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The Crucial Race Question
SPECIAL PRAYER
AUTHORIZED BY THE BISHOP OF ARKANSAS
aLMIGHTY God, who, by Thy Son Jesus Christ, didgt
give commandment to Thy Holy Apostles, that they
should go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to
every creature; grant to us whom Thou ha£t called into
Thy church a ready will to obey Thy Word, and fill us
with a hearty desire to make Thy way known upon earth,
Thy saving health among all races. Look with compassion
upon the heathen that have not known Thee, and on the
multitudes in our own land that are scattered abroad as
sheep having no shepherd. Especially we beseech Thee
to have pity upon the Negroes who dwell in these United
States. Answer the prayers of their leaders to the General
Convention of our Anglo-American church and raise up for
them through us a true and adequate ministry of Afro-
American Bishops and other pastors. Greatly increase and
bless all the means used to bring this poor, helpless,
people to a saving knowledge of Thy dear Son, the sinless
Jesus who came into the world to save it from sin. Stir up
the hearts of all who profess and call themselves Christians
to prayer and deeds of mercy on behalf of this people.
Give to our civil and ecclesiastical rulers a sense of
honor, truth and justice in all their dealings with them, and
fill this whole nation with compassion for them. Lord
of the harvest, graciously have respedt we beseech Thee,
to our prayers, and speedily send forth a due supply of
Racial Bishops, Priests and Deacons into our great needy
Afro-American missionary field. Fit and prepare them by
Thy grace for the work of their ministry; give them the
spirit of hope, love, and power; strengthen them to endure
hardness; and grant that, both by their life and dodtrine,
they may show forth Thy Glory, and set forward the
Salvation of their Race; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
THE
CRUCIAL RACE
QUESTION
WHERE AND HOW SHALL
THE COLOR LINE BE DRAWN
BY
The Rt. Rev. WILLIAM MONTGOMERY BROWN. D. D.
BISHOP OF ARKANSAS
It is these millions that will put to a crucial test the moralizing
power of American Christianity.
t
Second Edition
THE ARKANSAS CHURCHMAN'S PUBLISHING CO.
Little Rock, Arkansas
MCMVII
COPYRIGHT 1907
BY
WILLIAM MONTGOMERY BROWN
PRESS OF
A. N. KELLOGG NEWSPAPER CO.
LITTLE ROCK, ARK.
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED
TO THE
PEOPLE OF THE SOUTH
BY A
GRATEFUL ADOPTED SON
"On this great question 1 stand now, where Webster stood and
Henry Clay; where Thomas stood, and Abraham Lincoln, and Henry
Grady, and Councill and Turner and the rest—where in time all men
will stand who see the light and dare to face it.
"SEPARATION is the logical, the inevitable, the only way. No
other proposed solution will stand the test of logic and experiment-
"For no statute will permanently solve this problem. No anodyne
of law, no counter-irritant of legislation will quiet it longer than the
hour of its application. The evil is in the blood of races, the disease
is in the bones and the marrow and the skin of antagonistic people.
"Religion does not solve the problem, for the Christ Spirit will
not be all-pervasive until the millenial dawn.
"Education complicates the problem. Every year of enlighten¬
ment increases the negro's apprehension of his position, of his merit
and attainment and of the inconsistency between his real and his
constitutional status in the Republic. Education brings perception,
and ambition follows, with the aggressive assertion against the iron
walls of a prejudice that has never yielded and will never yield. The
confli<5t is irrepressible and inevitable.
"Time complicates the problem by giving increasing numbers
and additional provocation to the Negro, and increasing danger to
the struggle which logic and destiny render certain.
"Politics complicates the problem by bringing times of fierce
conflict when the passions and prejudices of faction may be moved to
partisan alignment with the deep and lurking dangers of the Race
Question.
"We have come in God's providence to the parting of the ways.
In the name of history and of humanity; in the interest of both races,
and in the fear of God, I call for a division. We can make it peace¬
ably now. We may be forced to accomplish it in blood hereafter."
"JOHN TEMPLE GRAVES."
PREFACE
I. The Arkansas Plan and Memorial. II. The Drift
Toward? a Racial Episcopate. III. What God
Hath Joined Together Let No Man Put Asunder, or
the Philosophy of Color-Line Drawing. IV. A
Southemized Northerner Talking Cursed Prejudice
to Dixie Galleries.
I
The Arkansas Plan and Memorial
The Nineteen Hundred and Six Session of the
Council of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the
Diocese of Arkansas passed the following resolutions:
1. Resolved: That the plan of the Bishop of the
Diocese looking to the creation of an autonomous
Afro-American Church, be and hereby is approved.
2. Resolved: Furthermore, that the General Con¬
vention be memorialized or petitioned to take such
steps as may be necessary to consummate that plan.
This book is written partly for the purpose of
commending as strongly and widely as possible the
Memorial or Petition provided for in these resolutions
but the chief end in view is the recommendation to the
general public of the author's solution of the whole
xii The Crucial Race Question
Great American Race Problem by the drawing of the
Color-Line. An effort is made to accomplish these
objects by the establishment of six propositions: (i)
No race can amount to anything without self-govern¬
ment; (2) The only realm in which the Negro in these
United States can hope to govern himself is that
of religion; (3) Under present conditions, the
American Negro, speaking generally, is degenerating
instead of advancing; (4) The Afro-American can be
saved from utter ruin and extinction only by the
bridging of the ever-widening and deepening gulf
which now exists between him and the Anglo-
American ; (5) This necessary bridging cannot be done
without the complete drawing of the Color-Line
around the Social, Political and Religious Realms, and
(6) The necessity for self-government and for the
bridging of the gulf between Anglo-Americans and
Afro-Americans by the drawing of the Color-Line
makes it necessary that American Negroes should
have a wholly independent, autonomous Church.
