
they are barely able to live. And this is not all; for the 
first time in the history of this country the old ex-slave 
drivers and plantation magnates of the South would 
feel the sands slipping from under them. The cheap 
labor from which they have been able to amass for¬ 
tunes would depart for a Southern clime in another 
country, and their plantations would grow up in 
weeds. The Winchester rifle and shot-gun, potent 
factors in Southern elections, would rust in their 
racks, and the race problem would be settled, and 
settled forever in this country. The public domain is 
exhausted and the restless young men crowding West 
would turn to the deserted fields of the new South, 
where plantations would be divided and subdivided, 
until the Yankee had a voice in the politics of that 
section. All we ask is that Senator Ingalls, and other 
statesmen who believe themselves burdened with the 

responsibility of settling the race problem, will allow 

20 



306 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


us to carve out our own destiny. We believe the 
South American emigration plan will solve the negro 
problem in this country, and, if it does, these states¬ 
men who have been so solicitous about our welfare 
ought to be satisfied.’ ” 

Some years ago The World, of New York City, 
printed the following as a news item bearing upon this 
question (November 29, 1903):— 

“Negroes Call for Help to Emigrate. 

“Birmingham, Ala., Nov. 25.—If the cause we 
represent were less deserving of consideration at the 
hands of the people of America, we would hesitate to 
make this appeal on the eve of that day when we 
Americans are more than at any other time in the 
year appealed to to meet the demands made upon us 
by deserving humanity. We believe, however, that of 
all the obligations the American people owe to human ¬ 
ity, the debt we owe the people that were once our 
slaves is possibly the greatest. 

“It is true that the purses of the philanthropic 
people of this country have been and are always wide 
open, when the real needs of the colored people are 
made apparent. Churches, schools, colleges, and 
many other institutions of much importance to the 
race are prominent landmarks throughout the South¬ 
land, speaking eloquently of the generosity of the 
Anglo-Saxon toward these people, and more eloquent 
still are the intelligent, educated men and women of 
the race, who have been qualified by those means to 
lead their people out of the darkness thrown around 
them by long years of servitude. But with all this 
there has sprung up possibly a greater menace to the 
progress of these people. 



The Remedy. 


307 


“The colored people believe that they have been 
discriminated against, ostracized, disfranchised, and 
otherwise oppressed to such an extent that emigration 
to Africa appears to be the only means that will afford 
them relief. This society will have, by February or 
probably sooner, a colony of from three to five 
hundred sturdy pioneers, men, women, and children, 
ready to embark on a chartered steamer at Savannah, 
Ga., for their new homes in Africa. 

“Many of these people, in fact nearly all of them, 
are financially unable to undertake this venture with¬ 
out the moral support and some financial aid from 
their Anglo-Saxon friends. It is true that Liberia, 
the place where they are going, offers them every 
natural advantage and opportunity for making a 
living, and to establish themselves comfortably in a 
home of their own; but as a matter of fact, with little 
means they would have a hard time for the first few 
months after landing there; therefore this appeal is 
made to the generous and philanthropic people of 
America, to contribute at least a mite to assist these 
people for a short while after landing in Liberia. 

“They will need, first: provisions, medicine, and 
the immediate necessities of life. Then houses, house¬ 
hold necessities, farm implements, seeds, and things 
of that description will be needed to enable them to 
get an early and successful start. If only a few of 
their friends will contribute these things in kind, or 
the money with which to buy them, many souls will be 
made glad and a worthy cause aided very materially. 
Will not each one who reads this contribute a dime, 
a dollar, or several dollars? You will be happier for 
doing so. 



308 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


“Persons wishing to aid these colonists can receive 
further information by addressing the Liberian 
Colonization Society, Birmingham, Ala., or donations 
can be sent direct to it. This appeal comes directly and 
indirectly from fully four million souls who are crying 
out for relief from what they believe to be unjust 
oppression, and many hearts will be glad and prayers 
go up to an all-wise God for every favor contributed. 
—Lee Cowart, President.” 

The following is the most sensible and feasible 
proposition they ever attempted. It was proposed in 
October, 1893 (The Evening Star, Washington, 
D. C., Oct. 30, 1893), and had the scheme been 
methodically carried out and accomplished, the so- 
called “negro problem” would, in so far as this coun¬ 
try is concerned, have been settled a number of years 
ago. Here is the plan:— 

“A Billion for Colonization. 

f 

“A delegation of colored lawyers from the South 
is in this city to carry into effect a resolution of the 
recent Afro-American Convention, held in Chatta¬ 
nooga, Tenn. The delegation is composed of S. L. 
Hutchins, R. C. O. Benjamin, J. G. Burge, John E. 
Patton, M. C. Parker, and Samuel R. Lowery. They 
are here to present to Congress a memorial asking for 
$1,000,000,000 to be appropriated by Congress to 
colonize the colored race in some other country. 

“The memorial will be presented to Congress by 
Representative Murray, the colored member from the 
Seventh South Carolina District, but Mr. Murray is 
not in sympathy with the colonization scheme; he 
believes that the colored race will make better prog- 



The Remedy. 


309 


ress by remaining with the white race, emulating it, 
and receiving the inspiration of a higher civilization.” 

Such utterly chimerical plans as the following— 
although proposed by negroes—are noticed here only 
to show how ignorant these people are of the actual 
conditions existing in regard to them. Of course it 
is nonsense to talk about setting two States aside for 
their exclusive occupancy; for to ship them from one 
part of the country to another is no solution at all. 
Besides, it is at once more than dangerous and harm¬ 
ful, and can but be a scheme to spread the existing 
trouble. The Nezv York Times (Tuesday, Nov. io, 
I 9°3) published the following:— 

“Two States for Negroes. 

“Washington, Nov. 9. —The first paper read at 
the opening meeting today of the National Sociological 
Society, in session in this city to consider “The Race 
Problem in the United States,” came as a shock to 
many members of the society present. The author of 
the paper was Bishop Lucien Halsey, of the African 
Methodist Zion Church, who proposed to have the 
National Government set aside one or more States 
of the Union for the segregation of the negroes. 

“A warm discussion followed the reading of the 
paper, but no resolutions on the matter were 
introduced. 

“A permanent organization was made with ex- 
Representative White, of North Carolina, as Chair¬ 
man, and a number of Vice Presidents. 

“At the afternoon session an address of welcome 
was made by Commissioner MacFarland, and re¬ 
sponded to by the Rev. I. L. Thomas, of Baltimore.” 



310 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


A few months earlier (August 17, 1903) the fol¬ 
lowing, which in reality meant nothing more than the 
natural spread of the race and danger to the country, 
appeared:— 

“Negro Emigration Scheme. 

“Tacoma, Washington, Aug. 16.—The Rev. 
J. F. Davidson, pastor of the Mount Olivet Colored 
Baptist Church, arrived from New Orleans yesterday 
with a party of twenty-five colored men, whom he will 
colonize in Tacoma or in the vicinity. Mr. Davidson 
hopes to be able to purchase a large tract of land, 
upon which he will establish a colored community 
somewhat cooperative in character. At present a cer¬ 
tain part of the wages of the colored men will be set 
aside every month as a nucleus for a fund for buying 
this land. 

“Mr. Davidson expects thousands of colored people 
will come North from time to time. He himself is 
one of the Western agents of a colored organization, 
with headquarters in Boston, the object of which is, if 
possible, to depopulate the South of negroes by in¬ 
ducing emigration on a monumental scale to favorable 
regions of the Northwest. 

“Mr. Davidson is enthusiastic over the prospects 
of those of his race who are transplanted to the Pacific 
Northwest, declaring that under favorable conditions 
they will become intelligent members of society, and 
prove themselves capable of developing into important 
factors in civilization in this country. One result of 
this immense immigration of negroes will be to relieve 
the labor shortage along the entire coast.” 

I publish these opinions of negroes, newspapers, 
and others, given twenty or more years ago, in order 




The Remedy. 


311 


to show how long this state of unrest among the blacks 
has existed. Such opinions, too, are interesting and 
important from an historical standpoint. They point 
out the facts and conditions which are just as true 
today (Nov., 1914) as the day they were uttered or 
published. They also are of advantage to bring out 
the characters of the countries to which negroes may 
be deported; where they will be received and where 
they will not; the matter of cost of transportation, and 
associated questions. Some of the negroes who have 
given the foregoing opinions are still living, and in 
the light of development of recent conditions affecting 
the colored race in this country, they are more than 
ever convinced that deportation is the only solution of 
this problem. Opinions of those of the present day 
will be given further on in this chapter. 

Only a little more than a year ago, the following 
opinion was rendered by a very well known Congress¬ 
man of one of the Southern States. It was published 
in The Evening Star, of Washington, D. C., in its 
issue of October 16, 1913, having been extracted from 
a long letter written by Representative Frank Clark, 
of Florida, to the governor of that State, in regard to 
a threatened colonization of a tract of land in Florida 
by the Japanese. In the course of his remarks Mr. 
Clark said:— 

“I was astonished when I learned that there was a 
real serious movement on foot to colonize Japanese in 
the State of Florida. The people of Florida are 
burdened now with the solution of a race problem 
that will tax the ingenuity, ability and patriotism of 
generations to come to solve. I regard it as the most 



312 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


perplexing question which has ever challenged the 
attention of any people upon the earth. 

“Here are two races of people living upon the 
same soil, under the same government; one recog¬ 
nized as the most superior and advanced race in the 
world, the other as inferior. It is utterly impossible 
for these two races to inhabit the same territory upon 
terms of absolute equality, either social or political. 

“The white people of Florida, and of the United 
States, in my humble judgment, will never consent to 
assimilate with the negro; and, stupendous as the task 
may seem, the only solution of this question which 
will preserve the integrity of the white race, and at 
the same time be fair to the negro, is deportation of 
the negro, and settlement in a land of his own, under 
a government he shall control.” 

A contributor to The Nezv York Times , Septem¬ 
ber 30, 1906, expresses an opinion in which he at¬ 
tempts to point out that on account of its expense 
and magnitude, the question of deportation of the 
negroes is not feasible. He also endeavors to show 
that they cannot, as laborers, be spared from the 
South. In fact, in his contribution, he practically 
raises the points usually raised by those desiring to 
retain the blacks in this country, and expresses him¬ 
self precisely as such an objector would express 
himself at the present time. I shall endeavor to 
answer all such objections at the close of this chapter: 

“From the Charleston Nezvs and Courier: —‘Sep¬ 
aration of the races is the only radical solution of the 
negro problem in this country. There is nothing new 
about it. It was the Almighty who established the 
bounds of the habitation of the races. The negroes 




The Remedy. 


313 


were brought here by compulsion; they should be 
induced to leave here by persuasion.’ 

“Certainly this would be a ‘radical’ solution of 
what is termed the negro problem. We are not sur¬ 
prised that it should occur to Southern men under the 
immediate influence of the events at Atlanta last week. 
Putting aside for the moment the question whether 
the solution is the only one, it is worth while to con¬ 
sider how it can be applied. The Charleston writer 
mentions an estimate made fifteen years since of 
$32,000,000 a year for ten years, $320,000,000 in all. 
We do not know if that estimate included compensa¬ 
tion to the property owners among the deported race; 
if it did, it was .obviously defective. The total expense 
would probably be many times the amount mentioned. 

“At the last census, the negroes, including all 
those of negro descent, were reported to be 8,840,789, 
and the whites to be 66,990,802 in the whole country; 
that is, the negroes were about one-ninth of the pop¬ 
ulation. But if we take the fourteen States south of 
the old Mason and Dixon’s line, the negroes were re¬ 
ported to be 8,067,824, and the whites to be 17,436,- 
495; that is to say, in these States there were in 1900 
forty-six negroes to each hundred whites, and the 
negroes were, roughly, one-third of the population. 
There are four States, however, in which the negroes 
are less than one-fourth of the population—Texas, 
where they are 26 per cent, of the whites; Maryland, 
where they are 22 per cent, of the whites; Kentucky, 
where they are 15 per cent, of the whites, and Mis¬ 
souri, where they are but 5 per cent, of the whites. 
This leaves ten of the Southern States in which the 
proportion of the negroes is much higher, and in eight 



314 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


of these ten the proportions are as follows: For every 
ioo whites there are in South Carolina 150 negroes; 
in Mississippi 145; in Louisiana 90; in Georgia 88; in 
Alabama 82; in Florida 75; in Virginia 55, and in 
North Carolina 50. If we put aside the population of 
Missouri, Texas, and Kentucky, we find that the total 
white population in the remaining Southern States 
was, in 1900, 10,202,674, and the negro population 
was 7,001,162. The negroes were 70 per cent, of the 
whites, and somewhat more than two-fifths of the 
entire population. 

“Now here—if we are to take seriously the advice 
of The Nezvs and Courier —is the real 'problem’ of 
the negroes: How is the South to get rid of two-fifths 
of its population, including the greater part—prac¬ 
tically the whole—of its agricultural laboring class? 
In the first place, where are they to go? What reason 
is there to think that the Republic of Liberia, named 
by the Nezvs and Courier, could provide homes and 
living for them? Next, how are they to be 'induced’ 
to go ‘by persuasion?’ How much would be required 
to compensate them for their present holdings, how 
much to pay the cost of their deportation, how much 
to ensure the reasonably attractive employment or 
settlement in Africa, and who is to furnish all this 
enormous sum? These are perfectly practical ques¬ 
tions. They must be answered, and it is 'up to’ the 
proposers of the plan to answer them. 

“But they are by no means all that must be 
answered. There is another list relating to all the in¬ 
dustries now dependent on negro labor in the South. 
They may be summed up in the simple question: What 
is to replace negro labor? Grant, to start with, that 





The Remedy. 


315 


negro labor in the South is not what it should be, is 
not nearly what the South needs; but there it is, the 
only labor available for the time being. There is a 
great mass of it. The body of the eight millions of 
negroes in the South support themselves in some way. 
They contribute the greater share to the $ 454 > 000 ) 000 
worth of cotton, the $56,000,000 worth of wheat, the 
$28,000,000 worth of corn, the $18,000,000 worth of 
oats—$556,000,000 worth of farm products in all— 
raised South. Assume that it is possible to ‘induce’ 
them to go to Africa, who are to take their places, who 
are to do their work? Quite apart from the almost 
incalculable cost of their deportation, which the South 
must bear if the expense is to be incurred, where is 
the South to find the arms to replace their arms? It 
will be an enormous task; it will take a long time; it 
will involve immense sacrifices. Without pronouncing 
judgment on the ‘solution,’ we venture to ask whether 
those who advocate it have considered these elements 
of the ‘problem,’ and what is their opinion regarding 
them.” 

I am not certain as to whether M. F. Walker, the 
author of “Our Home Colony,” is a man or woman, 
negro or Anglo-Saxon; the reader must judge of this 
from the following part of a paragraph that I find in 
the Preface to that very instructive little pamphlet; it 
reads as follows: “Our own personal experience, in 
no way, has been allowed to bias our judgment. No 
one could entertain higher regard for the American 
white man and his magnificent civilization than the 
writer; and it is the appreciation of this fact, along 
with the infancy of Negro freedom, that forces the 
conclusion upon our mind that it is contrary to every- 




316 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


thing in the nature of man, and almost criminal to 
attempt to harmonize these two diverse peoples while 
living under the same government.” 1 

On page 34 of this little treatise, the author very 
truly remarks: “The people of this Republic should 
understand the great danger that confronts them by 
a delay in putting into practicable operation some 
plan to relieve this country of the congested Negro 
population of the Southern States. There is to our 
mind no other rational plan but Emigration for the 
Negro. Every principle of the science of social de¬ 
velopment is opposed to the unnatural relation exist¬ 
ing in this country between seventy millions of the 
white and ten millions of the black race. This condi¬ 
tion would never have occurred had the members of 
the white race pursued the courses dictated by natural 
laws. The association of the races in this country 
originated in a crime, and is unnatural.” 

The author then proceeds to give the true reason 
why it will never be possible for the negro to rise in the 
United States; to properly develop, or ever become the 
social or intellectual equal of the dominant race,—and 
it is impossible. 

“The Negro has often been credited with posses¬ 
sing a strong patriotism; yet the treatment given him 
at the hands of his white fellow-citizens is designed 
ultimately to make of him an enemy to the govern¬ 
ment, and a menace to peace and order. ... It 

1 Since the above paragraph was written I have received a very 
interesting letter from M. F. Walker, dated December 17, 1914. He 
is the Manager of the Cadiz Opera House, Cadiz, Ohio. In his letter 
he states: “As to my identity will say I am what you would call a 
mulatto, born and raised in this State, but have traveled much of our 
country.” R. W. S. 




The Remedy. 


317 


is impossible for the American Negro to feel the same 
warmth of patriotism for the United States that swells 
the bosom of an Anglo-Saxon, or that makes it pleas¬ 
ant for an Englishman or Frenchman to die for his 
country. These people are filled with a national pride 
arising from the achievements of their fathers and the 
sacred, inherited trust of maintaining them inviolate 
to their posterity.” 