The reader will be interested to know that the reso¬
lutions providing for the presentation of the Arkansas
Memorial to the General Convention, were carried
almost unanimously, there being only three votes
against them; and it is well known that those who
cast them did so, not because they are opposed to the
idea of an Afro-American Episcopate, but because
they were not quite settled in their own mind as to
what its form should be, Missionary, Suffragan or
Autonomous. Two of the three have since said that
upon the whole they are inclined to the opinion that I
am right in my contention that it should be
Pbeface
xiii
autonomous. The three negative votes were cast by
Clergymen, two of whom are Northern men, and one
is an Englishman by birth. It is significant that all
Southerners, both Clergy and Laity, voted in the
affirmative.
Thus it will be seen that, not only do we in
Arkansas believe that the consecration of Negro
Bishops is most necessary and expedient, but, also,
that to insure the very best development of this work,
there must be a separate and distinct organization.
Any measure short of this, in our judgment, will
prove to be temporary and insufficient, embarrassing
to both races, and injurious to all the interests con¬
cerned. The colored as well as the white Churchmen
of Arkansas are now almost wholly given over to
this opinion. There is very little if any difference
among us.
From the point of view of nearly all white Church¬
men in Arkansas it would be a serious mistake, the
ill effects of which would be felt by the Church for
many years, to give our Negro brethren the Epis¬
copate without drawing an impassable Color-Line
completely around the General Convention. Such a
course would simply be the shifting of our present
difficulty without getting rid of it. It would be
jumping from the "frying pan" of our Diocesan
Councils into "the fire" of the General Convention.
Of course, if, in order to guard against the schism
of which so many are afraid, we should elect and
consecrate only two Afro-American Missionary
Bishops, they and their delegations would, perhaps,
not be embarrassing to an intolerable degree, but
xiv The Crucial Eace Question
because of physical limitations and impossibilities
such an Episcopate would be doomed to failure. If
the proposed Afro-American Episcopate is to justify
thejiope that its friends, black and white, center in
it, ultimately there must be nearly as many colored
Bishops in the Black Belts of the South as there
are white Bishops now; and it must be started out
with at least four of them, three for the South and
one for the North.
I am among those who do not regard the General
Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in
the United States of America as being of Divine
institution or as absolutely necessary to the existence
of our American branch of the Catholic and Apostolic
Church of the Anglo-Saxon race. Nevertheless I
think that the General Convention is a good thing, and
that it will be an evil day for the Church when its
doors are opened to any considerable number of
Negro Bishops and delegations, as it would be if the
appeal of Afro-American Churchmen for Missionary
Bishops and Jurisdictions should be granted by the
creation of an adequate episcopate.
II
The Drift Towards a Racial Episcopate
In the appeal of Afro-American Churchmen for
Bishops of their own and the disposition on the part
of at least twelve Southern Bishops to grant that
appeal we have a most remarkable drift which cannot
be satisfactorily accounted for by a religious mind
Preface
xy
except upon the assumption of an over-ruling Provi¬
dence which makes the drawing and recognition of
the ecclesiastical Color-Line an absolute necessity.
Concerning this drift we remark, first, that the
colored Churchmen themselves have entirely changed,
face about. In 1883 the Sewanee Conference of
Southern Bishops proposed a special and separate
Diocesan organization for our Negroes. The first
general association of Afro-American Churchmen,
which afterwards developed into the Conference
of Workers Among Colored People that is now
asking for Negro Bishops with Missionary Jurisdic¬
tions, was called together for the primary purpose
of opposing the scheme for the separate organization
for colored people recommended/ by the Sewanee
Conference. A colored Episcopate had not been sug¬
gested, but only a separate organization of Colored
Churchmen under the Diocesan Bishops, something
like that which now for nearly two years has been
in operation with good results in Arkansas.
The change which has taken place in the Bishops
of the South is no less remarkable than that in the
North. In 1902 the writer of this book was, so far
as he knows, the only Bishop in the Anglo-American
Church who advocated an Afro-American Episcopate.
In 1904 one other Southern Bishop came out in favor
of granting the appeal of the Conference of Church
Workers which was first made at its 1903 session.
In 1906 the Southern Bishops who took this side of
the question were found at a Sewanee Conference to
number eleven. In 1907 at the time of going to press
there are, I believe, fourteen. Thus, in the course of
xvi The Crucial Race Question
the short space of about four years, thirteen Bishops
"experienced a change of heart" upon the question of
an Afro-American Episcopate.
This change, so far as the Conference of Church
Workers is concerned, is remarkable enough; but in
the case of the Bishops of the South it falls but little,
if any, short of the phenomenal. It is evidently due,
in the case of each Bishop, to the force of circum¬
stances arising as the result of new conditions which
first became irresistible in Arkansas and Texas, and
which are rapidly becoming so throughout the South¬
land. The rapid spread and resistless character of
the new conditions which in many sections of the
South render it absolutely necessary to separate
completely the work of the Church among colored
and white people, may be judged of by the fact that a
Bishop who at the Sewanee Conference of 1905
strongly opposed the idea of separation favored it at
the 1906 Conference, when he said, to the great sur¬
prise of his brethren, "I have been reluctantly forced
to believe that some separation is necessary to the
proper development of the work."
I reiterate, such a change in such men cannot be
accounted for except upon the hypothesis of a rapid
and resistless change of conditions which is destined to
carry everything before it. It is indeed true that some
among the Southern Bishops are holding out against
the separation movement by stoutly opposing the
granting of the Appeal. But their helplessness reminds
me of a familiar scene of my boyhood days. I was
a farmer's lad, and among the humble, juvenile
tasks which fell to me was the driving of a herd of
Preface
xvii
cows to and from the pasture. I was assisted by a
companionable, amiable, faithful shepherd dog which
generally was content to head off and change the
course of wilful members of the herd. When he did
this, he was usually successful in bringing them into
line. But, once in a while, some more persistent and
obstreperous cow would cause him to lose his even
temper and good judgment, for then he would try
to force the situation by grabbing her tail and
attempting to hold her back with all his might and
main. This never worked. In spite of the frantic
efforts in which the dog exhausted his strength, the
cow always went straight on in her forbidden path
until he came to himself, gave up his foolishness, ran
around and took hold of the ear on the opposite side
from the direction in which he wanted to turn her.
The would-be obstructors of the force which is mak¬
ing for the segregation of Afro-American and Anglo-
American Churchmen by the drawing of the Color-
Line through the Episcopal Church, display about as
much wisdom as my dog did when he took hold of
the cow's tail. They are making an heroic but a vain
endeavor to check a resistless movement which will
continue right on in spite of their efforts to hold it
back.
Ill
What God Hath Joined Together Let No Man Put
Asunder, or the Philosophy of Color-Line Drawing
I am painfully conscious of the fact that there are
many who will follow me more or less closely while I
am recommending an Afro-American Episcopate, but
xviii The Crucial Race Question
will take almost indignant leave of me whenever I
touch upon the questions of Negro degeneration and
the necessity of Social and Civil Color-Line drawing.
I have tried, in the body of the essay, with what
success the reader must judge, to justify myself in
what I have said upon the sad subject of Negro degen¬
eration, and so I shall pass it over in these prefatory
remarks and confine myself in them to the greater of
the two great objections to my position, that of Color-
Line drawing.
Those who have criticised me because of what I
have said and written concerning the drawing of the
Color-Line about the Social and Civil Realms while
approving my utterances upon the subject of ecclesi¬
astical Color-Line drawing have made the common
and fatal mistake of separating that which God has
joined together. The necessity for dealing in this
essay with the whole race question, instead of only
with the ecclesiastical phase of it, arises from the fact
that the Council and Bishop of Arkansas are recom¬
mending, open and above board, a response to the
Appeal of Afro-American Churchmen which involves
the drawing of the Color-Line about the Church,
as it has been drawn or is being drawn about
the Civil and Social Realms. The ecclesiastical Color-
Line is confessedly the last of such lines to be drawn,
and there are many who contend that it should not be
drawn at all.
But ecclesiastical Color-Line drawing is either right
or wrong. Practically all Negroes say that it is, at
least theoretically wrong, and there are many Northern
Caucasians who agree with them. But nearly all
Preface
xix
Southern and not a few Northern Caucasians contend
that ecclesiastical Color-Line drawing" is right. I take
my stand with these. Now, this being the case, will
my critics kindly do, what none among them have ever
undertaken to do; explain how reasonably I can hope
to bring any objector to ecclesiastical Color-Line draw¬
ing to my point of view unless I can prove its right¬
eousness in Civil and Social affairs?
There is a unity running through nature which
binds the social, civil and religious realms much closer
together than is commonly supposed. Therefore, he
who would recommend that a course should be pursued
respecting, say, the social realm which would be
wrong in the religious realm, has a great burden of
proof resting upon him. If Color-Line drawing is
right in the social realm, it is right in the religious
realm and the civil realm, and in each case the
reverse of this reasoning must be true or else the
universally accepted doctrine concerning the unity of
nature is not true. One or the other of these conclu¬
sions seems to me to be unavoidable.
The doctrine of the unity of nature is an hypothesis
which is accepted by all scientists and philosophers
among us. This being the case, the inseparableness of
the social, civil and religious realms is entitled to
recognition as a governing article of our larger religi¬
ous creed. All religious evolutionists hold that God
has not ceased to reveal himself to the world. Our
scientists and philosophers may quite properly be
regarded as the special prophets who are revealing
God to us. We are not obliged in this age of science
and philosophy to believe any one of these prophets,
xx The Crucial Eace Question
or even any two or three of them, though they may be
among the greatest; but when, as in the case of the
hypothesis of the unity of nature, there is general
agreement among them, we cannot wisely or rightly
reject their message. Action upon this rational
principle will make the doctrine of the unity of nature
a part of our ever growing scientific creed which
should be taken account of in the discussion that is
now engaging the Church, quite as much as any
article of the Catholic Creed, for the latter creed is in
such matters no more surely a revelation of God's will
than the former.
Complexity is an inseparable accompaniment of
highly developed civilizations, but complexity does
not necessarily imply a lack of unity. Man is a very
much more complex being than a field of the proto¬
plasmic life from which he is said to have originated by
a long line of development through an almost infinite
series of beings of more and more complex organism.
But there is no representative of the animal kingdom
that is so much one as man. A mass of protoplasm of
the size or weight of man might be divided into ten
thousand pieces, and each piece would be a complete
living unit, as much so as it was before the division
commenced; but in the case of man, the process of
division cannot proceed very far without dividing him
out of physical existence.
The greatest among the distinguishing characteris¬
tics of man is civilization, and the civilization in which
this generation has the good fortune of participating,
is almost, if, indeed, not quite as much of a develop¬
ment as is the human body. And as the body of man
Preface
xxi
has its three essential and, at least so far as this life
is concerned, inseparable parts, (i) the Physical, (2)
the Spiritual, and (3) the Soul, which binds physical
and spiritual together and is the basis of their life; so
the civilization of man has its three parts, (1) the
Social, (2) the Civil, and (3) the Religious, which
binds the social and civil together and is the basis
of their associated life. Furthermore, in the process
of development, the essential constituent elements of
man's civilization, like those of his body, are divided
as they were not originally, and yet in both cases the
unity is as great as ever. In fact, it is much greater
now than it originally was. If Color-Line drawing
was ever a necessity, if it was ever right, it is more so
under a complex civilization, such as ours, than it was
under a less developed and more simple one; because
there is by reason of a world-wide commercial system
so much more in the way of the commingling of peoples.
The social, civil and religious realms are now, as
we have seen, divided or differentiated the one from
the other as they were not originally, but neverthe¬
less they are still as much one as they ever were, and
perhaps in some respects even more so. This unity in
the domain of man's spiritual organism, like the unity
in the domain of his physical organism, seems to
increase in exact ratio with the increase of complexity.
It is this unity which makes it impossible that it
should be right to draw the Color-Line in the religious
realm of the domain of man's civilization, if it be
wrong to draw it in either the social or civil realms.
And of course the converse of this must be true, that is
to say, if it be right to draw the Color-Line in the
yyii THE CRUCIAL EACE QUESTION
social or civil realms, it is wrong not to draw it in the
religious realm.