Then follows paragraph after paragraph giving 
the real status of the negro in the United States, and 
the utter hopelessness of his situation. “If the white 
man refuses to take the Negro as a citizen of this 
Republic on perfect social, industrial, and political 
equality, then the fate of the black man is sealed. He 
must either leave the United States, be practically re¬ 
duced to slavery or be exterminated. It will be 
impossible for the Negro to have industrial or political 
equality with the white man without social equality; 
and this, as we have said, he can never get.” 

In fact, as this writer thoroughly believes and is 
eminently correct in believing, every negro in this 
country who entertains the opinion that either he or 
she, or any of his or her descendants, will ever attain 
to social equality in the United States, is simply fol¬ 
lowing a will-o’-the-wisp. By social equality I mean 
an equality characterized by a freedom so great that 
the two races intermarry without restraint or stigma 
attached to the union; by the negro entering, without 
surprise to any one, into all of our social gatherings, 
both of home and those of State and Federal function; 
in short enjoys, without comment or protest from any 
one, all that this civilization has brought us in private 
and public life. It is not that the white race in 



318 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


America desires in any way to be unfair to the negroes 
in the country; but we have gone as far as we ever 
shall go along the social equality line. And I will say 
to the entire negro multitude in this country: We 
will never go one single peg further. It is always the 
fate of a numerically and mentally subordinate race, 
when occupying the same country with a higher race, 
to be held in strict subordination by the latter, and it 
is no more than natural that it should be so. 

Walker very truly points out that “The Negro is 
attached to this country more by the hope of equality 
with the white man than by dread of Africa. 
Thousands of Negroes in the South are ready and 
willing to leave the United States if cheap means were 
provided for them to do so. The recent effort, which 
is meeting with considerable success, to divert part of 
the great stream of European immigrants to the 
Southern States will only force the' Negro to the 
North, and make more acute the already troublesome 
problem. When the ‘black belt’ moves north of 
‘Mason and Dixon’s line,’ the Northern white man 
may see more clearly the necessity of moving it across 
the Atlantic Ocean, where of right it belongs.” (This 
is what Mrs. Annie Riley Hale contends, and is set 
forth in her letter published on a previous page.) 

It is not necessary for me to point out what would 
happen were a fine class of European immigrants from 
various nations to pour into the South and drive the 
negroes out. White would be substituted for black; 
cleanliness and progressiveness for filth and idleness; 
clean marriages and homes for.negro concubinage and 
squatters’ hovels; social, industrial, and political 
equality for alien subordination and protested rights 



319 


The Remedy. 

of complete citizenship. Where is the boasted mental 
acuteness of the negro in America if he fails to see this 
written all over his future career, so long as he re¬ 
mains in the United States? 

If you ever attempt to gain what you, as a race, so 
yearn to possess—complete social equality—by force 
of arms, there will be, in this country, no history of 
Haitian independence for you, nor could forty such 
men as Toussaint lead you to it. It would mean ex¬ 
termination in very short order—but not of the Anglo- 
Saxons. You deserve a far better fate than that, and 
it is the plain duty of this country to assist you in every 
possible way, financially and otherwise, to secure you 
room in the world where you can properly advance 
and develop. Are you any nearer social equality in 
Washington today than you were in 1866? Essen¬ 
tially you are not , and you never will be. 

Your own “ministers of the gospel” are hoodwink¬ 
ing you as a race, and in doing so they are traitors 
to your best interests and welfare. They should force¬ 
fully teach you that this is a zvhite man's country; that 
its rulers and its people—apart from a certain percent¬ 
age who think otherwise—think of their God as white; 
of his Son, the saviour of their souls, as white ,—and 
he had twelve zvhite apostles . Walker remarks in his 
pamphlet “Our Home Colony,” from which I have 
been quoting: “Many good-meaning men of both 
races urge upon the Negro to trust his cause to God 
and all will come out well. There can be no question 
about this if there was any proof that God would give 
it immediate consideration.” Now you ten millions of 
blacks and mulattoes in the United States might im¬ 
plore the powers that be for social equality with the 






320 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


whites in this country until the crack of doom, and 
it would have no more effect than did another cele¬ 
brated prayer (October 4, 1914), in the way of bring¬ 
ing peace to war-distracted Europe. 

“The gods help those who help themselves,” is 
what your churches should teach you, and teach you 
every day, Sunday not excepted. What does Ameri- - 
can civilization mean to you if you are not part of it, 
can not enter into it, had nothing to do with its 
origin, and can have nothing to do with its real prog¬ 
ress and future, beyond being considered a “problem” 
and a “black peril?” 

Men like Booker T. Washington and W. E. D. 
DuBois are traitors to their race in this country, and 
are the worst enemies the negroes in the United States 
have today. There are thousands of the best white 
families in this country at this writing who would not 
sit at the same table with either of these men—and 
why? Simply for the reason that they are members 
of the subordinate race. 

It will make no difference how wealthy any par¬ 
ticular negro may become: he will never be able to 
buy his way into the inner circles of the American 
white aristocracy; it would be the accomplishment of 
a feat quite as unthinkable as a full-blooded negro 
becoming President of the United States.-" 

Walker fully appreciates the fact that the only 
remedy which will save these two races in the United 
States, and admit of the subordinate one evolving as 
best it can, is their complete segregation and the de¬ 
portation of the blacks in this country. Most force¬ 
fully does the author of “Our Home Colony” present 
this remedy as the only effective step to prevent the 



The Remedy. 


321 


rottenness of morals now pervading the country 
where negroes reside. As a part of the discussion to 
which the present chapter is devoted, I will quote 
quite fully what is set forth on that point. On pages 
42-47 he says:— 

“The Negroes generally expect the day to come 
when, through the effect of education and the accu¬ 
mulation of wealth, they will enjoy full social equality 
with the white people of the United States. Some 
are so ignorant of the nature of the marriage rela¬ 
tion that they argue it is only a step from concubinage 
between white men and black women to the Divine 
institution. These persons do not seem to know that 
concubinage has its motives in the animal desires, and 
that the marriage relation never should be entered 
from considerations based on the passions or impulse. 
There is absolutely no analogy between concubinage 
and marriage. The motives that lead to the marriage 
relation are drawn from considerations that do not 
enter the mind of the illicit lover. We wish to make it 
clear that persons living in a state of concubinage are 
not only not approaching the marriage relation, but 
the very motives under which they act precludes even 
its proper consideration. As we have before said, the 
temptations to an immoral life are the most deplorable 
features in the present conditions of the Negro race. 
The Negro will never get social equality with the 
white race, hence there is no escape from a condition 
that will ultimately deprive him of all moral sense. 
There is no use in trying to go contrary to the known 
laws of human nature. 

“We wish every thoughtful white father and 
mother in the United States, and every Negro inter- 

21 



322 


America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


ested in the welfare of his race, could fully appreciate 
the wide prevalence of concubinage between white 
men and Negro women all over the land, but espe¬ 
cially in the Southern States. This crime needs 
earnest consideration because its continuance and 
spread will ultimately sap all that is good from the 
American home. This form of vice as it exists be¬ 
tween the races is nothing less than a grade of prosti¬ 
tution, and of the most dangerous sort. 

“The concubinal white man is a lecherous being, 
and the Negro concubine a human without the least 
trace of moral sense. Offsprings from such unions 
swarm the Southern States. What is to prevent this 
progeny from being worse than animal? Such 
creatures are more dangerous to society than wild 
beasts; for these last can easily be hunted and shot, 
while the former go on procreating their lecherous 
kind without hinderance. 

“This species of vice is the most common and per¬ 
sistent of the many that always attends the bringing 
together of alien races. Women of the subordinate 
race are unable to resist the temptations to an immoral 
life. The struggle for existence and a disposition to 
ape after the ideals of the dominant race are too much 
for her feeble intellect and will. Mankind shall have 
to become perfect before alien races can inhabit the 
same country and remain free from this cancerous 
form of vice. If the danger to social institutions which 
concubinage surely holds was well and rightly under¬ 
stood, there is no doubt but that a sentiment would 
soon be aroused that would endeavor to cure the con¬ 
ditions under which it invariably thrives. 

“It seems to us, and the view is supported by all 



The Remedy. 


323 


human experience, that the Negro race in the United 
States can never have its women develop that high 
and pure morality which is the bulwark and pride of 
every civilized people. 

“How long would the Indian maiden last if she 
were to leave the Reservation? What is the moral 
tone of the mongoloid women who infest New York 
City and San Francisco? Can they ever be saved? 
Far more hopeless is the condition of the Negro 
woman! For fear some of our readers may think 
our view of this phase of the Negro Problem is over¬ 
drawn, we shall quote a few observations made by 
notable white men. The Montgomery Advertiser re¬ 
ported this statement by Dr. J. A. Rice, pastor of 
the Court Street Methodist Church, of Montgomery, 
Alabama: T hesitate before I make another state¬ 
ment which is all too true. I hesitate, because I fear 
that in saying it I shall be charged with sensational¬ 
ism. But even at the risk of such a charge I will say, 
for it must be said, that there are in the city of Mont¬ 
gomery four hundred Negro women supported by 
white men.’ The same Dr. Rice also stated that in 
addition there were thirty-two Negro dives operated 
for white patronage, and the statement was quoted 
in the Montgomery Advertiser. The New Orleans 
Times-Democrat of February 15, 1906, used the fol¬ 
lowing language to describe the prevailing crime: ‘It 
is a public scandal that there should be no law of this 
kind (against miscegenation) on the statute book of 
Louisiana, and that it should be left to mobs to break 
up the miscegenatious couples. The failure to pass a 
law of this kind is attributed to white degenerates, 
men who denounce social equality yet practice it, men 




324 


America's Greatest Problem: The Negro. 

who are more dangerous to their own race than the 
most inflammatory Negro orator and social equality 
preacher, and who have succeeded by some sort of 
legislative trickery in pigeon-holing or killing the bills 
intended to protect Louisiana from a possible danger. 
Such men should be exposed before the people of the 
State in their true colors.’ 

“In January, 1907, District Attorney J. H. Currie, 
in his address to a jury in Judge Cochran’s court at 
Meridian, Mississippi, used these strong words: 
‘The accursed shadow of miscegenation hangs over 
the South today like a pall of hell. We talk much of 
the Negro question and all of its possible ramifications 
and consequences, but, gentlemen, the trouble is not 
far afield. Our own people, our white men with their 
black concubines, are destroying the integrity of the 
Negro race, raising up a menace to the white race, 
lowering the standard of both races, and preparing the 
way for riot, mob, criminal assaults, and finally a 
death struggle for racial supremacy. The trouble is 
at our own door. We have tolerated the crime long 
enough, and if our country is not run by policy rather 
than by law, then it is time to rise up and denounce 
this sin of the Earth.’ 

“Ray Stannard Baker, in the ‘American Maga¬ 
zine’ for April, 1908, says: ‘Negro women, and 
especially the more comely and intelligent of them, 
are surrounded by temptations difficult indeed to meet. 
It has been and is a struggle in Negro communities, 
especially village communities, to get a moral standard 
established which will make such relationships with 
white men unpopular. In some places today, the 
Negro concubines of white men are received in Negro 




The Remedy. 


325 


churches and among the Negroes generally, and 
honored rather than ostracized. Thev are often 
among the most intelligent of the Negro women; they 
often have the best homes, and the most money to 
contribute to their churches. They are proud of their 
light-colored children.’ 

‘‘From these statements there can be no doubt as 
to the wide extent of this degrading evil, and the 
alarm already aroused in the minds of some thinking 
men. What is needed is a cure. What shall it be? 
All ask this question, but few give the answer that 
ultimately must be given if the homes and firesides 
of this Republic are to represent all that is best in 
honor, morality, and religion. 

“The sort of education that is possible for the 
American Negro woman cannot be relied upon to keep 
her from becoming the white man’s concubine. Ex¬ 
perience shows that hundreds of educated Negro girls 
are living the life of kept women in every Southern 
State; and the number is increasing notwithstanding 
the spread of schools. The whole trouble is that the 
conditions under which the Negro must live are 
opposed to the development of true moral character. 
Teach the Negro girl art, music, and literature; but 
without morals she will become a concubine at the first 
opportunity! 

“If there were no other reasons for separating the 
two races, consideration of the moral conditions of 
the Negro, and the hopeless task of improving it under 
existing circumstances, ought to convince the most 
reluctant mind that no other remedv will cure the 
present evils or save the Republic from more terrible 
calamities. Against the desire and duty to act for the 



326 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


general welfare of both races, the money cost or the 
magnitude of the undertaking ought not to prevail. 

“There can be given no sound reason against race 
separation. All experience, and every deduction from 
the known laws and principles of human nature and 
human conduct are against the attempt to harmonize 
two alien races under the same government. When 
the races are so differentiated in mental and physical 
characteristics as the Negro and Anglo-Saxon, the 
government that undertakes the experiment rests at 
all times on a volcano. 

“The subordinate race grows more and more rest¬ 
less under discriminating laws and customs as the 
people learn to recognize their social, industrial and 
political ostracism. Nothing can prevent this unrest 
except giving to the subordinate race full and equal 
rights in every particular. 

“There is absolutely no probability for any such 
event to occur. The longer the discontent continues 
the stronger it will grow. Other circumstances will 
contribute to arouse the resentment of the dominant 
people against the subordinate because of their ob¬ 
noxious pretensions. From bad to worse the situation 
must ever tend. 

“Every true friend of humanity must hope that 
some means may be found to avert the dangers that 
can already be seen gathering over this grand 
Republic. 

“Our fear is that the remedy will not be seen until 
the evils have accumulated to such proportions, and 
the passions of the people so fired that calm and dis¬ 
passionate reason will be impossible. 

“The American people have met with honor and 



The Remedy . 


327 


courage every difficulty which has seemed to threaten 
the welfare and existence of their government,”—and 
it is high time that the people of the United States 
should say frankly to the negroes we have living 
among us: It was our forefathers who were respon¬ 
sible for the crime of cruelly and forcibly removing 
you from your own land, and retaining you as slaves 
in this country. But you must remember that America 
passed through all the horrors and expense of a long 
war, one of the results of which was to give unto your 
race its freedom from slavery. Since that war, many 
well-meaning white citizens of the United States have 
endeavored to place your race on a plane of equality in 
all respects with their own; but, notwithstanding the 
tremendous efforts made along such lines, they have, 
in the main, been abortive, and your race can never 
properly develop as it now exists in the United States. 
We have the greatest possible sympathy for you in 
your dilemma, and we stand ready to aid you in every 
way in our power. Our atonement for the crime com¬ 
mitted by our ancestors can, however, take but one 
form: to assist you to migrate to some other land 
where you can build a civilization of your own, where 
your people can be made happy, prosperous and 
powerful, and attain a position in the world which 
they never can attain under Anglo-Saxon rule in 
America. 

The matter of the deportation of the negro from 
the United States can be effected with far less difficulty 
and expense than most people think. In one way it is 
a stupendous task to achieve, and in another a very 
simple one to bring about, provided this country makes 
up its mind that it is the best thing to be done for both 



328 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


races and must be done at all hazards. One thing 
simplifies the problem very much: A very large num¬ 
ber of negroes in this country are ready to enter into 
any good plan for their deportation at the present time. 
Four-fifths of our own race are strongly in favor of 
the movement, especially those who appreciate the 
horrors of allowing the negro to remain in this 
country. 

On this point, then, it but requires the exercise 
of every possible means to shozv all the people at all 
times the pressing necessity for the removal in ques¬ 
tion. This can be accomplished in many ways: from 
churches, in speeches, in newspapers, magazines, and 
other prints; in motion pictures, and in the schools. 

As the negro vote has long been but a matter of 
barter, the privilege, as set forth in constitutional 
amendments, should next be repealed. The negroes 
would lose absolutely nothing by this, for they would, 
in any event, carry their vote with them to their own 
land, wherever that may eventually be. 

The next step would be the enactment of a Federal 
law to the effect that all negroes and descendants of 
negroes, within the boundaries of the United States 
of America, shall leave this country for all time within 
ten years after the passage of said law; this to be 
rigidly enforced by the entire power of the United 
States Government. 

I 

It is not at all necessary that all of these millions 
of negroes and their half-blood relatives go to the 
same country, or leave at the same time. By the 
enforcing of such a law no hardship whatever would 
be entailed by a single member of the race subjected 
to it. It could be carried out in the most orderly, 



The Remedy. 


329 


friendly, and helpful manner, and from the very nature 
of it, it would be so carried out. 

Within the ten years allowed by the law, ample 
time would be given for the transfer of all real estate 
or other holdings that the negroes and mulattoes have 
in this country. They would only have to part with 
such of their estates as could not be conveniently 
taken with them. The transfer of real estate would, 
in ten years, give no trouble, for it would, in half 
that time, be taken up by the real estate speculators, 
by the incoming white immigrants, and in small part, 
perhaps,—where it would prove advantageous,—by 
the State or Federal Governments. Moreover, if any 
negro or half-blood could not, without sacrifice, dis¬ 
pose of his or her holdings in ten years, such a one 
could arrange to leave it and dispose of it subsequently 
through agents in this country. It is fortunate that 
the negroes have amassed such great wealth in the 
United States since 1865, for it will very materially 
facilitate their migration, and powerfully aid in mak¬ 
ing the start for their empire in some other land. 