So many of my friends have insisted that it would
have been much better for the cause which I have at
heart, if I had made the Arkansas Plan of answering
the Appeal of Afro-American Churchmen by the crea¬
tion of an autonomous or independent Episcopate and
Church, my text and had stuck to it. But what is the
history of the Arkansas Plan? What is the history of
this whole movement? Is it not a record of Color-
Line drawing? An object in this essay is, indeed, to
commend the Arkansas Plan; but since to do this
is the same thing as to commend ecclesiastical Color-
Line drawing, how could I, in view of the law of
unity by which the social, civil and religious realms are
bound inseparablely together, proceed with my argu¬
ment concerning the necessity and righteousness of
drawing the religious Color-Line without reference
to what either has been, or should be done in the
matter of drawing the social and civil Color-Lines?
There really was no way open to me to go anywhere
or do anything in the interest of the Arkansas Plan
except the one which crosses the whole field of race
antipathy and its resultant Color-Line drawing.
One reason for dealing with the whole subject of
Color-Line drawing as I have done in this essay, is the
fact that a man or a people cannot be saved in sec¬
tions. The whole man or the whole people must be
saved. If, therefore, Color-Line drawing is necessary
to save the Afro-American and the Anglo-American
from mutual degradation, it will not be sufficient to
Pkeface
xxiii
draw it in the case of the social realm. The law which
unifies all nature will always prevent any such partial
measure from accomplishing the end in view. The fact
of the matter is that the Color-Line cannot be drawn
permanently about the social realm, unless it is also
drawn about the civil and religious realms. All history
attests the truth of this statement.
Caucasians in the United States, everywhere, North
and South, either have drawn or are drawing an
impassable social Color-Line between themselves and
Negroes. There is not now very much if any differ¬
ence of opinion among us as to the necessity and
righteousness of this action. But either Caucasians
have committed a great wrong in so doing, or else
Anglo-American Churchmen will commit a great
wrong if they create an Afro-American "Missionary"
Episcopate with "representation" in the General Con¬
vention. If it is right to draw the Color-Line at all,
the unity of nature renders it wrong not to draw it
about all three of the realms of human civilization,
that is, about the family, the state and the church. For
this reason my argument in favor of Ecclesiastical
Color-Line drawing would have been most incomplete
and inconclusive, if it had been confined to the latter
of these realms. A great scientific and philosophic
hypothesis would have been left out of the considera¬
tion, and such an omission, in this day of science and
philosophy, would have weakened my case greatly.
And, really, to argue the case simply from the stand¬
point of religion was a logical impossibility, because
religion, politics and society are too intimately and
inseparably connected. In fact at the bottom they
xxiv The Crucial Race Question
are one and the same thing. If society is what it
ought to be, it is religious; and if politics is what it
ought to be, it is religious. Conversely if religion is
what it ought to be, it is social and political.
The essence of religion is obedience to God's will.
Now it manifestly is God's will to have different races
of mankind, otherwise he would have made all alike.
He drew the Color-Line, and the failure to recognize
it is irreligious, because it is disobedience. To argue
that it should be recognized in the social realm, but
that the contrary is true in the religious realm, is to
take an irreligious position, because the unity of God
and nature would be denied. If science teaches us
anything about God, it is that he is one, and that there
is a unity running through all his works.
When, as we have observed, an hypothesis of science
or philosophy has become generally accepted, as long
as it remains so it is a revelation of the will of God
by which individuals, societies, states and Churches
should be governed just as much as if the hypothesis
were a precept in the sacred Scriptures of a people.
If it were evident that Color-Line drawing is not
admissible in religion, its inadmissibility would be
equally evident to the consistent scientist and philoso¬
pher in the social and political realms. It follows,
therefore, that if it be necessary and right to draw the
Color-Line about either the family or the state or the
Church, it is also necessary and right to draw that line
about the other two institutions of civilization. The
hypothesis that the Christian religion does away with
human distinctions in the religious realm will not
stand, because it denies the unity of nature, and such
Pkeface
xxv
denial involves the rejection of the fundamental doc¬
trine of Christianity, the Divinity of Christ, for God
is the author of nature; and if Christ was Divine, He
could not have disregarded its unity.
But for its length, the title of this book might well
have been "The Salvation of the Afro-American
Dependent Upon the Complete Drawing of the Color-
Line About the Social, Civil and Religious Realms."
It is true that the immediate occasion of my effort to
establish this thesis is the appeal of Colored Church¬
men for a racial Episcopate; but I hope it is now
clear to the reader that I could not deal with that
appeal in a scientific way without opening up
the whole question of Color-Line drawing. The
Appeal itself necessarily brings up that question.
Why is the Appeal made? Because of the recognition
of the fact that the representatives of one race are
prevented by some law of nature, that is to say, by
the will of God, from being true pastors to another
race. The making of that Appeal was a religious duty
and the granting of it would be a religious act. But
the Appeal, so far as it relates to "representation" in
the General Convention, is all wrong, unless it is all
wrong to draw the Color-Line about any of the three
essential institutions upon which the progress of
humanity in the way of civilization depends.
If, then, anybody undertakes to answer me and to
discredit the Arkansas Plan of granting the Appeal by
creating racial Bishops without representation in the
General Convention, he will have the difficult two-fold
task of proving (i) that Color-Line drawing is wrong,
and (2) that racial Bishops are justifiable. For it is
xxvi
The Crucial Eace Question
a self-evident fact that the creation of a racial Episco¬
pate would be the recognition of a differentiating force
of some kind, call it what you please—in this country
it has come to be called the Color-Line; and it is
equally self-evident that the "representation" of such
a racial Episcopate in the Body of which it is asked,
would be the ignoring of that line.
We have therefore, in this dual appeal, an irreconcil¬
able contradiction; and if the General Convention were
to grant it, it would be guilty of trying to hold right
in one hand and wrong in the other, and the net result
of such action would be all wrong, for in the realm of
morality there is no right in the breaking of one law
in order to keep another.
IV
A Southernized Northerner Talking Cursed Prejudice to
Dixie Galleries
By the same delivery I received two letters from
Priests of widely separated portions of the country,
one an Anglo-American and the other an Afro-Ameri¬
can who kindly read the proofs of this book.
The Anglo-American said: "I fear Northern men
will think you are pretty hard on the Negro. We
remember that his blood crimsoned our battle fields.
While many of us think it was a mistake to give him
the ballot, we are not ready to disfranchise him, and
many will say, 'Bishop Brown would have done better
to let that alone.' But I suppose you are speaking
to Dixie galleries, chiefly."
Preface
xxvii
The Afro-American said: "The Negroes all say that
their worst enemy is not the Southerner, but the
'Southernized Northerner' who tries to 'curry favor'
with the South by attacking the Negro. They take
what Tillman and Davis and Vardaman and their kind
say with a big pinch of salt, for it is regarded as so
much political ammunition; but from a Bishop of the
Church who has nothing personal to gain, they regard
the same talk as cursed prejudice, intended to make
him solid with his constituency."
I am writing the last paragraphs of a long Preface
to a long essay, both much longer than I originally
intended them to be. I believe that the patient, candid
reader of the essay will agree with me that in it I have
answered every objection that has been raised against
the Arkansas Plan, and I boldly assert that I have no
fear of any critic, White or Black, North or South, who
may attack that plan; for I am fully persuaded that it
is founded securely upon the rock of everlasting truth,
and its superstructure is built up of eternal verities.
But this personal criticism of its author I cannot
answer, for the simple reason that such criticisms are
unanswerable.
A suspicion of motive is like a question of author¬
ship. When once it has been raised there is no
evidence that can be produced which will be suffi¬
cient to answer its calumny, if calumny it be. I am not
only a "Southernized Northerner," but also a convert
to the Anglo-American Church. Twelve years ago
while I was the Archdeacon of Ohio, I published a
statement of the claims of that Church and a defense
of them. The book was entitled "The Church for
xxviii The Crucial Eace Question
Americans." It ran rapidly through several editions
and resulted in my election to the Episcopate. Then
someone who did not estimate my abilities very highly,
started the rumor that Archdeacon Brown had
neither the brains nor the education which would
enable him to write such a book, and chat
a certain Professor, famous for both brains and
education, who read its proofs, was the real author.
I have reason to know that there are some people
who will go to their graves believing that if the Pro¬
fessor did not write all of the book, yet its most notable
chapters and passages must be attributed to him.
Now he might have written a good many passages in
that book without justifying the sweeping rumor con¬
cerning his part in its authorship, but as a matter of
actual fact it so happens that he did not write or
dictate, or otherwise compose so much as a single line
of it. However, if the Professor can stand it, and if
Shakespeare can endure the crediting of his works to
Bacon without turning in his grave, I do not see why
I should "lie awake nights" over it. I should consider
it hardly worth the while to mention this rumor con¬
cerning my first book in the Preface to the second,
but for the fact that it aptly illustrates the injustice to
which an author is so easily liable and gives me an
opportunity to do something in the way of correcting
a misrepresentation which reflects unfavorably upon
the talents of my gifted literary adviser and the integ¬
rity of both him and me.
No, I cannot answer this criticism about talking
"cursed prejudice" to "Dixie galleries." It is a judg¬
ment of me, and such accusations can neither be
Pkeface
xxix
proved by those who make them, nor disproved by
the accused. Both parties and all concerned in such
judgments must, in the nature of things, await that
great day of accounting, when such matters will be
revealed even as they are known by Him who knoweth
all things.
I wish that it might be believed that in the advocacy
of an Autonomous Episcopate I represent convictions
touching the good of all parties and interests concerned
and have reference to the truth respecting the ques¬
tions involved as I understand it. That, in all I am
saying and writing about the necessity of ecclesiastical
Color-Line drawing, and of a racial Episcopate for
Afro-American Churchmen, I have had no concern
about the opinions of my adopted people, I cannot and
do not claim. But to the accusation that I have
wounded Colored People in order to win "the applause
of Dixie galleries," I plead, "not guilty." And
whether or not this plea be received by those who set
themselves up as my judges in matters which apper¬
tain alone to the court of a man's conscience, I trust
that the facts and arguments which I present in
support of my representations and recommendations
will nevertheless receive due consideration.
It is a recognized principle that an official act is not
invalidated by the unworthiness of the officer who
performs it and, though, undoubtedly, the excellency
of a good sermon is enhanced and its influence in both
extent and degree is increased by the character of
the preacher, yet all must and do agree that no fault
of the man in the pulpit can excuse the man in the pew
from the observance of the gospel precepts of a good
xxx The Crucial Race Question
sermon. I plead for the recognition of this principle
on the part of the readers of this essay who have any
misgivings concerning the purity of my motives.
I claim then, that, unless my arguments can be
answered, I should have the benefit of the doubt
respecting my motives, and that both my Northern
and' Negro friends and enemies should tentatively,
at least believe that if, like the surgeon, I have caused
pain in performing the operation, it was with the
surgeon's hope that thereby I might bring to the
suffering patient permanent relief and certain cure,
and that such a worthy hope is my sole purpose in
sending this book upon its mission to the world.
How gladly would I omit every word that is
likely to give pain to any Afro-American who
may read it. There are many such words, espec¬
ially in the passages which relate to the sub¬
jects of Negro degeneration and Color-Line draw¬
ing. I should rejoice if I conscientiously could
eliminate all of them, but an imperative sense of duty
to the persons and interests concerned, makes it
impossible for me to omit more than I have done; and
so I am going into print in sadness and heaviness of
heart and with an earnest prayer to God, who is the
Father of all mankind and no respector of persons or
races, that He in His tender mercy will prevent the
unwelcome truths to which I am obliged to give
expression, from breaking the bruised reed of holy
hope in the heart of any one among His dear afflicted
colored children.
The Author.
Jlrownella Cottage
Holy Cross Day, 1907.
The Crucial Race Question
CONTENTS
LECTURE I
Answers to Adverse Criticisms—Introductory
CHAPTER I.