Then, too, when financial stringency became evi¬ 
dent at any point during the deportation, this country 
could well afford to ease it by the expenditure of any 
reasonable appropriation for the purpose, commen¬ 
surate with the object to be accomplished: the saving 
of the debasement of our race; the atonement for a 
national crime, and the horrors of a racial war in the 
future. Fifteen millions or more a year for ten con¬ 
secutive years, would mean nothing to the United 
States, were the “problem” solved in that way, without 
any harshness or jar. Think of it for a moment; it 
cost this country ten millions to keep General Funston 



330 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


and his army in Vera Cruz for only a few months; 
surely the accomplishments in either case are hardly 
comparable. United States undoubtedly would have 
to furnish transportation and keep for a large number 
of the negroes who are entirely without means. 
These latter would have to be organized and led by 
the dominant men and minds of their own race. 

It is by no means necessary that all the negroes 
should go to the same country, as most people seem 
unable to get out of their heads. Three millions of 
them could easily be distributed over South America, 
where they would be welcome. Half a million could 
find their way into Mexico and the West Indies, aside 
from Haiti, which latter country could easily accom¬ 
modate three millions more. They could be trans¬ 
ported to those countries just as easily as the Kaiser 
has transported his armies to and fro, from the 
trenches in Flanders to the firing-line in Poland, dur¬ 
ing the present war, and with far less expense and 
discomfort, especially in the matters of loss of life 
and national accomplishment. 

United States could well afford to assign an 
island in the Philippines to them to accommodate a 
million or two, and there they could establish, under 
this country’s protection, a government all their own, 
where no white man could vote or have a word to say. 
It could be made a strong ally of the United States in 
the East, and a starting-point where the African race, 
under the most favorable conditions, could build an 
empire of its own. 

In these days, the transporting of that many 
negroes to the Philippines in ten years would mean 
but little, in so far as any difficulty attached to it in 



The Remedy. 


331 


the matter of its accomplishment. Naturally, many 
negroes in this country look to Africa as the land to 
which they would much prefer to go. It is a magnifi¬ 
cent country in all respects, and Walker says in “Our 
Home Colony,” in regard to this and the whole project 
of negro deportation, that “We believe that the Negro 
race can find superior advantages and better oppor¬ 
tunities on the shores of old Africa, among people of 
their own race, for developing the innate powers of 
mind and body than anywhere else upon the face of the 
earth, and the reasons of this belief we shall try to give 
in the following pages. 

“In 1822 a Colony of free Negroes from the United 
States was settled upon the west coast of Africa, 
mainly through the efforts of the American Coloniza¬ 
tion Society. There was no difficulty in procuring 
sufficient land for these people who desired to emi¬ 
grate; nor was there at that time any disposition 
among free Negroes to oppose the opportunity of 
returning to their native land. 

“In 1827 free Negroes of Baltimore, Md., and 
Washington, D. C., memorialized Congress to pro¬ 
vide financial aid to transport all who might desire to 
go to Liberia, as the country provided for them in 
Africa was named. 

“In 1847 the independence of Liberia was de¬ 
clared, and in 184S it was recognized by England and 
most of the continental countries. The United States 
did likewise a few years later, in 1861. 

“This Colony since 1847 has exercised full 
sovereignty over a territory embracing nearly 35,000 
square miles; as large as Connecticut, New Jersey, 
Massachusetts, Maryland, and Delaware combined. 



332 


America's Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


and one and one-half larger than the State of West 
Virginia. It is no longer an experiment, but a fact. 
Liberia stands today a recognized Sovereign State 
among the family of Nations. The Liberians are to¬ 
day exercising all the functions of a free and inde¬ 
pendent government. If they have not shown the 
advance some would like to see, it can be easily shown 
they are far in advance of their Negro brethren left 
behind in the United States. The few thousand 
American Negroes who have returned to Africa and 
builded for themselves and posterity a national edifice 
recognized and respected by all nations, are deserving 
of praise and honor from every Negro in the world. 
These people have demonstrated to mankind that the 
Negro is capable of organizing and maintaining a 
civilized government in the very midst of intellectual 
and moral darkness. 

“In the early days of African Colonization, Negroes 
were transported to Liberia for the small sum of 
twenty dollars a head, and vessels made but one or 
two voyages per year. With the improved ocean 
steamer of today and the increased facilities for 
handling traffic, there is every reason to believe that 
this sum of twenty dollars for passage could be 
materially lessened if the scheme of deportation was 
undertaken on a large scale. It is objected to any 
scheme of Colonization that it would not appreciably 
reduce even the natural increase of the race, and hence 
would have no effect on the congested Negro popula¬ 
tion of the Southern States. This objection is urged 
more strongly by white men than by negro enemies of 
Emigration. 

“A few figures from statistics will show the ab- 




The Remedy. 


333 


surdity of this objection, and prove conclusively that 
in a few years the fear of Negro domination even in 
the States most densely populated by the black race 
would have no terror for the most timid. If $85,000,- 
000 had been expended during the period from 1820 
up to the present time, not more than 1,500,000, and 
probably not 500,000 Negroes would be in the United 
States today. The census of the United States for 
1820 shows 233,530 free negroes and 1,538,128 slaves, 
a total of 1,771,658. Now, a fair allowance for 
natural increase would be 3 per cent, of the total per 
year, making in round numbers 53,000. 

“The American Colonization Society was able, as 
has been stated, to transport Negroes to Liberia for 
twenty dollars per head, and at this rate could have 
carried the 53,000 increase to Africa each year for 
$1,060,000. If just that much had been done for 
eighty-five years, we see the outlay would be less than 
$90,000,000, and the original stock of 1,771,658 
lessened by reason of the loss each year of the most 
prolific of the race. 

“This plan of deporting the Negroes willing to 
return to Africa was ably advocated by many true 
friends of the race, and most notably by those who 
were advocates of gradual emancipation. The same 
plan applied to conditions as they exist today, would 
show equally favorable results. By the census of 1900 
the population was 8,849,789, an increase during the 
decade from 1890 to 1900 of 1,352,001, or 12.2 per 
cent. Now to transport this increase of 1,352,001 at 
twenty dollars would cost $27,040,020. If this task 
were undertaken by the General Government the sum 
would be less by one-half. Who will deny that the 



334 America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. 


great and powerful Government of the United States 
could not afford to expend even $100,000,000 per 
year to accomplish an object so fraught with beneficial 
results to two races, alien and incongruous?’’ 

As the departure of the negroes took on shape, it 
would naturally be of the most gradual character at 
first. Indeed, the first year or two of the ten years 
could be profitably spent in this country in making the 
arrangements to leave; the mapping out of the tracts 
in the countries to be occupied as their future homes, 
the correspondence entailed, the comfortable transfer 
of holdings, and finally all the arrangements this 
country would have to put on foot for transportation 
and other matters. However, once under way, the 
stream of migrants would rapidly increase in numbers, 
and this would be accelerated by the knowledge of the 
operation of the law, and the probability of another 
law being enacted, to the effect that under no circum¬ 
stances could they return to the United States for any 
purpose, any more than certain other races can that 
are now debarred from enjoying certain privileges 
in California. 

As time passed the departure of the negroes from 
the United States would be greatly quickened through 
the knowledge of the fact that those who were on the 
ground first to establish themselves would reap the 
greatest advantages in the matter of securing the best 
land locations and positions in the new government. 

As I have said in a former chapter, as the negroes 
left, the whites now coming to this country daily by 
the thousands from Europe, would take their places 
almost without attracting any particular attention as 
it gradually happened. 



The Remedy. 


335 


Furthermore, it is fair to presume that the present 
terrible race war, now converting only too large a part 
of Europe into a veritable slaughter-pen (February 22, 
I 9 I 5), come to a close as suddenly as it com¬ 
menced; and when this much hoped-for day arrives, 
not only will shiploads of the white races of many of 
the continental peoples come to the United States 
seeking homes and employment, but these, upon the 
whole desirable contributions to our population, would 
not only include the day laborers, the tradespeople, 
and the artisans, but also a fair proportion represent¬ 
ing the various professions, and the votaries of art, 
science, and the belles-lettres. 

With the blacks and their hybrids out of it, the 
relief to this country would be felt with ever-increas¬ 
ing benefit, and what a “problem” we would have 
solved! 








GLOSSARY. 

[Compiled by the author especially for the present work.] 


A 

Abolitionist: abolition, to abolish; hence one who favors the doing 
away with anything; one who stands for the abolition of 
slavery. 

aborigines: the original inhabitants of any country or place; first 
applied to the people of Latium, the Roman ancestors. 

abstract: conceived apart from matter and from special cases (as 
a number in arithmetic, where it stands without designating 
anything). 

aery: the site of the nest of an eagle, including the nest itself. 

alien: a resident of one country living in another and not possessing 
citizen-rights in the adopted country. Very different in char¬ 
acter or nature. Hostile. 

allegories: parables; fiction written to illustrate truths; symbolic 
representations in literature. 

alpha and omega: first and last letters of the Greek alphabet,— 
hence the beginning and end of anything. 

altruistic; altruism: action or acts prompted by benevolence or by 
any of the worthy emotions; being regardful of the welfare 
and feelings of others. Altruist, one who practises altruistic 
methods. These words are the opposite of egotism, egoist, 
and egoistic . 

ambiguity: uncertainty or doubtfulness. 

amblystoma: one of the tailed batrachians; they are related to the 
newts, etc. (see aquatic batrachians). 

ameliorating: making better or improving; meliorating. 

amplification: the act of enlarging or extending; amplifying. 

analogue: anything that possesses something in agreement or in 
correspondence with something else. In zoology usually ap¬ 
plied to structure, functions or relations. There are also 
analogous terms or words; analogy, agreement. That which 
agrees or corresponds is analogous . 

aneurism: an enlargement or dilatation in the course of an artery 
caused by pressure of the blood on a localized and weakened 


area. 


22 


(337) 



338 


Glossary. 


Anglo-Saxon: a person of that race; applied generally to the pure 
strain, white, English-speaking people, 
animalism: generally applied to those human beings in whose 
organizations a desire for the sensual exceeds that for the 
intellectual. A mere animal. Dominated by strong animal 
passions. 

ankylosed or anchylosed: immovably joined together, as when two 
bones become firmly united, as the bones of the skull for 
example. 

anterior lobes: divisions of the brain; the pair of fore-parts of the 
cerebrum. Either half of the cerebrum is divided into 
three lobes: the anterior, middle, and posterior. 
Anthropidae: the family in zoology containing man, generally con¬ 
sidered as a single genus and species ( Homo sapiens ). 
anthropofauna: collectively speaking, the various races of men 
found in any particular country or district, or of the entire 
world (Shufeldt). 

Anthropoidae: a family in zoology to contain the higher apes or 
simians. 

anthropoid apes: the man-like apes, as the gorilla, chimpanzee, 
orang, and gibbon. The Simiidce. They are all man-like in a 
great many particulars, both mentally and physically, 
anthropologically: in an anthropological manner or way. 
anthropology: the science of man or mankind collectively, 
antithesis: contrast or something in opposition, as antithetic 
opinions or propositions; antithetical, pertaining to antithesis, 
aortic segment: the aortic valves at the origin of the aorta, in the 
heart; the three semi-lunar valves, 
aponeurosis: a thin, broad, flat tendon, glistening white in color, 
connecting thin, flat muscles, as the aponeurosis frontalis, rid¬ 
ing over the top of the skull in man, it being the aponeurotic 
part of the occipito-frontalis muscle, 
a priori: in the first case or instance; from the former; from cause 
to effect. 

aquatic batrachians: those members of the order Batrachia which, 
in their early stages, breathe by gills and live in the water; 
especially refers to toads and frogs. It also includes the 
newts, tritons, salamanders, etc. 

Archencephalia: a group containing man alone; conterminous with 
Bimana, etc. 

atavism: to revert or the reversion to a preceding type through 
heredity, as when black children are born to white and mulatto 
crossings. Atavistic , pertaining to atavism, 
auto-erotism: the gratification of the sexual desires through self¬ 
practices. 



Glossary. 


339 


B 

basal and bulbar ganglia: a ganglion is an enlargement in the course 
of a nerve; the basal ganglia are found at the base of the 
brain (cerebrum). 

bestiality: beastliness; unworthy of a refined and intellectual man's 
nature; having the qualities of a beast, whether a human 
beast or otherwise. 

Bimana: an order of the Mammalia including man, the only 
bimanous animal, strictly speaking, in the world's fauna. Not 
now in use, as, zoologically, the higher apes would have to be 
included in it. 

bimanous: having two hands. See Bimana. 

biologist: one learned in biology, the science of life and the forms 
of life of all kinds in the world of nature. 

brachycephalic; brachycephalous: heads or skulls whose diameter 
from side to side is not much less than it is from back to front; 
opposed to dolichocephalic (which see). 

brain-pan: the cranium or that portion of the skull in which the 
brain is found. 


C 

calcaneum: the large bone of the foot forming the heel (os calcis). 

canine: one of the dog-tnbe(Canidce) or a canid , a carnivorous mam¬ 
mal of the canine family, sometimes referred to as the Canina. 
The dog-tooth or canine- tooth, which in shape is caniniform. 
Canis is the Latin word for dog. 

cannibalism; cannibal: those people who feed upon human flesh; 
also any other animal that eats of its own kind. A human 
flesh-eater of the human species; a human man-eater as 
found among some of the black races. An anthropoph¬ 
agite. 

cardio-vascular-renal disease: a disease in which the heart, blood¬ 
vessels, and kidneys are involved. 

carnal gratification: satisfying, to a greater or less degree, the sex¬ 
ual instinct or appetite (which see). 

carnivorous: to feed upon flesh; to subsist upon an animal diet, as 
in the case of the carnivores of the order Carnivora or what 
pertains to that carnivoral group of the Mammalia. 

Caucasian: a member of the highest type of mankind; the best of 
the white races of the world. 

caudal appendage: the tail in animals possessing one. 

cerebrum: the brain or larger brain mass of the encephalon. 

certitude: beyond all doubt; certainty. 




340 


Glossary. 


chastity: purity in sexual matters; chaste; absence of all depravity 
and obscenity; guiltless of sexual intercourse from one 
cause or another. 

Chellean type: a type from the Chellean deposits, formed in one 
of the earliest paleolithic periods,—that is, in France (Chel- 
les), a short distance from Paris, on the right bank of the 
river Marne. The type of the flint instruments of the 
Chellean age of Europe. 

chimpanzee: one of the man-like monkeys ( Troglodytes niger ); the 
anthropoid ape of that name; a species most nearly related 
to the gorilla, and in its form and organization very closely 
related to man ( Homo sapiens). 

Christianity: the religion said to be founded by Jesus Christ; also 
applied to the body of people who believe in what it is re¬ 
ported that Christ set forth as a guidance in morals and 
conduct. 

chyluria: a disease characterized by the presence of milky urine. 
The color is due to emulsionized fat in great quantities, and 
it will frequently coagulate on standing. There are other 
symptoms. 

cicatrices; cicatrix: scars, welts, or other marks formed on the 
body as the results of cuts or other wounds. 

coalesce: unite, come or join together; to combine. To form one 
body. 

co-efficient: acting in cooperation to the same end or purpose. 

cohabit: to live together; to dwell together as man and wife; or 
where unmarried men and women live with each other as 
husbands and wives. Generally used as a term for sexual 
intercourse, which it does not always imply. 

coition: sexual congress; carnal union between the sexes of any 
animal. The act of performing coitus. Copulation. A coming 
together, a meeting. 

concensus: a collective opinion; a state of general agreement. 

concomitantly: that which exists or occurs together, 

concrete: (in logic) particular; individual (opposed to abstract), 
a class-name or proper name. 

concubinage; concubinate: sexual intercourse among people in the 
absence of legal marriage. Concubine, a wife holding an in¬ 
ferior position in the family or household, also applied to the 
male sex; a paramour; a mistress. Concubinal practices, as 
having concubinary relations, or one who lives as a concubi- 
narian. 

condoned: that which has been forgiven or pardoned; condone , to 
overlook a fault. 



Glossary. 


341 


conterminous: contiguous; possessing the same limit; to border 
upon, or in contact at any boundary; equal extension. Also, 
with the same meaning, conterminate. 
convolutions: objects or things that are turned or are winding, as 
the convolutions seen on the outer surface of the brain; the 
gyres of the cerebrum. 

cortex: that which covers some anatomical structure in the manner 
of bark or fruit-rind, as the cortex of the cerebrum or brain. 

cranial bones: those bones of the skull which encase the brain; 

brain-box; bones entering into the brain-cavity in animals. 

cranial sutures: boundary lines where the margins of the cranial 
bones come together or articulate, 
criteria: the plural of criterion , a test of truth or falsehood; also 
standards of criticism or judgment for anything being con¬ 
sidered. Occasionally used in the sense of a law or a prin¬ 
ciple; rule of guidance. 


D 

decimate: to destroy a great number of anything, generally people. 

degeneracy: the tendency to pass from bad to worse or to deterio¬ 
rate. A race or nation is in a state of degeneracy when well 
started on a downward course. 

degenerate: (when used as an intransitive verb) impaired; to lose 
and assume the place of a lower type. As an adjective: 
the state of having been reduced to a lower type; 
a worse state or degraded condition. We may also use the 
word as a noun, meaning one who has passed from a nor¬ 
mal type to a lower or debased one. 

demography: vital and social statistics as applied to mankind. The 
demographer in his demographic researches contributes to the 
science of anthropology. 

deportation: the removing from one place or country to another 
and generally a more distant one. 

diametrically: directly°or to an extreme degree, as opinions which 
may be diametrically opposite. 

diastemata: in animals with true teeth, a diastema is an interval 
between any two consecutive ones, as the diastema between 
a canine and a premolar tooth. Such diastemata are also 
found between the canines and the lateral incisors. 

digits: fingers of hands and toes of feet. 

dissemination: the act of spreading abroad for any special pur¬ 
pose; the extension of influence; sending an opinion 
broadcast. 



342 


Glossary. 


dogmatic: relating to dogma or principles propounded upon 
authority. Dogma usually refers to religious doctrines as 
opposed to proven and demonstrated facts, usually those 
of science. 

dogmatically: pertaining to dogma,—dogma meaning an authorita¬ 
tive religious doctrine, or principles based on authority 
rather than on experience or demonstration. 

doliochocephalic: heads or skulls in which the antero-posterior 
diameter is markedly longer than the one passing from 
side to side; opposed to brachycephalic (which see). 

ductless glands: those glandular organs of the body that are with¬ 
out ducts; there are four of them, namely, the spleen, the 
adrenals, thymus and thyroid. 

duress: hardness; sternness; durance; restriction of personal 
liberty, under pressure. 


E 

edentate: toothless; where the front teeth are absent as in the 
Edentata. 

El Dorado: a country which Orellana claimed to have discovered 
somewhere on the Amazon River (1540-41), which was rich 
beyond all imagination in jewels and gold. 

elephantiasis: skin diseases of several kinds bear that name; lep¬ 
rosy (which see). 

emasculation: castration; to deprive a man or any other male 
vertebrate of the testes or a single testicle should only one 
be present—hence to deprive of vigor or render effeminate. 

emesis: act of vomiting; evacuation of the stomach by the mouth. 

emolument: remuneration in connection with the salary of any 
office. 

emotionalism: subject to emotion , or possessing a tendency to emo¬ 
tional excitement as an emotionalist is. 

empirical: that which is derived through experimentation or ex¬ 
perience; also charlatanical; quackish. Empirical in medi¬ 
cal practice. That which is derived through insufficient 
observation or experience. 

eoliths: objects from the eolithic age,—that is, the early part of the 
palaeolithic period. 

epidermis: cuticle or scarf-skin; the outer layer of the skin or the 
non-vascular cuticle. The integument. 

epitomized: that which is shortened or abridged; to make an 
epitome is for the epitomist to prepare an abstract of a subject. 

erotic: amorous; dealing with love; prompted by amorous desires. 



Glossary . 


343 


esthetics: pertaining to beauty; the love of the beautiful; refine¬ 
ment and taste in the arts. 

ethics; ethical: the science of right and wrong conduct of life; the 
doctrine that has to deal with man's moral obligations as 
they refer to himself or to those with whom he comes in 
contact. 

Ethiopian: an inhabitant of Ethiopia; when used in an extended 
sense means an African in general. 

ethnic: that which pertains to or is peculiar to a race of men. 

ethnological: relating to ethnology , or the science of the various 
tribes and races of human beings, including their history, 
customs, civilizations, etc. 

ethnologist: a student of the science of ethnology, or that science 
which takes into consideration the study of the races of men 
in the world—their history, characters, customs, and institu¬ 
tions. There is a vast ethnologic or ethnological literature 
extant. 

euphemisms: mild or agreeable words or expressions for disagree¬ 
able ones which might give offense; a euphemism is a word 
thus used. 

expatriation: to banish or to remove a person or a people from the 
country where they have been living. 

extenuation: the act of making less blamable; to mitigate the 
degree of a fault. 

extirpation: the act of rooting out; total destruction or removal, 
as a surgeon would extirpate a diseased appendix in appen¬ 
dicitis. Errors may also be extirpated, that is, if they be 
extirpable at the hands of the would-be extirpator. 

F 

facial angle: an angle formed by a straight line in a plane tangent 
to the face of the skull in man (and other vertebrates), with 
a line in the plane of the base of the skull. It has been taken 
differently by various craniometrists, as the facial angle of 
Camper, of Cloquet, of Jacquart, and of Geoffrey Saint 
Hilaire. The facial angle may be nearly 90 degrees in cer¬ 
tain skulls, and its average is much greater in the skulls of the 
superiorly intellectual among the white races of mankind than 
it is among the lower races of men, as the negroes and their 
allies. 

fallacies: errors; deceptions; falsehoods; delusions; delusive 
reasoning. 

fasciculus: a bundle (in anatomy), as a bundle of nerves such as go 
to form the spinal cord. A bundle of muscular fibers com- 



344 


Glossary. 


posing a part of a muscle. There are many such fasciculi in 
the anatomy of any of the higher animals. 

fetishism: a form of religious belief where the worshippers set up 
a fetish as their god. Many of the negroes of the west coast 
of Africa regard their fetishes with great awe, and these are 
usually small charm-objects or talismans. AIL fetishistic prac¬ 
tices are highly imbued with superstition. 

filariasis; filarial infection: refer to the disease caused by the infec¬ 
tion of the parasitic nematode worms of the family Filariidce. 
Filariate, to infect with filaria, —that is, thread-worms. 

fissure: a cleft or narrow, elongate groove, as the fissures separating 
the convolutions of the brain. 

foetus; fetus: the young of viviparous animals in the uterus or 
womb up to the time of birth. Occasionally applied to the 
young of oviparous animals in the egg. 

folk-psychology: science of the phenomena of the mind in various 
races or peoples. 

fortuitous: casual; that which takes place or occurs by chance. 
Lucky. 

fraternization: the act of combining as in a brotherhood; associ¬ 
ating with common interests; fraternise, where people with 
similar aims, tastes, sympathies, etc., unite in a brotherhood 
or fraternity. 

fratricidal: a person who kills his brother is a fratricide j, and any¬ 
thing pertaining to such a murder is of a fratricidal import. 

G 

genesis: creation; procreation; production; formation; act of be¬ 
getting; mode of generation-processes of natural propa¬ 
gation. 

germ cells: a germ with the structural value of a single cell, as an 
ovum when first impregnated. 

germinal sexual elements: the ova in a female and spermatozoa of 
the testes in the male. 

glandular secretions: secretions from certain glands in animals, as 
the urine by the kidneys, milk in the female, etc. 

gluteal: pertaining to the gluteus muscles , or to the buttocks in man, 
referring to the natal region. ' 

gonococcus: a cell of the micrococcus found in the discharges 
coming from a gonorrhea,—one of the venereal diseases. 

gorilla: the largest known anthropoid ape ( Troglodytes gorilla ). 
It is found in certain parts of Africa, and in its anatomy it 
closely resembles man. 



Glossary . 


345 


H 

hallux: in man, the great toe; the innermost of the five digits of the 
hind foot in the vertebrata. Pollex is the thumb in the hand 
of man and in some of the higher mammals. 

helix: the prominent, curved and thickened posterior margin of the 
outer ear in the Primates,—that is, in men and in most 
monkeys and apes. 

hemaglobinuria fever: a fever associated with the disease or con¬ 
dition of that name. Globin, the proteid substance which, com¬ 
bined with hematin, forms the larger part of the red blood- 
corpuscles. 

heredity: the possession of mental or physical qualities through 
transmission of descent. The influence of parents upon 
their children. Characters in offspring derived from paren¬ 
tal stock. (See atavism.) 

heterogenous: mixed; incongruous; very unlike; different in kind or 
character. 

hippocampus minor: a structure which is a part of the brain, but 
not peculiar to man; it consists of a longitudinal eminence 
found in the lateral ventricle, or rather the floor of the 
posterior horn of it. 

Hominidae: the zoological family containing all the species and sub¬ 
species of men. There is but one genus, that is the genus 
Homo , Mankind. 

homogeneous: essentially alike; the same kind or nature,—gen¬ 
erally refers to parts of one whole. 

Homo sapiens: the zoological name for man, of which there are a 
number of subspecies or geographical races. 

homo-sexuality: having sexual desire for one of the same sex. 
There is a class of sexual perverts described as homo - 
sexualists . 

Hottentot: a member of one of the South African races of people. 
They are a small, stupid, ungainly stock, with dark yellow¬ 
ish-brown skins and often apish faces. Many of their 
women are steatopygous (which see). 

humerus: the long bone of the upper arm. It articulates with the 
scapula at the shoulder-joint and with the two bones of the 
forearm at the elbow. 

hybridization: cross-breeding; hybrid is a half-breed or half-blood. 

Hybridise, to produce hybrids; hybridist , one who hybridizes . 

hypotheses: an assumed proposition or one taken for granted; a 
supposition. Propositions held to be probably true for the 
reason that according to known laws they have been proven 
to be true. 



346 


Glossary . 


I 

idealist: one who advocates the doctrines of idealism and believes 
that the psychical reigns in all that is real in nature: in other 
words the real, or the doctrine of the realist, is but of the 
nature of thought. Idealistic doctrines are of many kinds and 
have been held by many men of eminence. 

ideation: the acts or processes through which ideas are formed. 
Ideational, pertaining to the formation of ideas or to the 
faculty of ideation. 

idiosyncrasies: mental or physical peculiarities of persons; certain 
antipathies or susceptibilities inherent in people. 

incidence: an incident; a casual happening; also in physics the ray 
of light or heat which, impinging on a surface, is refracted 
at a certain angle,—the “angle of incidence/' 

incitement: anything that moves to action; the act of inciting or 
instigating; to incite is to spur or to stimulate. 

inculcation: forcible teaching; particularly where it assumes the 
form of repeated admonitions. 

Indo-European: a member of any race speaking the Indo-European 
languages (the Aryan). The races are all white, and hence 
the word is sometimes employed to designate the white 
races of the world as a whole. Strictly speaking, an Indo- 
European is an Aryan. 

ineradicable: that which cannot be eradicated or rooted out. 

in extenso: in full; at full length, as an unabridged manuscript is 
given in extenso. 

inherent: intrinsic; existing as an attribute; innately characteristic. 

inhibit: to check or repress; to forbid; to restrict or hinder by 
some obstruction. Prohibit. Inhibition, the act of inhibiting. 

insectivorous: plants and animals which subsist' upon insects are 
said to be insectivorous and belong, in so far as animals are 
concerned, to the Insectivora— a very complex group. 

inter se: Latin expression meaning among themselves. 

in utero: within the uterus or the womb of woman and other 
mammals. A child or foetus is in utero up to the time it 
passes into the vagina during a normal birth. 

invidious: obvious; envious; to discriminate offensively. 

J 

jurisprudence: science of law and legal practice. The laws of any 
nation or community. 

juxtaposition: placed near to or close together. Juxtapose, to place 
two objects side by side. 



Glossary . 


347 


L 

lascivious: lewd; filled with lust; wanton; that which excites lustful 
desires or emotions. 

lechery: lewdness; unbridled indulgence in sensuality or the car¬ 
nal appetite (see these definitions under their headings). 

leprosy: a name applied to various diseases; strictly speaking it is 
the lepra cutanea or elephantiasis Grsecorum. 

lethargy: stupor; inactivity; a prolonged condition of inactivity; 

extreme dulness; sluggish. A dull lethargic state is a torpid 
one, or one of lethargicalness . Some climates seem to have a 
lethargogcnic effect upon those who live in them; the effect 
is to lethargize or stupify the people. 

lewd: in its usual meaning or as commonly used, lascivious, lust¬ 
ful, libidinous; while strictly it means ignorant and un¬ 
taught or unlearned; worthless, of no use; rude and un¬ 
cultivated. 

libidinous: filled with eager lust; an intense desire for sexual 
indulgence. 

licentiousness: sexual immorality; the state of being loose or 
dissolute in morals. Wanton. 

lues: a pestilence or a plague. ( hues venerea, syphilis or any of the 
venereal diseases.) 

lust ceremonies: certain dances and customs of savage tribes, asso¬ 
ciated with lustful acts. In ancient times they were also 
practised in cities of Italy and Greece. 

lycanthropy: human beings that are supposed to possess the power 
to transform themselves or other persons, either for the 
time being or forever into wolves or other ferocious 
animals. 


M 

malar bones: cheek bones (jugal bones). 

malevolent: malicious; one inspired by evil intent or having an 
evil disposition. Hostile. 

Mammalia: in classification, the highest class of vertebrated 
animals, or those which suckle their young; includes all 
mammiferous animals. 

mandril: one of the baboons; the hog-ape; the great, ferocious blue¬ 
faced species often seen in zoological gardens. They inhabit 
the coast of west Africa. 

manumitted: to have been released from slavery; such manumission 
or emancipation was given the negro slaves by President 
Lincoln. Manumit , to free from bondage. 



348 


Glossary . 


manus: the hand in those animals possessing one. Also applied 
to the bones of the fingers and wrist in the skeleton. The 
manus of the pectoral limb in birds, etc. 

marmoset: common name for a group of little apes or small mon¬ 
keys. The squirrel-monkeys of South America. 

maxim: a rule based upon a proposition; apt expressions employed 
as rules for conduct, etc. Such guides may be true or 
false, and are generally pseudoethical rules for conduct. 

mendacity: a lie; habitual lying, being mendacious. 

mendicity: the condition of a mendicant or a beggar; beggarliness, 
the state of a mendicant, or one given to mendication. 

menstruating: a discharge of the menses in the female. Menstrua , 
menses or catamenial discharges. Menstrual, to occur once a 
month; menstruant, a woman who menstruates; menstrous, 
having the monthly flux of the female. 

Mesvinian: a type of palaeolithic weapons or stone implements of an 
earlier form than those known as the Chellean type (which 
see). Prehistoric weapons of the earlier eolithic types have 
been long known and abundantly described. 

metaphysics: philosophy in its wider sense; philosophy as applied 
to any of the sciences. The mental sciences in general. 

miscegenation: a mixture of races through indiscriminate crossing; 

a term commonly applied to the sexual union of the whites 
and negroes. 

mitral ring: the circumference of the auriculo-ventricular orifice of 
the left side of the heart in man and in other mammals, to 
which is attached the mitral valve or segments. 

monad: a single-celled organism or animal of the extreme simple 
type. Its meaning in metaphysics is quite complex and 
does not require definition here. 

Mongolian: a Mongol , or an individual of the Mongol race of 
Mongolia, situated in northern China and southern Siberia. 

monogamic marriage: that form of human marriage in which but 
one wife at a time is legally permitted. 

morphological: pertaining to the science of morphology or that 
science which treats of organic forms of life, including 
plants, their external forms and internal structures. 

motor control: having power over one’s movements. 

mucous membrane: one of the most extensive membranes of the 
body; lines the entire alimentary canal and its annexes, in¬ 
cluding the air and urogenital passages. 

mulatto: a man or woman having parents one of whom is white and 
the other a negro. The father or mother may be either 
black or white in any case. 



Glossary. 


349 


myology: the science which treats of the muscles in man and other 
animals. Myological, referring to the muscles. 

mythology: the science of myths. 

N 

nasal apertures: the nostrils; openings that lead into the cavity of 
the nose. 

nasal bones: two small bones of the face forming the outer wall 
of the nose; they vary greatly in size and form, 
natural environment: the normal surroundings of any animal in 
nature and those surroundings into which its habits may 
normally lead it. 

nefarious: wicked; abominable; vile, 
negligible: that which may be disregarded, 
negroid: resembling a negro or being akin to one of that race, 
negrophiles: persons who possess a great love for members of the 
negro race. 

nephritis: inflammation of the kidneys, of which there are a num¬ 
ber of forms, 
newt: (see salamander), 
nidus: Latin word for nest, 
nolens volens: willing or unwilling. 

O 

odoriferous glands: those glands in animals the secretions of 
which possess an odor of a greater or less strength, as for 
example the sweat-glands. 

omnivorous: indiscriminate feeding; all-devouring; an animal 
classed with the Omnivora, as the pigs and hippopotamuses. 

organically: the adverb of the adjective and noun organic which 
has numerous meanings, as instrumentally, in an organic 
manner; by or through organisation. Organic, operating as an 
instrument or organ to accomplish anything. Having refer¬ 
ence to or pertaining to the organs of animals and plants. 
Making up a whole with a regular or systematic arrangement. 

organic evolution: animal evolution or the evolution of organic 
life in nature; usually as distinguished from the evolution 
of plants. 

orientation: the act of taking one’s proper bearings mentally, 
orthognathous: those human skulls in which the jaw is straight and 
thus give a vertical profile and a wide facial angle. The 
opposite of prognathous. 