Pages
A PICNIC PARTY THAT REQUIRED TWO SHADE
TREES, OR THE CHIEF OBJECTION OF NEGROES
AND NORTHERN WHITE PEOPLE TO THE
ARKANSAS PLAN i- 14
I. Some Contend that Race Distinctions in the Church are
Irreconcilable with the Law of Christian Charity—-Letter of a
Northern Lady Protesting Against Color-Line Drawing in
the Church—Letter of a Boston Rector Protesting Against
Disfranchisement of the Colored Clergy and Laity—A
Northern Dinner Party at Which the Arkansas Plan was
Thoroughly Discussed. II. The Attack of a Northern Lady
upon the Arkansas Plan and Her Narrative of the Picnic
Party With Two Shade Trees—The Strong Defense of a
Southernized Northerner in Justification of the Arkansas
Plan and the Picnic Incident.
CHAPTER II.
THE ADVERSE CRITICISMS OF STATISTICIANS
STATED AND ANSWERED 15- 54
I. Letter of an Anglo-American Protesting Against the Charge
of Negro Degeneration and Demanding Statistical Proof. II.
The Degeneration of a People a Matter of Experimental
Conviction Rather Than Statistical Tabulation—Another
Letter of Statistical Protest from Archdeacon McGuire—A
Third Letter of Similar Import from Professor Tunnell. III.
The Moral and Physical Degeneration of the Negro Supported
by Expert Statisticians—Professor Smith Quoted. IV.
Professor Wilcox Quoted—Testimony of Hon. E. J. Bowers
V. Other Reliable Witnesses—In View of Such Support
the Author Maintains His Charge of the General Degeneration
of the American Negro.
xxxii
The Crucial Race Question
CHAPTER III.
THE ADVERSE CRITICISM OF AN ANGLO-AMERI¬
CAN PRIEST STATED AND ANSWERED 55- 66
I. Negro Episcopate Opposed Because of Moral and Intellectual
Deficiencies—White Leadership Necessary for Negro Church¬
men—Negro Bishops Might Become "Upstarts." II. The
Author Admits Possible Deficiencies of a Negro Episcopate^—
But Points to the Excellent Records of Bishops Ferguson
and Holly—He Objects to Social "Mix-ups" in the Church—
And Strikes a Blow at Impure White Leadership.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ADVERSE CRITICISMS OF THE CHURCH
PAPERS STATED AND ANSWERED 66-90
I. Prefatory Statement—An Analytic and Comprehensive Reply
to the Editor of the Churchman Who Advocates the Policy of
"Let-Well-Enough-Alone." II. A Thorough Dissection of the
Editorials of the Church Standard Advocating Negro
Missionary Bishops and Jurisdictions. III. An Effective
Answer to the Editor of The Living Church Who Advocates
Suffragan Bishops.
LECTURE II
The Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines
CHAPTER V.
"AUNT SUSANNA," OR THE DOMESTIC COLOR-
LINE 93" 98
My First Lesson in the American Race Problem—"Aunt
Susanna"—Existence of the Domestic Color-Line—The Bridg¬
ing of the Gulf Between the Races Requires the Drawing and
Recognition of the Color-Line—Convictions from My First Les¬
son Resulted in the Six Fundamental Propositions Which Form
the Thesis of this Book—Also In the Creation of a Diocesan
Convocation for Colored Congregations and Their Ministers
Excluding Them from the Diocesan Council—One Purpose
of this Book Is to Advocate the Imitation of the Arkansas
Plan by the General Church—The Affectionate Interest of
Southern Whites in the Old Type of Negro—Change of
Feeling Due to the Degeneration of the New Type of Negro
and His Disregard of the Color-Line—The Root of our Race
Difficulty Pointed Out—How the Problem May be Solved.
Contents
xxxiii
CHAPTER VI.
THE SOCIAL COLOR-LINE 99-no
I. The Social Color-Line Has Practically Been Always Drawn
Both North and South—The Utterance of Wendell Phillips on
Amalgamation—President Eliot of Harvard and Bishop
Lawrence of Massachusetts on Color-Line Drawing—How
Boston Treated Our Negro Bishop of West Africa—The Color-
Line in New York. II. The Theory of Booker Washington
for the Extinction of the Color-Line-—Failure of all the Plans
Advocated—The Bitter Opposition of the Anglo-Saxon to
Intermarriage of the Races—Evil Effects of Miscegenation as
shown by Professors Smith and Winchell and Other
Reputable Authorities.
CHAPTER VII.
THE POLITICAL COLOR-LINE 111-138
I. The Negro Being Eliminated Gradually from the Political
Field—Elimination Must be Made Complete by the Repeal of the
Fifteenth Amendment—Politics a Snare to . the Negro—The
Plausible Error of Northern Democrats and Booker Wash¬
ington—They Hold Out to the Negro Membership in the
Body Politic—The Ruinous Error of the Republicans and
Professor DuBois—They Preach the Political Equality of the
Negro—The Republican Party Cannot Fulfill the Pledges of
the Fifteenth Amendment—A Shattering of the Claim that
the Fifteenth Amendment is the Negro's Magna Charta—The
Negro Must Withdraw from Politics or Perish—Should Give
His Attention to the Industrial Field—Trouble Ahead for
Both Races if the Fifteenth Amendment is not Repealed. II.
Neefd of a Negro Moses With New and Racial Ideals—
Washington and DuBois Have False Ideals—Universal
Suffrage not Necessary to the Existence of the Republic—
Political and Social Equality Inseparable—Miscegenation in
Progress Where the Fifteenth Amendment Is Recognized—
Criticism of Northern Gentlemen Upon This Chapter Stated
and Answered.
LECTURE III
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line
CHAPTER VIII.
LITTLE BLACK CORA AND HER BIG WHITE DOLL,
OR THE NECESSITY OF NEGRO BISHOPS 141-143
My Second Lesson in the Great American Race Problem—Little
Black Cora—Deciding the Question of the Color of a
Christmas Doll for Cora—The Bearing of this Incident Upon
the Question of Racial Bishops—Race Pride will be fostered by
Negro Bishops.
The Crucial Race Question
CHAPTER IX.