350 


Glossary . 


ostracism: expulsion; social separation; banishment of all kinds, 
with a general reference to society. Ostracize, to banish from 
society. 


P 

palaeolithic: pertaining to the “stone age/’ characterized by the 
existence in it of palceoliths or unpolished stone implements 
made by prehistoric man. 

palaeontologically: in a palaeontological sense,—the science of 
palaeontology , having to do with the former life on this planet, 
as shown by the fossil remains of animals, plants, etc., in the 
geological strata and periods. 

palliation: the act of palliating; concealing or rendering less offen¬ 
sive the circumstances of misdemeanors or crimes; mitiga¬ 
tion in general; alleviation. 

pellagra: a disease of southern Europe, which has quite recently 
developed in the United States; after running a few years it 
is frequently fatal. 

pelvis: the bony basin supporting the backbone and with which the 
lower-limb bones articulate. It varies greatly in form in 
different persons and in the two sexes. 

perfidious: basely treacherous or lacking in faith. Having the 
character of a traitor. 

persona grata: person who is welcome or acceptable; one in favor. 

phylogeny: tribal history. That department of biological science 
that undertakes to define the ancestral histories of plants and 
animals from the development of the individual, and the char¬ 
acters observed during the processes of such development. 
Opposed to ontogeny, which refers to the development of in¬ 
dividual organisms. Phylogeny and phylogenesis mean the 
same thing. 

physiologically: in a physiological sense, or from a physiological view¬ 
point. Physiology is the science of the functions of the organs 
of animals and plants or of living things in general. 

Pithecanthropus erectus: name given to the remains of an extinct 
animal found by Dubois in Java. These remains indicate 
that they belong to a form nearer man than any of the 
anthropoid apes now existing. It was doubtless a homini- 
form mammal forming a veritable missing link between 
man and the higher apes. 

plantar surface: the under surface of the foot, as opposed to the 
upper or dorsal surface. 

plantigrade: said of those mammals which normally walk with the 
heels on the ground, as the racoons and bears which belong to 
the Plantigrada. 



Glossary. 


351 


plasticity: plastic, capable of being molded or given form to, hence 
that property of matter whereby it may be given form 
through being fashioned or molded, 
pliocene age: in geology, that division of the Tertiary which is the 
most recent. 

polydactylism: possessed of fingers or toes exceeding the normal 
number of five on either hand or foot, 
polygamy: that form of human marriage where two or more wives 
are permitted at a time. 

posterity: descendants, when taken collectively; the breed or race 
that descends from an ancestor or progenitor, 
potentialities: potential has many meanings, as mighty and power¬ 
ful, potent; that which may become possible or effective as 
opposed to the actual,—hence potentialities f those states or quali¬ 
ties which possess inherent capability or development into the 
real or actual state; possibility. 

precociousness: the state of being prematurely developed mentally; 
forward. Precocity. 

preexistent: that which previously existed. 

prehensile: taking hold of; grasping or seizing; formed for prehen¬ 
sion, as the tail of certain monkeys, opossums and porcupines, 
prescription: direction; also the written directions for a patient 
in the use of medicine or in treatment. In law, holding 
possession sufficiently long so as to secure title to one or 
more persons to rights against others; to acquire posses¬ 
sion through prescription. 

Primates: the highest order of the Mammalia, including man, all 
forms of apes and monkeys, and the lemurs, 
primeval: belonging to the first or early ages. Also first in other 
things, as primeval forests, etc. 
pristine: primitive; original; belonging to an early period, 
proclivity: proneness; tendency; inclination. Proclive, to incline, 
procreative instinct: the desire to have children; the desire to cross 
with the female with the hope of having children, 
prognathism: being prognathic or possessing protrusive jaws (same 
as prognathous). 

promiscuous: confused; mixed together regardless of order or 
arrangement; common, indiscriminate, as promiscuous 
sexual congress among people or races, 
prostitute: a harlot; a woman who resorts to indiscriminate sexual 
intercourse; base; infamous; to devote to anything base. 
Protozoa: that group of the subkingdom of the Animalia which 
comprise the cell-animals or the primordial forms of life. 

psoas parvus: a small muscle attached to the brim of the pelvis, 
in front of the psoas magnus muscle, and which arises from 



352 


Glossary . 


the sides of the bodies of the first lumbar and last dorsal 
vertebras. According to M. Theile, it is found in about one 
in twenty among the whites. 

psychologically : in a psychological sense or from a psychological 
viewpoint. Psychology is the science of the mind or mental 
functions and their phenomena, and those who devote them¬ 
selves to it are the psychologists. 

psychopathia sexualis: diseases of the sexual system which depend 
upon the mental ones, or where the mental functions are 
involved. The diseases of sexual perverts. 

puberty: the time in the lives of boys and girls when they become 
able to reproduce their kind, or to give or bear children 
respectively. 

puerile: trivial; boyish; childish, lacking in intellectual strength. 

putridity: rottenness;' corruption of any kind. In its correct use 
only applies to putrid matter. 


Q 

Quadrumana: an order of the Mammalia in which are grouped all 
the apes, monkeys, marmosets, and their near allies. Quadru- 
manous, four-handed, as the animals just named. 

quadrupeds: four-footed animals. 

R 

religiosity: religious sentimentality; being extremely susceptible 
to religious sentiments and influences; superstition asso¬ 
ciated with awe, wonder, and extreme religious reverence. 

religious emotionalism: excitement, where the exciting cause is 
religion; or the fear prompted by religion or superstition. 

retina: the expanded end of the optic nerve at the back of the eye¬ 
ball. It receives the optical impressions imaged upon it 

through the focussing of the crystalline lens. 

retrogradation: a going backward; the state of degeneration. 


S 

salamander: one of the tailed batrachians (see aquatic batrachians). 
Also includes tritons and newts. 

sclerotic: the white enveloping tunic or membrane of the eye in 
the Anglo-Saxon, and in numerous other races. The scle¬ 
rotica. It is very frequently deeply tinged with yellow in 
negroes. 



Glossary. 


353 


segregation: the act of separating, 
semi-metamorphosed: incomplete transformation, 
sensuality: the unbridled gratification of the sexual or carnal in¬ 
stincts and promptings; immoderate indulgence in carnality or 
worldly pleasures. Through example, certain characters may 
be sensualized or rendered sensual, the sensualization taking 
place in greater or less lengths of time in different individuals, 
sensuous: pertaining to the senses, as sensuous pleasures; keenly 
awake to pleasurable sensations through the senses, 
sex centers: those structures in animals and plants which pertain 
to the sexual system, and the excitation of which gives rise 
to sexual desire. 

sexual appetite: the normal desire for copulation,—though it is 
frequently appeased through other expedients, 
sexuality: having sex or the state of being sexed; sex in the ab¬ 
stract; the distinction between the two sexes, 
sexual madness: a loss of control over the normal sexual impulse 
or desire. 

Simiidae; Simians: the simians are the higher or anthropoid apes; 
they are grouped in the family Simiidce, which, next to man, 
is the highest family of the order Primates. They form the 
suborder Anthropoidea . Many of the lower forms of Africans 
possess simian characters in their anatomical organizations, as 
well as in other respects. 

skatological rites: skatology is the science of fossil feces or excre¬ 
ment. A study of such fossils (coprolites) often contribute 
to our knowledge of the animals themselves. The rites re¬ 
ferred to are of the order of certain forms of witchcraft, but 
more particularly those religious rites where fecal matter, 
excrements, and urine play a part. In some savage rites, 
scatophagy is practised,—that is, the eating of the dung and 
excrement, etc. 

sociological: that which pertains to human society. Sociologic 
customs are those exacted on the part of society, 
spine: spinal column or the series of vertebrae forming the 
backbone. 

steatopygous: having monstrous fat buttocks, as the steatopygous 
Hottentot women. Steatopygy, the state of having big, fat 
buttocks, the condition being termed steatopyga. 
stirpiculture; the breeding of special kinds or stocks by careful 
selection. 

Strepyea: a type of palaeolithic weapons of an earlier form than 
those of the “Chellean” type (which see), 
sublimation; sublimated: in addition to its meaning in chemistry, 
it means the act of refining or purifying. Highest point 
of anything so refined. To rid of baser qualities. 

23 



354 


Glossary . 


substratum (moral); the underlying moral support of a person or 
a race of people. 

sulci: the plural of sulcus, a name for the furrows, grooves, or 
fissures found between any two convolutions (gyri) of the 
brain; upwards of 50 of them have received names by which 
they are distinguished, as the carotid sulcus, the frontal 
sulci, etc. 

superstitious: addicted to or believing superstitions, generally of a 
religious nature. Superstition, fear of the unknown or mysteri¬ 
ous. All religions are based more or less upon superstition. 

supracondyloid foramen: foramina are holes or other kinds of 
openings that occur normally in different bones of the skele¬ 
tons of all mammals, which have passing through them nerves, 
arteries, etc.; for example, the optic nerve of the eye passes 
through the optic foramen at the base of the orbit to the eye¬ 
ball; the supracondyloid foramen or supracondylar foramen 
(also known as the epitrochlear foramen) is a foramen that 
pierces the inner lower end of the humerus (which is the 
single long bone of the upper arm). It transmits a nerve and a 
vessel,—that is, the brachial artery and median nerve. It is 
of rare occurrence to find it in man. 

supraorbital ridges: elevations occurring on most human skulls 
just above the orbits,—one on either side. 

syphilis: a serious venereal disease of an infectious character that 
may be communicated from person to person through sexual 
intercourse, or by contact with syphilitic discharges left any¬ 
where, or by heredity. Syphilization of the system may be 
brought about by repeated attacks or by inoculations, and one 
is then said to be syphilized. Negroes seldom suffer from 
syphiliphobia or the fear of having contracted syphilis, as do 
many Anglo-Saxons; the former never commit suicide upon 
that account, while the latter frequently do. 

syphilologist: one versed or learned in syphilitic or venereal dis¬ 
eases. Sypliilology, the science which treats of syphilis. 

T 

testicles: male organs of generation found in the scrotum, and 
which secrete the spermatozoa or sexual germ cells in the 
male sex. 

tibia: the larger and inner of the two bones of the leg, between the 
knee and ankle. 

tribal orgies: ceremonies among savage races characterized by 
great excesses, lewd dances and general debauchery. 

triton: (see salamander). 



Glossary. 


355 


U 

uncinariasis: a disease caused by the presence in the intestines of 
the hookworm ( uncinaria ). Hookworm disease. 

uterine filiation: “What is still more general than the clan, is the 
institution of the maternal family or uterine filiation, but this 
familial type is not invariably deduced from a previous familial 
clan. . . . As a matter of fact, in humanity, as well as 
in animality, the uterine family establishes itself spontaneously, 
whenever the male abandons the female and her progeny. 

. . . In every ethnic group living in promiscuity, for ex¬ 

ample, uterine filiation shows itself, and it will be the same 
under a polyandric regime, unless fictitious paternity is estab¬ 
lished. . . . The uterine family is far from being rare 

in negro Africa.” (Letourneau.) 

Utopia: an imaginary place where everything was perfect in every 
respect, as its government, laws, etc. (Sir Thomas Moore’s 
“Utopia,” 1516.) The name of the island—one of ideal per¬ 
fection—is responsible for the coining of many words refer¬ 
ring to such imaginary places founded upon chimerical per¬ 
fectness. Utopist is an optimist entertaining Utopian ideas, 
and frequently believes in his utopianism . 


V 

variability (laws of): those laws which have been formulated by 
biologists setting forth the ability animals and plants 
possess to vary or change their forms, function, structures, 
colors, sizes, and so on—to lose or gain in character and 
thus depart from parent or ancestral types and forms, 
which plasticity or modifiability is due in large part to the 
conditions of environment, habit, food, etc. These laws 
are often very complex, and there is a large literature on the 

subject. 

veneer: to cover with a thin layer of anything; superficial orna¬ 
ment; meretricious disguise; bad or indifferent qualities 
disguised by superficial and more worthy ones. 

vestigeal: pertaining to a vestige; in biology, the remains of atrophied 
organs or other structures; rudimentary, as the vestigeal re¬ 
mains of the intrinsic muscles of the external ear in man. 

vocative: compellative; the act of naming, addressing or calling 
by name, as the vocative case in grammar. 




356 


Glossary . 


W 

wisdom teeth: the last molar tooth on either side of the mandible, 
or lower jaw. It usually erupts at the age of twenty to 
twenty-five; it has also been called the “wit-tooth” ( dens 
sapientue ), as one is supposed to have arrived at the age of 
discretion when these teeth appear. 




INDEX. 


A. 

Abolitionists, regarded as fanatics, 
295. 

Adams, Sam, 223. 

Africa, 13. 

Atlantic coast of, 67. 
barter of dead relatives in, 38. 
continent of, 23. 
customs of, 24, 58. 
inhabitants of, 23. 
languages of, 24, 58. 
manners of, 58. 
peoples found there, 24. 
population, 25. 
relatives left behind in, 79. 
slave coast of, 67. 
traditions of, 58. 

African, anatomical variations of, 102. 
and Caucasian, differentiation of, 
97. 

coast, traffic on, 71. 
coast-line, characters of, 68. 
colonization (early days), 332. 
colored races, 60. 

continent, tribes or races of, 24. 
congressman, 166. 
coolie slavers, 61. 

east (negroes), habits of eating 
human flesh, 121. 

full-blooded, procreative instincts 
of, 103. 

households, sentiments of, 43. 
lascivious practices of, 45. 
negro, 61. 

negroes, bringing of, to this 
country, 139. 
negroes, love of rum, 69. 
negroes in the United States in 
1914 (unmixed), 76. 


African, racial traits of, 133. 
status of, 210. 
tribal customs of, 58. 
west, negroes, habits of eating 
human flesh, 121. 

Africans, 47. 

African’s brain, cortex of, 99. 

prehensibility of foot, 59. 
Afro-Americans, 4, 7, 52, 182, 303. 
Agassiz, Professor, 207. 

Allen, 33. 

Allen, Arthur M., 206. 

Louis, old negro, 160. 

Amblystoma tigrinum, 82. 
Amblystomas, 82. 

conditions and treatment of, 83. 
Ambriz, source of slave supply, 68. 
Amendments, constitutional, 208. 

to be repealed (Graves), 267. 
America, a nation of hypocrites, 182. 

slave trade in, 62. 

American aborigines, 52. 
anatomists, 31. 

Bar Association, Detroit, 216. 
Church Congress, 50. 

Civil War, 61. 

Colonial navy, 66. 
colonies, slave trade of, 67. 
congress of hygiene, 250. 
culture, 199. 

descendants, foot of, 59. 
marriages, 114. 

people, composite type of, 114. 
Americans, modern, 88. 

Analostan Magazine, 129. 

Anamabae, source of slave supply, 68. 
Anatomical and anthropological evi¬ 
dence, 193. 

structure of the negro, 53. 

(357) 





358 


Index . 


Anatomists, American, 31. 

Anatomy, evidence brought forward 
by, 195. 

Angle, facial, 12, 28, 55, 57, 75, 202. 
Anglo-American aborigine, 51. 
Anglo-Saxon civilization, 277. 
descent, 51. 

no cannibalism to conceal, 139. 
skull of, 54. 
stock, 7. 
to rule, 286. 

Anglo-Saxons, injury to, from slave 
trade, 77. 

Angola, 65. 

Animal instincts, 47. 

Animalism (of the negro), 132. 
symptoms of, 105. 

Animals, affected by environment, 
125. 

crossing of different breeds, 84. 
domestic, crossing of, 83. 
Anthropidae, 11. 

Anthropofauna (of the world), 25. 
Anthropoid apes, 30, 36, 40. 
Anthropoidea, 11. 

Anthropoids, 125. 
foot of, 59. / 

Anthropologic facts, general ignor¬ 
ance of, 97. 

Anthropology, evidence brought for¬ 
ward by, 195. 

Ape, 19. 

convolutions of brain, 56. 
hippocampus minor in, 16. 

Ape-like men, transition of, 42. 

Apes, anatomical characters in, 58. 
anterior limbs of, 29. 
anthropoid, habitat of, 27. 
compared with negroes, 27. 
free from cannibalism, 123. 
hand-like members of, 59. 
higher, 13. 

man’s kinship with, 22. 

Arab, immigration of, 58. 
Archencephala, 12. 

Archer, William, on negro peril, 261. 


Arson, 149. 
lynching for, 154. 

Arteries, deaths from diseases of, 
245. 

Artificial selection, 82, 86, 107. 
Aryan-speaking white peoples, 49. 
Asiatic myth (of special and miracu¬ 
lous creation), 80. 

Assault, negroes charged with, 94. 
Assaults, in Washington, D. C., 149. 

on white women, 130, 149, 152. 
Astronomy, facts in, 80. 

Atavism, 114, 124. 

Atomic theory, 10. 

Attorney General, Assistant, of the 
United States, 172. 

Australian natives, 26. 

Australians, foot in, 59. 
forearm in, 59. 
hand in, 59. 
leg in, 59. 

Auto-erotism, 14. 

B. 

Baer, von, work cited, 54. 

Baker, 32 

Ray Stannard, work cited, 324. 

Sir Samuel, work cited, 34. 

Balloch, Dr. Edward A., quote, 31. 
Baltimore clipper, “Napoleon,” 75. 
influence of negroes in, 132. 
negroes in, 127. 
vital statistics in, 92. 

Bantu family, residence of, 23. 
Bardin, Dr. James, 190, 198, 237. 
Barracoons, 61. 

Barton, Clara, receptions, 169. 

Basin, Chad, 23. 

Basin, Congo, native shambles of, 38 
tribes of, 26. 

Bastards, 7. 

Bat, 81. 

Batrachians, aquatic, 82. 

Bean, work cited, 195. 

Bear, 21. 

Benguela, source of slave supply, 67. 






Index . 


359 


Benjamin, R. C. O., 308. 

Benua and Shari Basins, pure negro 
stock in, 26. 

Bestiality of the negro in Africa, 46. 
Bight of Benin, source of slave sup¬ 
ply, 68. 

Bight of Biafra, source of slave 
supply, 68. 

Bimana, 12. 

Binet, 185, 189. 

scale, 188, 190. 

Binger, Captain, quote, 50. 

Biological laws of interbreeding, 79. 
Black belt, 92, 134, 234, 278. 
apprehension in, 150. 
conditions in, 125. 
negroes in, 78. 

Black man, relationship of, 123. 
republic, 58. 

secret society, cannibalism of, 121. 
Blacks, coast tribe, power of, 70. 
in New York, 51. 
mental inferiority of, 49. 

Blancho, rival of Da Souza, 74. 
Bloods, crossing of, 204. 

Boas, Prof. Franz, 184. 

work cited, 193, 195. 

Bonny, source of slave supply, 68. 
Bornau, customs of wives in, 44. 
Bosjesmen, 23. 

Boutwell, Geo. S., 164. 

Bowser, A. J., 222. 

Boys, young, killed and baked, 122. 
Brachycephalic (skulls), 54. 

Brain, 57, 203. 

convolutions of (in apes), 56. 

-case, 53. 

chimpanzee, 55, 56. 
growth of, 50. 

(of man), 56. 
modifications of, 55. 

(negro), expansion of, 50. 

-pan, expansion of, 30. 

(pig), 55, 56. 

(rabbit), 55. 
sex centers in, 104. 


Brain structure, differences in, 203. 
Brains, differences between negro 
and Caucasian, 32. 

Brazilians, dusky hue of, 171 . 

Brazil, slave trade of, 67. 

Breeding (men and women) for 
special features, 87. 

Brewer, Justice, 213. 

British, ancient, teeth of, 19. 
Museum, 19. 

Brown, Bishop William M., 222. 
Col. John M., 301. 

P. U., work cited, 27. 

Bruce, Blanche K., 169. 

Bryce, Hon. James, on negro peril, 
261. 

Buchver, Dr., visit to Muata Yanvo, 
38. 

Burge, J. G., 308. 

Burleson, Secretary, 173. 

Burmese family, hair of, 12. 

Burton, Sir Richard, work cited, 244. 
Bushmen, 26. 

Busk, work cited, 54. 

C. 

Calabar, source of slave supply, 68. 
Calcaneum, 57. 

Calmuck, skulls of, 54. 

Camper, Peter, 41. 

Peter, quote, 55. 

Cannibalism, 46. 
of black secret society, 121. 
of the negro in Africa, 46, 64, 70, 
121, 122, 254. 

Cannibals, relatives of, in the 
United States, 78. 

Sherbro, 121. 

Soudan (West) negroes, 78. 
Cannibal tribes, 46. 

Canot, Captain, quote, 72. 

Cape Haytien, 3. 
negro life in, 61. 

Cape St. Martha, source of slave 
supply, 67. 




360 


Index. 


associate 


Cape Verde, source of slave supply, 
67. 

Cardio-vascular-renal diseases, 248. 
Carus, Dr. Paul, 289. 

Caste, doctrine of, 270. 

Catholics select Catholics as mates 
when marrying, 110. 

Cats, black, 85. 
white, 85. 

Caudal appendage, vertebrae of, 30. 
Caucasian, 57. 

and African, differentiation be¬ 
tween, 97. 

children, skulls of, 35. 
model, 41. 

moral as a race, 101. 
negro's unfitness to 
with, 99. 
skull of, 30. 
unity, 289. 

Caucasians, 207. 
crossing of, 108. 

Central and So. Amer. Immigration 
Assn, and Equal Rights League 
of the Western Continent, 300. 
Cerebral hemispheres, surface of, 55. 
Cerebrum, 196. 

Ceremonies, 104. 

Cha-Chu (Da Souza), slave trader 
73, 74. 

Chamberlain, Alexander F., work 
cited, 57. 

Alexander F., quote, 57. 
Characteristics, mental, 202. 

physical, 202. 

Chellean implements, 21. 

Chickens, variation in, 86. 

Child of pure negro mother by white 
man, 93. 

Chimpanzees, 16. 
brain of, 55, 56. 
facial expression of, 60. 
habitat of, 27. 

Chinese, 200. 
exclusion of, 293. 
maltreatment of, 291. 


Chinese men, of New York, 108. 
Chudzinski, dissections of negroes 
32. 

Chyluria, 241. 

Civil War, 76. 
results of, 208. 

Clark, Representative Frank, 311. 
Cleveland, President, 217. 

Coast tribes, instigated by slavers 
72. 

College education controlling negro's 
hereditary racial instincts, 133. 
Colonists, motives for introducing 

slaves into the United States, 
65. 

Colonization, billion for, 308. 
society, 295. 

Colored children, excel in rote mem¬ 
ory, 187. 
picture tests of, 187. 
tests given, 186. 

Colored employees in Departments, 
177. 

schools, 269. 

schools, course of study in, 186. 
Columbia University, 184. 

Commerce, Secretary of, 173. 
"Concord," British slave ship, 73. 
Concubinage, prevalence of, 322. 
Concubine, negro, character of, 322. 
Congo Basin, tribes of, 26. 
source of slave supply, 68. 

Upper, cannibal tribes of, 46. 
Congressman, African, 166. 

Congress, constitutional right of, 155. 

memorial to, 308. 

Conkling, Roscoe, 169. 

Constitutional amendment, 208. 
Conversation, lewd, of the negro 
146. 

Coolie, Indian, 52. 

Cope, Edward D., work cited, 289. 

Edward D. (published letter), 294. 
Corannas, 244. 

Cotton-mill children, conditions of, 
188. 





Index . 


361 


Courts, American, no jurisdiction of, 

71. 

criminal records of, 88. 

Cowart, Lee, 308. 

Cows, variations in from crossing, 
83. 

Crafts, “Col.” Ida, 281. 

Cranial box, closing of, 50. 
capacity, 50. 
sutures, 57. 

sutures (in negroes), 49, 50. 
sutures, premature closing of, 30. 
Crania selecta (von Baer), 54. 

typica (Busk), 54. 

Creation, separate act of, 18. 

special and miraculous, 80. 

Crime committed by negroes in the 
United States, 149. 
increase of, 97. 
in the negro, 148. 

Crimes by negroes, 130. 

Criminal acts, heinous, 148. 
assaults, 267. 

Criminality of the negro, 145. 
Crossing, 81. 

Cruveilhier, 33. 

Cuba, slaves of, 3. 

Cubans, dusky hue of, 171. 

Cultural elements, 206. 
levels, 51. 

Currie, J. H. (address to jury), 324. 
Cutchin, Mayor, of Virginia, 153. 
Cuvier, 41. 

D. 

Dahomey, slave-mine in, 74. 

Daily (The) Picayune, 129. 

Darwin, 13, 26. 
quote, 29, 34, 80, 84, 85. 
work cited, 10, 36, 80. 

Da Souza, 74. 
harem of, 73. 
slave trader, 73. 

Davidson, Rev. J. T., 310. 

Dawson, Chas., in London “Sphere,” 
22 . 


Death sentence, deterrent effect of, 
90. 

Deer, red, fragments of, 22. 

De Forest, Dr. Henry P., 250. 
Deformities, elimination of, 87. 

Del Mar, Alexander (reviewer), 1. 
Deportation, 327. 
cost of, 314. 

of negroes (cost of), 332 et seq. 
the remedy, 259. 

Depravity of the negro in Africa, 46. 
“Desire,” first slave ship built for 
the slave trade, 63. 

Discoveries, psycho-physiological, 195. 
Diseases, elimination of, 87. 
from tropical Africa, 240. 
groups of, 237. 
venereal, 7, 237. 

Dog, 17. 

Dogs, fidelity of, 18. 
sensations of, 14. 
variation in, 83, 86. 

Dolichocephalic type, 27. 
skull, 54. 

Domestic animals, breeding of, 107. 
Douglass, Frederick, 164, 167, 168, 
170. 

Drake, Captain Philip, work cited, 
73. 

DuBois, E. E. D., traitor to race, 320. 
work cited, 51. 

“Duke of York,” British slave ship, 
73. 

Durbin, Governor, 219. 

Dutchman, engaged in slave trade, 
63. 

Dutch, slave trade of, 63, 64. 

E. 

Ears, curiously shaped, breeding for, 
87. 

Earth, form of, 10. 

Egg, 17. 

Egypt, color of negroes developed 
in, 36. 

Elephantiasis, 241. 





362 


Index . 


Elephants, extinct species of, 21. 

fragments of, 22. 

Ellis, Col. A. B., quote, 50. 
Emasculation of negroes, 157. 
England, Minister to, 217. 
no appeal in criminal cases, 217. 
slave trade in, 62. 

English women in the slave trade, 
73. 

Engraving and Printing (Bureau of), 
segregation in, 177. 
Environment, change of, 81. 

Eoliths, 21. 

Epileptic frenzy, species of, 119. 
Equality, 208. 

Erotic practices of the negro, 146. 
Ethiopian, 201. 
political astuteness, 181. 

The, 70. 

The, quote from, 116. 

Ethnic sexual traits, general ignor¬ 
ance of, 97. 

Euclid’s geometry, 18. 

European, brain capacity of, 20. 
culture, 199, 200. 
immigration of, 58. 
skeleton of, 59. 
slave trade of, 67. 
western, people of, 200. 

Europeans, foot of, 59. 
skulls of, 54. 

Evolutionary process, 202. 
Expatriation, question of, 184. 

F. 

Facial angle, 12, 28, 55, 57, 75, 202. 
Federal judiciary, 155. 

Feline carnivora, gorilla, 31. 

Festivals, negro, 70. 

Fetish, handling of, 70. 

Fetishism, 122. 

Filarial infection in negroes, 241. 
Filariasis, 240. 

Finck, quote, 46. 

work cited, 46. 

Fletcher, Dr. Robert, 40. 


Flint, work cited, 92. 

Folk-psychology, 190. 

Foot (of Africans) prehensibility of, 
59. 

(of gorilla), 59. 

(of man), 59. 
muscles of, 59. 

Forestier, 20. 

Forms, living, natural selection of, 
79. 

living, origin of, 79. 
living, species of, 79. 
living, subspecies of, 79. 
living, survival of the fittest of, 79. 
Fossil man of Java, beetling brows 
of, 20. 

Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend¬ 
ments, adoption of, 209. 

Fox, on syphilis, work cited, 243. 
Fox, 17. 

Francis, Captain, 153. 

Frenzy, epileptic, species of, 119. 
Fritsch, G.; work cited, 45. 
quote, 45. 

Funston, General, 329. 

G. 

Gaboon, pure negro stock in, 26. 
Gallivan, Congressman, 174. 

Gambia, source of slave supply, 68. 
Ganglia, basal, 196. 
bulbar, 196. 

Garrison, William Lloyd (cited), 294. 
opinion by, 284. 

Geddes and Thompson, quote, 101. 
Gegenbaur, 13. 

Germans, ancient, 42. 

Giraffe, 81. 

Glands, odoriferous, secretions of, 
103. 

Gnongo, Juju House in, 116. 

king of, 116. 

Gold or Slave coast, 24. 

“Good Housekeeping,” 135. 

Goree, source of slave supply, 68. 
Gorilla, facial angle of, 55. 




Index . 


363 


Gorilla, foot of, 59, 60. 
habitat of, 27. 
in Africa, 13. 
manus of, 29. 
skeleton of, 59. 

Gorillas, 16. 
foetal, 13. 

free from cannibalism, 123. 

Grant, J. Cameron, work cited, 70, 
116. 

President, 217. 

Graves, John Temple, address by, 
284. 

on negro problem, 266. 

Graveyards, 88. 

Gravitation, law of, 10. 

Greeks, ancient, 88. 

Grimke, Prof., 207, 208. 

Grinders, 20. 

Griquas, syphilis in, 244. 

Guinea, coast of, 26. 

region of, 23. 

Gunner, Rev. Byron, 174. 

Gussey,' Pres. Colonization Society, 
295. 

Gyri, 55. 

H. 

Haeckel, quote, 42. 
work cited, 42. 

Hair, breeding for complete covering 
of, 87. 

classification of mankind by, 27. 
true (in apes), 28. 

Hale, Mrs. Annie Riley, 141, 143. 
letter from, 259, 260. 
on Southern prejudice, 262. 
work cited, 318. 

Half-breeds, appearance of, 108. 

in the United States, 24. 

Hallux, in negroes and Australians, 
59. 

Halsey, Bishop Lucien, 309. 

Harrison, Frederick, on negro peril, 
261. 

Hayti, barbarous customs in, 43. 


Hayti, cannibalism in, 58. 
emancipation of, 295. 
negroes of, 3, 37. 
negro life in, 61. 
pagan rites in, 58. 
snake-worship in, 58. 
vooduism in, 58. 

Hazen, on syphilis, work cited, 243. 
Health culture, 88. 

Heart disease, deaths from, 246. 
Heidelberg, remains found in, 21. 

Help to emigrate, negroes call for, 
306. 

Hemispheres, cerebral, 55. 
Hemiglobinuric fever, 240. 

Heredity, 81. 

immutable laws of, 92. 

Heusinger, work cited, 40. 

Hindoos, dusky hue of, 171. 

Hindoo strain, 53. 

Hinterland, 122. 

Hippocampus minor in apes, 16. 
Hippopotamus, 20. 

fragments of, 22. 

Hispano, 52. 

Hoffman, work cited, 195, 239, 240. 
Holden, 33. 

Holland, Frederick May (cited), 290. 

salve trade in, 62. 

Hominidae, 11. 

definition of, 11, 12. 

Homo, 11, 18, 30. 
bestiality of, 14. 

genus, low position of negro in, 79. 
lowest position in the genus, 26. 
position of, 25. 
representatives of, 25. 
sapiens, 11. 

-simian pedigree, 19. 
Homosexuality, 14. 

Hopkins, work cited, 66. 

Horse, extinct species of, 21. 

Horses, variation in, 86. 

variations in, from crossing, 83. 
Hospitals, 88. 

Hottentot, 18. 







364 


Index. 


Hottentot women, gluteal proportions 
in, 87. 

Hottentots, 23. 

Howard, Dr. William Lee, 95, 96. 

work cited, 132. 

Howell’s novel, 170. 

Howitzer, 71. 

Human Leopard Society, 121. 
Humboldt, von, 26. 

Hume, quote, 41. 

Humerus, 57. 

supracondyloid foramen of, 31. 
Hunt, Benjamin W., opinion of, 272. 
Hutchins, S. L., 308. 

Huxley, Thomas H., 13, 26. 
quoted, 16, 18, 53, 55, 56, 58, 59. 
work cited, 55, 56. 

Hybridization, 23, 94, 107, 124, 129. 
Hybrid race, production of, 90. 
Hybrids, “Afro-American,” 4. 
characteristics of, 113. 
in the United States, 64. 
not being negroes, 113. 
production of, 107. 
sterile in second, third or fourth 
generation, 123. 
what they stand for, 6. 

Hygiene, negro influence on, 236. 

I. 

Idiocy, increase of, 97. 

Immigration Commissions, 264. 
Immorality, increase of, 97. 
sexual, 98. 

Implements, primitive, 22. 
Impressions, prenatal, 93. 

Indian coolie, 52. 
crossing with whites, 109. 
hybrids, 24. 

Ocean, waters of, 26. 

Queen, British slave ship, 73. 
squaws, 109. 

Indolence of the negro, 132. 

Ingalls, John J., 169, 172, 302. 
letter from, 282. 


Ingalls, John J., on expatriation of 
negroes, 283, 284. 
on segregation, 300. 

Inheritance, laws of, 84, 85. 

Insanity among negroes, 138. 

Insane asylums, 88. 

Insanity, causes and remedies for, 

101 . 

increase of, 97. 

Instincts, primal, 100. 

Interbreeding, 81. 
between whites and blacks, 111. 
biological laws of, 79. 
laws and principles of, 86. 
prevention of, 90. 
racial, 90. 

Intermarriage, 108. 

Irritation, cause of, 5. 

Israelites, 110. 

J. 

Jamaica, barbarous customs in, 43. 
Jamestown in 1619, 63. 