THE ARKANSAS PLAN 145-156
I. Self-Government Necessary to Racial Development—Ameri¬
can Negro Must Strike Out for Himself—The Ecclesiastical
Field the Only One Left Him for Self-Government—Religious
Color-Line is Practically Drawn in the Anglo-American
Church—The Arkansas Plan Presents the Most Complete
Drawing of this Line—Threatened Exclusion of Bishop and
Diocesan Delegation of Arkansas from the General Conven¬
tion—The Action of Arkansas not Unconstitutional—Preamble
and Resolutions of Conference of Church Workers Among
Colored People Protesting Against the Action of Arkansas—-
Change of Sentiment Among Leading Colored Churchmen
Towards the Arkansas Work—The Arkansas Plan Meets the
Tendency of Negroes Towards Ecclesiastical Autonomy—
Racial Workers Needed to Carry out God's Designs—This
Basic Truth Supported by Bishop Penick. II. The Arkansas
Plan Not a Denial of the Catholicity of the Church, Universal
Fatherhood nor Human Brotherhood.
CHAPTER X.
AN AFRO-AMERICAN MISSIONARY EPISCOPATE
WITH REPRESENTATION IN THE GENERAL CON¬
VENTION 157-169
I. In Civil Affairs the Negro Must be Governed by the White
Man; in Ecclesiastical Affairs He Must Govern Himself—The
Political Realm of the Church Rather than of the State His
Proper Field—Missionary Jurisdictions with Representation
in the General Convention will not Bring Self-government
to the Afro-American Churchman—Will Result in His Defeat
—An Autonomous Church Alone Will Afford Opportunity
for Self-government—The American Church Would Give
Support to Such a Church. II. Less Than Four Negro
Bishops Would be Deplorable. III. Negro Churchmen do
not Desire to Force Themselves into the Churches and
Assemblies of White Churchmen—Some Settled Facts Con¬
cerning Color-Line Drawing in the South.
CHAPTER XI.
RESULTS OF THE ARKANSAS PLAN 171-182
I. How the Missionary Work Among the Colored People of
Arkansas was Hindered by Representation in the Diocesan Coun¬
cil—Results of the Work Under the Separation Plan—A Great
Door now Open for the Successful Accomplishment of this
Work—Bishop Pierce's Troubles Under the Old Plan. II.
What Autonomous Racial Churches have Done Among Negroes
—Similar Results Would have been Accomplished had the
First Negro Priest been Consecrated a Bishop to Organize
An Independent Church for His Race—History and Statistics
of Independent Negro Methodism and Presbyterianism—The
Success of these Churches is Due to the Fact that they are
Governed by the Negro for th'e Negro—A Strong Argument
for the Adoption of the Arkansas Plan.
Contents
XXXV
CHAPTER XII.
THE FAILURE OF THE WHITE MINISTRY AMONG
COLORED PEOPLE 183-191
I. Certain Bishops Advocate a White Ministry or White
Supervision for the Colored Work—Church Work Among
Negroes Before the War—Falling off After the War—How Ac¬
counted for—A Comparison of Work done Among the Negroes
in South Carolina and Arkansas Under a White and Colored
Archdeacon Respectively—The Colored Work in Georgia During
the Last Ten Years has not Justified the Claims of its Bishop
that White Supervision Insures Success. II. No White Bishop
has been Successful as a Leader Among Negroes—-With the
Limited Resources at Hand Results In Arkansas Justify
Racial Management of the Work—The Glorious Record of the
Colored Methodist Episcopal Church Could be Reproduced
by an Afro-American Episcopal Church.
LECTURE IV
Objections to the Arkansas Plan
CHAPTER XIII.
WHY THIS NEGRO WENT FROM THE SUNNY
SOUTH TO THE WINDY CITY, OR THE NEED OF
AN AFRO-AMERICAN MOSES 195-197
Negroes Go North with the Idea of Marrying White Women—
Story of One Such Negro as Told by an Arkansas Clergyman—
This Idea Encouraged by all Teachers of Political and Ecclesias¬
tical Equality—The Only Remedy and True Ideal for the
Negro are Racial Pride, Industry and Righteousness.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CATHOLICS OBJECTION TO THE ARKANSAS
PLAN 199-225
I. The Overlapping of Episcopal Jurisdictions Fully Discussed—
Some Modern Overlappings—'How the Apostles Adjusted the
First Racial Question in the Church—Importance of the Apos¬
tolic Diaconate—The Bishop of West Texas on the Overlapping
of the Jurisdictions of St. Peter and St. Paul. II. Even in Sub-
Apostolic Times There Were Such Overlappings—The Earliest
Episcopates Were Dual to Meet Racial Needs—The Apostles
Themselves Could not have Avoided Overlapping of Authority.
III. Example of Overlapping of Authority in the British
Church—In Northern and Western Europe—In the Orthodox
xxxvi The Crucial Eace Question
Greek Church in America—In the Roman Catholic Church in
the United States—Overlapping Almost Universal in the
British Empire and United States—The Tendency Through¬
out the Catholic Episcopate to Overlapping. IV. Necessity
for Racial Episcopates—The Cramped Condition of the
Anglican Episcopate—The Extension of This Episcopate to
Jews, Negroes and all Bodies of Christian People Advocated.
V. A Pan-American Conference of Apostolic Bishops Also
Advocated—Bishop Whittingham's Advocacy of a Racial
Episcopate for Negroes.
CHAPTER XV.