Virginia, slaves landed in 1619, 64. 
Japanese, 108. 

to colonize in Florida, 311. 

Java, fossil man of, 20. 

remains found in, 21. 

Jaw, Heidelberg, 19. 

simian feature of, 19. 

Jaws, 57. 

Jealousy of possession in the negro, 

102 . 

Jefferson on deportation, 207, 208. 
Johnson, Dr. F. B., 241. 

Johnston, J., work cited, 46. 
quote, 46. 

Sir Harry, quote, 52, 58. 
on negro health, 240. 

Jones, Amos, 219. 

Capt. John Paul, 66. 

Mrs. Rosalie, 278. 

Juju House, dedication of, 70. 
in Gnongo, 116. 
posts of, 117. 

Juju Houses, 123. 




Index. 


365 


K. 

Kaffir tribe, bait traps with own chil¬ 
dren, 43. 

Kaffraria, maternal filiation prevails 
in, 43. 

Kaffres, face of, 42. 

woolly hair of, 42. 

Keane, A. H., 1. 

quotes, 27, 36, 37, 38, 39, 48, 53, 60. 
work cited, 58, 59. 

“Kentucky,” slave ship, mutiny on, 74. 
Keyes, on syphilis, work cited, 243. 
“King George,” slave ship, 66. 
Ku-Klux, 166. 

L. 

Labouisse, Mrs. Peter, case of, 223. 

own story of the crime, 158. 
“Ladies’ Home Journal, The,” articles 
in, 96. 

Lang, John H., 160. 

“La Razza Negra,” 30. 
quote from, 50. 

Latin America, miscegenation in, 52. 
Lavatories, separate, in War Depart¬ 
ment, 177. 

Lawlessness, sectional, 156. 
spirit of, 221. 
white, 155. 

Lawrence, quote, 41. 

Laws of inheritance, 84. 

Lawyers’ ignorance of sex psychol¬ 
ogy, 98. 

Layland, work cited, 43. 

Le Bon, Gustav, 185. 
work cited, 194. 

Lee, Mrs. Catharine, assault upon by 
negro, 143. 

Legal morality, 154. 

Legislation, penal, 141. 

Lemuria, region of, 26. 

Leopards, Human, (Society), 121. 
Leprosy, 240, 249. 

Letourneau, quote, 43. 

work cited, 43. 

Liberia and Liberians, 332. 


Liberia Republic, 314. 

source of slave supply, 68. 
colonization society, 308. 
colony, 295. 

Licentiousness in the negro, 147. 

Ligon, Ellen Barret, M. D., work 
cited, 135. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 164. 

Linnaeus, 25. 
work cited, 12. 

Lion, 21. 

Liverpool, shipchandlers of, 65. 

Livingstone, David, on syphilis in 
Africa, 243, 244. 

Loanda, blacks of, 45. 

Louisiana, number of slaves in 1850, 
74. 

L’Ouverture, Toussaint, (cited), 295. 

Love, 47. 

Lowery, Samuel R., 308. 

Lusitano-American Mestizoes, 52. 

Lust ceremonies, 105. 

Lustful dances, 104. 

Lycanthropy, 102. 

Lynchers, gangs of, 94. 
go unpunished, 221. 

Lynching, 4, 153, 154, 213, 214, 221, 
222, 258. 
account of, 158. 
author’s view of, 225. 
crime of, 224. 
epidemic of, 216. 

extenuation of, in case of rape, 218. 
growth of, 219. 
in Black Belt, 156. 

Lynch law, 145, 214. 

responsibilities for, 274. 

M. 

“Magazine of American History,” 
(1891), 63. 

Maiden, Indian, 323. 

Malaria, 238. 

Mall, work cited, 195. 

Mammalia, 13. 
brain in, 55. 




366 


Index . 


Mammalia, facial angle in, 55. 

varieties of, 11. 

Mammalian series, 25. 

Mammals, 13. 

lower type of, 34. 

Man, 25. 

and brutes, comparison of, 17. 
brain of, 56. 
cleanliness of, 14. 
civilization of, 13. 
conceit of, 15. 
cruelty of, 14. 

definition of, in Century Diction¬ 
ary, 11. 
foot of, 59. 

from pointed-eared animals, 29. 
in nature, 11. 

-like apes, transition of, 42. 
of Sussex, 19. 
place in nature, 10, 15. 
position in nature, 9. 
present progress of, 13. 
sensations of, 13. 
separation from apes, 13. 
sexual perversions of, 14. 
speech of, 13. 

susceptible to surroundings, 125. 
Mandril (male) coloring of, 34. 
Manetta, Filippo, quote, 30, 49. 
Mankind, 13. 
attributes of, 25. 
descent of, 18. 
races of, 31. 

Marett, R. R., work cited, 191. 
Marital ethics of negro, 102. 

Married life of negro, fidelity in, 102. 
Massachusetts legislature, 174. 
Maternal filiation, 43. 

McAdoo, Secretary, 173. 

McCaw, Col. Walter D., 40. 
McDougal, 196. 

McFarland, Commissioner, (address), 
309. 

McGee, Professor, 207. 

McQueen, J. W., employs white 
labor, 263. 


Mediterranean, races of, 23. 

Men and women, breeding of, 107. 
bred for dwarfs, 87. 
bred for giants, 87. 
culture of, 25. 
mental capacity of, 25. 
reasoning faculty of, 25. 
refinement of, 25. 

Men banquet on plump boys, 122. 
races of, 203. 
variation in, 86. 

Mendacity of the negro, 130. 

Menstruating girls, effect upon bull 
elk, 103. 

Mental inferiority of the blacks, 49. 

Mental-set, racial, 202. 

Mesvinian type of weapon, 21. 

Mind, 203. 

Miraculously created pair, 18. 

Miscegenation, 49, 139, 184, 190. 
accursed shadow of, 324. 
horrors of, 282. 
in Latin America, 52. 
introduction and evils of, 255, 256. 
offsprings of, 100. 

Mitchell, Congressman, 175. 

Mob, 156. 
torture by, 221. 
uprising of, 214, 218. 
violence, 219. 
violence, victims of, 155. 
wrong done by, 220. 

Mobs, 155. 
government of, 215. 

Mongolian, 201. 

Monkeys, free from cannibalism, 123. 
hand-like members of, 59. 
sensations of, 14. 

Monogamic marriage, morality of, 
253. 

Monteiro, J. J., quote, 44. 
work cited, 45. 

Moore, work cited, 66. 

Morgan, Jos. D., employs white labor, 
263. 

Senator (bill on negro), 299. 





Index. 


367 


Morse, Dr. Josiah, quote, 184. 
Moscow, experiments in, 87. 

Mulatto births in Northern States, 
271. 

how to study, 248. 

Mulattoes, 111, 129. 
characters of, 112. 
fine-looking ones in cities, 257. 
insanity among, 138. 
marrying whites, 112. 
white blood in, 92. 

Murder, lynching for, 154. 
trials, 129. 

Murders by the negroes, 149. 
Murray, F. Morris, 174. 

G. W., 163. 

Muscles of foot, 59. 

Mutiny of slave cargo, 74, 75. 
Myological differences, 32. 

Myology (comparative), 34. 

N. 

“Nancy/’ British slave ship, 73. 
Nasal aperture, 57. 

National Academy of Sciences, 5. 
Board of Censorship, 6. 

Colored Democratic League, 181. 
Medical College in Washington, 
D. C., 29. 

Sociological Society, 309. 

Natural laws, 80, 81. 
selection, 81. 

Navumbala (witch-detector), 38. 
Navy Department, segregation in, 
177. 

Negars (in Jamestown), 63. 
Negresses, accepting embraces of 
white men, 146. 

children by white men, 124, 126. 
cruelty of, 72. 

pregnant by blacks in Africa, 91. 
tortures by, 72. 

(United States), the vote question, 
278. 

Negro and white races, mental and 
moral differences between, 36. 


Negro, all-pervasiveness of, 136. 
ambitions of, 145. 
ancestry, 78, 197. 
anatomical peculiarities of, 31. 
anatomical structure of, 53. 
animal instincts of, 47. 
animal type of, 60. 
anterior limbs of, 29. 
arms (long) of, 42. 
arson of, 149. 
arts of, 39. 

attitude toward women, (genuine 
African), 42. 
belief in' sorcery of, 38. 
bestiality of, 46. 
brain of, 196, 203, 204. 
brain, development of, 30. 
brain, expansion of, 50. 
brains, plates of, 40. 
burning alive of, 224. 
calves (thin) of, 42. 
canines, upper and lower, 12. 
cannibalism of, 38, 46. 
cargo, mutiny of, 74. 
cheeks of, 28. 

child (new-born), color of, 36. 
children, intelligence of, 49. 
children, on plantations in the 
South, 30. 

children, skulls of, 35. 
chin of, 42. 
city, the, 252. 
cradle of stock, 26. 
closing of cranial box, 50. 
cranial sutures in, 49, 50. 
crime instincts in, 148. 
criminality of, 145, 148. 
cruelty of, 38. 
cultures, 201. 
customs, 70. 
deformities of, 34. 
deportation of, 277, 282, 288, 300, 
304, 312. 
depravity of, 46. 
development of, 30. 
dissection of, 29. 




368 


Index. 


Negro, ductless-glands of, 196. 
ears of, 29. 

education, sytem of, 212. 
emotions of, 44, 145. 
enfranchisement of, 223. 
epidermis of, 28. 
epidermis, odor of, 28. 
equality theory of, 137. 
erotic practices of, 146. 
ethnic traits, ignorance of, 97. 
ethnological status of, 78. 
eye of, 28. 
color of eye in, 36. 
face, 42. 

face, expression of, 60. 
face, painting of, 34. 
facial angle of, 55. 
feet of, 29. 

feline carnivora, gorilla, in, 31. 

fetishism of, 38. 

fiends, 136. 

folk-lore of, 39. 

foot of, 59. 

foot, larkspur heel of, 59. 

forearm in, 59. 

forehead of, 42. 

general morphology of, 28. 

girls, lust in, 103. 

girls, venereal diseases in, 252. 

hallux or big toe in, 29. 

hand of, 29, 59. 

hair of, 12, 27, 29, 42. 

hair, color of, 36. 

heel of, 29, 59. 

height of, 28. 

helix in, 29. 

history of, 170. 

hybrids, 24. 

in American politics, 181. 
indifference to suffering, 45. 
infidelity in married life, 102. 
in Hayti, 37. 

insurrection, dangers of, 281. 
intellect, stunting of, 30. 
internal anatomy of, 30. 
in the United States, 24. 


Negro, jaws of, 28, 54. 
labor, can be spared in the South, 
293. 

-land, 39. 
languages, 42. 
legs, 59. 

liars by nature, 131. 
literature of, 39. 
loafing, 96, 
love, 46. 

lynchings, number of, 153. 
making Americans of, 3. 
marital ethics of, 102. 
mass meeting of, 180. 
medical aspects of, 239. 
menace to general hygiene, 249. 
menace to health of whites, 238. 
mendacity of, 30. 
mental capacity of, 194. 
mental characteristics of, 204. 
mental operations of, 195, 198. 
mimics of the whites, 127. 
missionaries, immorality of, 37. 
morals of, 37. 

morals and marriages among, 44. 
mothers, adoption of names, 92. 
murders, 149. 

myological peculiarities in, 33. 
nature of, 64. 
nervous system of, 47. 
no architecture of, 39. 
no manufactures, arts, or sciences 
of, 42. 

no monogamic regime, 43. 
no monumental ruins of, 39. 
non-morality of, 46. 
nose of, 28, 42. 
nostrils of, 28. 

not responsible for animal nature, 
151. 

number of, 227. 
of today, 132. 

organization, sexual side of, 94. 
outrages, hideous facts, 137. 
passions of, 145. 
pedigree of, 5. 






Index. 


369 


Negro, pelvic extremities of, 29. 
peril in the United States, 142, 261. 
population, total, 232. 
problem, 26, 71, 172, 183, 193, 206, 
234. 

problem, a national one, 261. 
problem, indifference of scientific 
investigators to, 190. 
problem, more complex, 197. 
problem, solution of, 101, 204. 
problem, stumbling-block to solu¬ 
tion of, 96. 

problem, treatment of, 238. 
problem, true basis of, 196. 
procreative instincts of, 145. 
profile of, 54. 

psoas parvus muscle in, 31, 33. 
psychology, 95. 
public health problem, 240. 
pure stock of, 26. 
phylogeny of, 102. 
question (E. O. Smith), 294. 
redemption of, 147. 
relationships to whites, 197. 
religiosity of, 104. 
religious emotionalism of, 132. 
rudimentary organs and structures 
of, 31. 

sacrifices (African), 70. 
schools, effect of, 270. 
sensuality of, 95, 100. 
sensuality, basic causes for, 96. 
sensual traits of, 112. 
sex frenzy in, 94. 
sex organs of female, 99. 
sex psychology of, 95. 
sexual appetite of, 47. 
sexual instincts of, 145. 
sexual madness in, 104. 
skin of, 28, 42. 
skin, color of, 42. 

skin, influence of climate upon, 28. 
skin, turning white, 151. 
skull of, 30, 54. 
skull, cranial bones of, 30. 
skull, cranial capacity of, 30. 


Negro skull, development of, 50. 
skull, malar bones of, 28. 
skull, zygomatic arches of, 28. 
slaves, 62. 
slavery among, 38. 
social institutions of, 38. 
songs and proverbs of, 39. 

Spanish origin of, 26. 
spine and pelvis of, 28. 
stealing in, 37. 
stock, 62, 71. 
strain in whites, 93. 
structure of, 41. 

supracondyloid foramen of the 
humerus, 31. 
thefts, 149. 

The, Shufeldt, first edition of, 48. 
tendency of, 58. 
toe-nails in, 29. 

toe-nails, resemblance to claws, 29. 
toes of, 29. 
tortures by, 38. 
typical west coast, 36. 
vestigial organs and structures in, 
31. 

virgins, 104. 

vote, matter of barter, 328. 
vote, price of, 181. 
voting in Maryland, 130. 
west coast of Africa, 78. 
west Soudan, place occupied by, 39. 
what shall we do with him, 210. 
women, concubines to whites, 324. 
women, love in, 47. 
women, proud of their light-col¬ 
ored progeny, 325. 

Negroes, anatomical characters in, 58. 
beliefs of, 69. 
blood-relations of, 69. 
cannibalism in (of West Afri¬ 
cans), 122. 

characteristics, mental, moral, and 
physical, 26. 

criminal cases of (in Washington, 
D. C.), 128. 


24 




370 


Index . 


Negroes, descent from (in the 
United States), 64. 
dissections of, 3. 

distribution of, in the United 
States, 235. 
genuine, 42. 
ideas of emotions, 45. 
immense horde of, 236. 
in Army and Navy, 3. 
in Baltimore, 127. 
in business, 3. 

in Government Departments, 3. 
in the professions, 3. 
in Southern States, 24. 
in trade, 3. 

in the United States, 79. 

in Washington, D. C., 127. 

percentage of, 234. 

pleurality of wives among, 43. 

polygamy among, 43. 

power to mimic, 125. 

pride of country, 5. 

proportion of, in the South, 313. 

relatives of, in Africa, 78. 

religion of, 69. 

true, 24. 

two States for, 309. 
typical representatives of, 27. 
unmixed, 56. 

Negroid, 204. 
ancestry, persons, 113. 
mental, moral, and physical char¬ 
acteristics of, 26. 
people, 60. 
races, 23. 

Negrophiles, 256. 

Nephritis, death from, 247. 

Nervous system, 47. 

New England, illiteracy of negroes 
in, 211. 

Sunday-school advice of, 132. 
Newport, built up on slave trade, 66. 
Newts, 82. 

New York City, few negroes in, 126. 

few negroes at polls, 130. 
Niger (Latin), 26. 


Nile, Upper, 23. 

Non-morality of the negro in Africa, 
46. 

North America, half-castes in, 24. 
slave trade, 63. 

O. 

Old World stock, 5. 

Orang (foetal) ear in, 29. 

Organic evolution, 86. 

Original pair, story of, 80. 
Orthognathism (of skull), 55. 
Orthognathous skull, 54. 

Osier, work cited, 244. 

Ouse, channel of, 22. 

Owen, Sir Richard, 12. 
plates from, 59. 

P. 

Palaeolithic weapons, 21. 

Paton, John E., 308. 

Paris (Texas), 153. 

Parker, 32. 

Parker, Lewis W., employs white 
labor, 263. 

Parker, M. C., 308. 

Pass Christian, lynching in, 160. 
Pauperism, increase of, 97. 

Peccary, 81. 

Peculiarities, mental, 203. 

Pedro, Dom, residence in Africa, 73. 
Pedigree, homo-simian, 19. 

Pellagra, 238. 

problem of, 241, 242. 

Pelvis, 57. 

Penal legislation, 141. 

Penitentiaries, 88. 

Pigeons, domestic, 81. 

variation in, 82, 86. 

Pig, brain of, 55, 56. 

Pigs, variation in, from crossing, 83. 
Pithecanthropus erectus, 51. 

Pliocene age, 20. 

man, early, 51. 

Phelps, E. J., 217. 

Philadelphia, vital statistics of, 92. 





Index . 


371 


Phillips, Wendell, cited, 295. 
Philosophy, prudish, 133. 

Physical temperaments, 51. 

Physics, facts in, 80. 

Physique, improvements in, 88. 
Pocahontas, 63. 

Political equality, experiments of, 
285. 

Polydactylism, breeding- for, 87. 
Population, black and mulatto, 231. 
by color or race, 232. 
white and negro, 229. 

Portugal, slave trade in, 62. 
Portuguese, half-bloods, 244. 

women, in slave trade, 73. 

Postoffice Department, segregation in, 
175, 177. 

Poul, customs of wives in, 44. 

Powell, John Wesley, 255. 

Prenatal impressions, 93. 

Primal conditions, 81. 

Primates, 11, 15. 

Printing Office, segregation in, 177. 
Prognathism, 28. 

of skull, 55. 

Prognathous skull, 55. 

Prostitute, negro, 258. 

Prostitution among negroes, 250, 251. 
Protozoa, 101. * 

“Providencia,” slave ship to Brazil, 
67. 

Prudery, 96. 

Psoas parvus muscle, 31. 

relative frequency in the col¬ 
ored race, 31. 

Psoas, small, absence of, 33. 
great, 33. 

Psychological attributes, development 
of, 145. 

Psychology of sex, literature on, 95. 
physiological, 203. 
racial, 202, 203. 

Psychopathia sexualis, 14. 

Puberty, oncoming of, 103. 

Pycraft, W. P., quote, 20. 
work cited, 19. 


Q. 

Quadrumana, 34. 
ears in, 29. 

Quain, 33. 

Quatrefages, plates from, 54. 

R. 

Rabbit, brain of, 55. 

Rabbits, sexual proclivities of, 226. 

Race-breeding, 86. 

-breeding proper, 88. 

-crossing, opportunity for, 108. 
formation of, 202. 
hybrids, question of, 107. 
imported, 91. 
improvement, 107. 
improvement, mating for, 87. 
interbreeding, 92. 
mental processes of, 204. 
problem, 191, 222. 
question, 140. 

segregation in Departments, 178. 
superiority, question of, 189. 

Racial discrimination, 180. 
mental-set, 202. 
supremacy, struggle for, 324. 
temperaments, 51. 
types, modern, 199. 

Races, fraternizing of, 89. 
mixture of, 101. 
separation of, 287. 

“Rainbowe,” slave ship, 71. 

Raids, 70. 

carried inland (Africa), 74. 
slave, description of, 72. 

Rape, negroes charged with, 94. 

Raymond, 295. 

Reason, higher plane of, 15. 
in dogs, 15. 
in elephants, 15. 
in foxes, 15. 

Redmen, indigenous, enslaving of, 65. 

Religion, 4. 

“Religio-Philosophical Journal,” 129. 

Religious emotionalism of the negro, 
132. 






372 


Index. 


Religious motives (of colonists), 65. 
Remedy, radical, 226. 

Republic, cornerstone of, 221. 
Retzius, quote, 54. 

Rhinoceroses, extinct species of, 21. 
Rhode Island, vessels in slave trade, 
66 . 

Rice, Dr. J. A., statement by, 323. 
pounders, 118. 
sacred, 119. 

Ricks, Rev. E. E., 174. 

Roanoke Blues, 153. 

Robinson Crusoe, footprints found 
by, 21. 

Rock Creek Park, 143. 

Rolfe, John, 63. 

Romans, skulls of, 54. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, 221. 

on lynching, 219. 

Roper Hospital, 241. 

Rudimentary organs, 31. 

Ruffin, Captain, quote, 50. 

Rum, 69. 

Russworm, Gov. John, 295. 

S. 

Salamanders, 82. 

Savages, West Soudan negro, 78. 
“Savannah Morning News,” quote 
from, 48. 

Scale of intelligence, Binet’s, 185. 
Scandinavians, 110. 

Scheme, negro emigration, 310. 
School controlling negro’s hereditary 
instincts, 133. 

Science, findings of, 10. 

investigation by, 9. 

Segregation, 175, 208, 266. 
and deportation (Walker), 320. 
belief in (President Wilson), 144. 
departmental, 180. 
general movement of, 275. 
in Departments, 175. 
of Government employees, 177. 
only solution, 272. 

Sensual ideation (of the negro), 102. 


Sensuality in the negro, 98. 

manifestations of, 96. 

Separation of races, 268. 

Sexton, M. M. (Jailer), 219. 

Sex forces, 103. 
frenzy in male negroes, 94. 
fury, lessening of, 104. 
jealousy, instinct of, in the 
African, 102. 
madness, 105. 

nature and pathology of, 96. 
psychology, 95, 103. 
psychology, ignorance of lawyers, 
98. 

psychology, ignorance of preachers, 

98. 

psychology of the negro, 95. 
structure, 97. 

Sexual activities, 103. 
appetite, demands of, 90. 
appetite of negroes, 47. 
elements, germinal, transmitting of, 

99. 

facts, public awakening to, 98. 
fury in the negro, 102. 
fury, periodic attacks of, 105. 
impulse, ancestral, 132. 
impulse in the negro, 146. 
impulses, stimulation of, 102. 
instincts, fundamental differences 
between, 98. 

intercourse with virgin child, 105. 
passion, control of, 226. 
passions, gratification of, 66. 
rites, 98. 

rites, initiation into, 104. 

Sexuality, manifestations of, 96. 
uncontrolled, 97. 

Sheep, variations in, from crossing, 
83. 

Sherbro cannibals, 121, 122. 

Shields, George J., 152. 

Mrs., 152. 

Shipchandlers of Liverpool, 65. 

Shoes, non-wearing of, 59. 

Shute, D. K., work cited, 57. 





Index. 


3 73 


Sierra Leone, 121. 

source of slave supply, 68. 

Simian brains, plates of, 40. 
pristine stock of, 25. 
stock, 31. 
diseases of, 13. 
higher, 19. 

Simiidae, 11. 

Simioid characters, 57. 

Simon, 189. 

Skatalogic rites, 105. 

Skeleton of negro, 59. 
of simians, 59. 

Skin, black, product of evolution, 199. 
modifying of, 201. 
white, product of evolution, 199. 
Skull-conformation, racial, 202. 
dolichocephalic, 54. 
development of, 50. 
expansion of, 50. 

human, transverse diameter of, 54. 
of a Calmuck, 54. 
orthognathism of, 55. 
orthognathous, 54. 
prognathism of, 55. 
prognathous, 55. 

Skulls, 57. 
brain-case in, 53. 

of negro and Caucasian children, 
35. 

Slave capture, features of, 72. 
-catching expedition, 120. 

-coast, British slave ships on, 73. 
-coast, literature on, 68. 

-coasts, tribes of, 26. 

-hunters, 24. 
markets of America, 67. 
ship, average burden of, 66. 
ship “Kentucky,” 74. 
ship “Napoleon,” 75. 
ship “Providencia,” 67. 
ship “Rainbowe,” 71. 
ships, 73. 
supply, 67, 68. 

trade, becoming a regular business, 

66 . 


Slave trade, considered legal, 67. 
trade, enlarged, 72. 
trade, fortunes in, 71. 
trade in America, 63. 
trade in America, Brazil, England, 
Holland, Portugal, and Spain, 
62. 

trade in New England, 65. 

trade in the colonies, 65. 

trade, legitimate and honorable, 70. 

trade, net protfis of, 75. 

trade of the colonial Yankees, 66. 

trade period, 63. 

trade, profits of, 75. 

trade, shore attacks, 72. 

trade, shore stations of, 72. 

traders, British, 65. 

traders, Royal Companies, 65. 

treatment of, 74. 

Slaver, 91. 
goods, 65. 

English, treachery of, 73. 

Slavers, London, waiting for cargo, 

71. . 

return home, 72. 

Slavers’ chains, 65. 
copper kettles, 65. 
furnaces, 65. 
hand-cuffs, 65. 
iron collars, 65. 
leg-shackles, 65. 
love of rum, 69. 

Slavery, 212. 
abolition of, 272. 

caste restraint, effect on asault, 
271. 

early days of, in the colonies, 65. 
in the Far East, 62. 
human, existence of, 61. 

Slaves, becoming difficult to obtain, 
71. 

brought to America by the Dutch, 
63. 

brought to the United States, 76. 
growing market for, 70. 
how obtained, 71. 




374 


Index. 


Slaves, in Cuba, 61. 
in Northern States, 63. 
negro, earliest in the United States, 
92. 

negro, mental, moral, and physical 
natures of, 62. 
principally owned by, 70. 
quarters of, on slavers, 66. 
returned to Africa, 71. 
sold by blacks to slavers, 70. 
Smalls, Gen. Robert, 163. 

Smith, Captain, 71. 

charges preferred against, 71. 
Smith, Elizabeth Oakes (published 
letter), 296. 

Smith, Henry, 153. 

Smithsonian Institution, 82, 207. 
Snell, A. V., on white labor in the 
South, 263. 

report on Charleston, 259, 260. 
Social equality, 135. 

recognition of negroes, 137. 

Society, laws of, 133. 

“Sociology” (Herbert Spencer), 44. 
Sommering, 41. 

Soudan, 50. 

Central, 23. 

color of negro developed in, 36. 
East, 23. 

West, blacks from, 91. 

West, negro, place occupied by, 39. 
West, region of, 23. 

South Africa, 23. 

South America, half-castes of, 24. 
South Carolina, number of slaves in 
1734, 76. 

conditions in, 136. 

daughters of, must have extra 
guards, 136. 

mothers and daughters in, 140. 
problem in, 190. 
women of, 156. 

Southern home, horror that crouches 
in, 142. 

Medical Association, 238. 
mothers, terror of, 150. 


Southern negro children tested, 189. 
race prejudice, 271. 

States, blacks in (1883), 37. 

States, crimes committed in, by 
negroes, 138. 
white man, 138. 
white woman, safety of, 136. 

Spain, slave trade in, 62. 

Spaniards, dusky hue of, 171. 
Spartans, 87. 

Speech, use of, 12. 

Spencer, Herbert, work cited, 44. 

M. W„ 174. 

vStanley, H. M., on Africa as resi¬ 
dence, 298. 

on negro question, 296. 
work cited, 38. 

Statistics, vital, 92. 

Steatopygous Hottentot women, 87. 
Step-fathers, children by step-daugh¬ 
ters, 146. 

Sterility, from interbreeding, 84. 
Stirpiculture, 271. 
scientific, 87. 

St. John, Sir Spencer, quote, 58. 
Stothard, painter of the “Voyage of 
the Sable Venus,” 65. 

St. Paul de Loango, source of slave 
supply, 68. 

Strepya, type of weapon, 21. 
Structures, vestigial or rudimentary, 
31. 

Suffrage for negro women, 281. 
Sulci, 55. 

Superstition of the negro, 132. 
Suppressive school, 132. 
Supracondyloid foramen of the 
humerus, 31. 

Supreme Court, Judge of, on lynch¬ 
ing, 224. 

Surgeon Generals' Office, 40. 

Sussex man, brain capacity of, 20. 
beetling brows of, 20. 
tools of, 21. 
weapons of, 21. 

Swedish explorer Westermarck, 46. 





Index. 


375 


Syphilis, 250. 
and gonorrhea, 251. 
causes and remedies for, 101. 
general discussion of, 243. 
grave effects of, 245. 
negroes spreading, 237. 

T. 

Tail, development of, 30. 

Tartars, 42. 

Teeth, breeding for elimination of, 
87. 

Terry on Malaria, 240. 

Testicles, secretions of, 102. 

Thatcher, B. B., Secretary Coloniza¬ 
tion Society, 295. 

Congressman, 174. 

Theft by the negroes, 149. 

lynching for, 154. 

Theile, quote, 33. 

Thirteenth Census, abstract of, 227. 

of the U. S. Bulletin, 227. 
Thomas, Rev. J. L., 309. 

Thomas, W. H., 115, 123, 156, 158. 
quotes, 64, 114, 146, 148, 153. 
work cited, 113. 

Thompson, Geo., work cited, 295. 
Thornton, S. M., 160. 

Thyestean feasts, 122. 

Tibia, 57. 

Tiedeman, Dr. Frederick, work cited, 
40. 

Tiger, 17. 
saber-toothed, 21. 

Tilton, Theodore, on Miscegenation, 
207. 

Timines, Count, 295. 

Tompkins, D. A., employs white 
labor, 264. 

Toombs, Robert, 209. 

Townsend, Miss Isabel Audrey, 158. 
Traits, inherited, 100. 

Trautmen, William, 160. 

Treasury Department, segregation in, 
175, 177. 

Trial, impartial, 153. 


Trials, murder, 129. 

Tribal orgies, 104. 

Tribes of the coast, 72. 

of the interior, 72. 

Tritons, 82. 

Transportation, hardships of, 298. 
Trotter, William Monroe, 173, 180, 
182, 237. 

White House incident, 212. 
Tuberculosis, 238, 240. 
among negroes, 138. 
causes and remedies for, 101. 
symposium on, 238. 

Tucker, Rev. Dr., quote, 37, 50. 
Turin, 30. 

Turner, dissections of negroes, 32. 

Henry, Mc.N., on segregation, 266. 
Tuskegee, Alabama, negro president 
of, 63. 

Twins, birth of (in Gnongo), 120. 
of negresses, 92. 

Types, physical and psychical, 199. 

* 

U. 

Uncinariasis, 240. 

United States, Bureau of the Cen¬ 
sus, Chief Clerk of, 227. 
Courts, 155. 

lynchings will occur in, 224. 
negro stock in, 78. 
population of, 25, 227, 229. 
President of, 182. 

President of, attempt to black¬ 
mail him, 172. 

Uterine filiation, adoption of, 43. 

V. 

Vaalpens or Kattea, African races, 
60. 

Vance, Myrtle, 153. 

Vardaman, Senator James K., 209, 

212 . 

Variability, 81. 
in animal or plant forms, 80. 
in form, 81. 
knowledge of, 84. 




376 


Index. 


Variability, laws of, 86. 

natural laws of, 82. 

Variation, immutable laws of, 92. 
Vei tribe, native of, 39. 

Venereal diseases, 105. 
havoc of, 97. 
in negroes, 250, 251. 

Venuses, sable, 76. 

Vestigeal organs, 31. 

Virginia, breeding place for slaves, 
74. 

first cargo of slaves for, 64. 
ship “Treasurer,” 63. 
slaves to, 63. 

University of, 190. 

Von Esdorf, on malaria in negroes, 
240. 

Voodu, 58. 

Vote, colored, 181. 

Votes for negro women, 279. 

negro, price of, 181. 

Voting by negroes, 130. 

W. 

Walters, Alex., 181, 182. 

Walker, M. F., on negro out of 
place, 258. 

M. F. (race?), 315, 316. 

M. F., work cited, 319. 

Thomas, 174. 

Walsh, Governor, 178. 

War Department, separate lava¬ 
tories in, 177. 

Washington, Booker T., 237. 

traitor to race, 320. 

Washington, D. C., asaults in, 149. 
colored public schools in, 129. 
influence of negroes in, 132. 
mulattoes in, 111. 
negroes in, 127. 

population in (unadulterated), 
128. 

vital statistics in, 92. 

Medical Society, 31. 

Water lizards, 82. 


Westermarck, work cited, 46. 

West Indies, 65. 

half-castes of, 24. 
slave trade of, 67. 

West Soudan, tribes of, 26. 
Whipping post, deterrent effect of, 
90. 

White child, brain of, 204. 
children, tests given, 186. 

Dr., 250. 
quote, 41. 

expansion of brain pan, 30. 

House, social functions in, 182. 
immigrants, number of, 234. 
man, brain of, 196, 203. 
plague, 250. 
race, 36. 

Representative, 309. 
women, assaults upon, 149, 152, 
154. 

woman, despoiling of, 136. 

Whites, anatomical characters in, 58. 
brain growths in, 50. 
brain volume of, 30. 
development of, 30. 
mental operations of, 194, 198. 
Whydah, 73. 

Williams, John Skelton, 173. 

Wilson, 33. 

Wilson, President, 174, 180, 212. 

belief in segregation, 144. 
Wilson, Dr. Robert, Jr., 238. 

Wine, S. W., 301. 

Wisdom teeth, 57. 

Witch detectof, 38. 

Wolf, 81. 

Woman, creation of, 18. 

Women assaulted by negroes, 153, 
157, 223. 

mongoloid (New York), 323. 
negro, condition of, 323. 
negro, slave drudges, 46. 
variation in, 86. 

Woodward, Dr. A. Smith, 22. 
Wooley, Robert W., 237. 





Index . 


377 


Y. 

Yankees, colonial, in the slave trade, 
66, 71. 

Yellow fever, 240. 

Yorubas, 26. 

Z. 

Zambesi River, 26. 


Zangwill, Israel, on negro peril, 261. 
Zebras, transporting of, 3. 

Zoller, Hugo, work cited, 47. 

quote, 47. 

Zulu Kaffirs, 49. 




















































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