THE IDEALIST'S OBJECTION TO THE ARKANSAS
PLAN 227-238
I. Non-representation in Ecclesiastical Legislative Bodies not
Necessarily Severance from the Catholic Church—The Catholic
Creed Supplies the True Basis of Church Unity—Idealism in
How Far Useful—Traditionalism Hedges in the Episcopal
Church—"Situation" versus "Idea"—Diocesan Episcopacy not
of Perpetual Obligation—Expediency Points to a Modification
of the Diocesan Episcopacy. II. More Practicalism and
Less Idealism Needed in Dealing With the Problems Con¬
fronting the Church—Negroes have Never had any Practical
Membership in the Diocesan and General Councils of the
Church.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE SOUTHERNER'S OBJECTION TO THE ARKAN¬
SAS PLAN 239-244
Objection Based Upon the Alleged Failure of the Two Negro
Bishops of the Church—The Allegation not Supported by the
Facts in the Case—Bishop Ferguson's Work Considered a
Success by Competent Judges—Difficulties of the Ilaytian
Field Reviewed—Bfshop Holly Has Achieved Better Results
than Any White Bishop Could Have Done—Results Compare
Favorably With Those in Other Missions in Roman Catholic
Countries.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE ARCHDEACON'S LOOKING GLASS, OR THE
CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER 245-249
A Significant Occurence at the 1906 Session of the Council
of the Diocese of Arkansas—Archdeacon McGuire's Report
and Address—The Ovation Which Followed—The Appoint¬
ment of a Colored Archdeacon and Presentation of Him to
the Council a Bold Step—The Ovation Accounted For—A
Highly Dramatic Scene—The Adoption of the Arkansas Plan
Throughout the Church Would Result in the Same Wonderful
Change.
The Crucial Race Question
LECTURE I
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
INTRODUCTORY
CHAPTER I. A Picnic Party That Required Two Shade Trees, or
the Chief Objection of Negroes and Northern White
People to the Arkansas Plan.
CHAPTER II. The Adverse Criticisms of Statisticians Stated and
Answered.
CHAPTER III. The Adverse Criticism of an Anglo-American
PrieSt Stated and Answered.
CHAPTER IV. The Adverse Criticisms of the Church Papers Stated
and Answered.
PREFATORY
Knowing that my essay in defense and commendation of the
Arkansas Plan and Memorial would not at first be favorably
received by many people of both races concerned, and recognizing
the truth of the proverb, "In the multitude of counsellors there
Is wisdom," I requested some among the most competent Anglo-
American and Afro-American Churchmen in my circle of
acquaintances to read its galley proofs and to give me the benefit
of frank criticism. As several among those who kindly com¬
plied with this request were Northerners and Negroes I need
hardly say that I got what I wanted in "good measure, pressed
down and running over." The adverse criticisms which, for
obvious reasons I was especially glad to receive were many, but,
they gathered around a few storm centers. I have concluded that
the best introduction that I can give to my essay is the most
notable of these criticisms with my answers. Two have been
selected and they will constitute as many sections of this Intro¬
ductory Lecture. To them will be added a chapter in which
I state and answer the objections which the Editors of the
Church papers have advanced against the Arkansas Plan and
Memorial.
It is believed that the use of these criticisms and replies as
an introductory lecture, not only has whatever of advantage
there is in novelty, but that it will open up the whole subject
of the essay and also create interest in it, thus accomplishing
the purposes of an introduction to an unusual degree.
Each one of the four lectures which constitute the body of
this essay is introduced by an anecdotal narrative. It is believed
that these will add much to the interest in, and understanding
of the Lectures to which they respectively belong, and to the
book as a whole. The story of the "Picnic Party" is introduced
as Chapter I, not only because its controversial character har¬
monizes with the other Chapters of Lecture I, but because its
subject, "Religious Color-Line Drawing," is the key-note of the
whole book.
CHAPTER I
A Picnic Party That Required Two Shade Trees, or the
Chief Objection of Negroes and Northern White
People to the Arkansas Plan.
I
The majority among those who object to the
adoption of the Arkansas Plan of solving the Great
American Race Problem, so far as the Episcopal
Church is concerned, do so upon the ground that the
making of race distinctions in the Church of Christ is
irreconcilable with the great law of Christian Charity.
This is the chief objection of the Colored People them¬
selves and it is strongly urged by a great many
highly exemplary Northern Christians and philan¬
thropists. When we drew the Color-Line between the
work of the Church among Negroes and Caucasians in
Arkansas, many of our Missionary Benefactors fell
away from us and one of the best Christian women in
the world, who had been giving me $10.00 for each
Church that I could build, wrote me a letter which I
quote here because it so well expresses the outraged
feelings of many lovely, philanthropic Northern
people at every step that is taken in the way of draw¬
ing the Color-Line about the Church:
4
The Crucial Race Question
" Riverside Avenue, New York City.
"Mrs. regrets that she is unable to con¬
tinue by contributions to express sympathy with the
Diocese of Arkansas, in consequence of the 'unjust,
uncatholic,' and Mrs. considers, 'unchristian,'
procedure of the Diocese, in excluding from its Con¬
vention, the Colored Clergy and Laity, entitled by
ecclesiastical right to entrance there. Mrs.
cannot refrain from declaring her 'unqualified con¬
demnation' also of an act, which all the friends and
well-wishers of the Diocese of Arkansas, she feels
assured, must greatly deplore.
"October 3rd, 1903."
And, the popular Rector of one of the greatest among
our Boston Parishes, in withdrawing an appointment
which I had with him for the making of an appeal on
behalf of our Missionary work, wrote me in this equally
representative strain:
"I am not aware that I have any prejudice against
the Diocese of Arkansas, nor am I expressing any
opinion in regard to a separate Convocation or Con¬
vention for the Colored Church people as a means to
an end.
"What I am protesting against is that a Convention
of the Clergy and Laity of our Church should refuse
our Colored Brethren an equal share in the govern¬
ment of the Church. I do this not because I wish to
interfere in the affairs of the Diocese of Arkansas,
which would be a great impertinence on my part, but
because I believe their action is a part of a great
scheme for the practical re-enslavement of the colored
population.
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
5
"The only hope, it seems to me, for the betterment
of the condition of those unhappy people, is to give
them the same rights the whites have; make the
franchise in State and Church dependent upon char¬
acter or intelligence or property, or whatever other
basis may seem the best, but apply it equally to' whites
and blacks.
"I believe this twentieth century is destined to see
a reversion to the Bourbonism overthrown by the
French Revolution, both in Church and State, or else
an enlargement of the Christian spirit which makes
no difference between strong and weak nations,
between black and white.
"It is on that great principle that I take my stand,
and feel that it is impossible for me to co-operate with
any man who feels it is his duty to oppose it.
"I beg you will believe that for you personally and
for your work, I have a sincere interest."
Now the writers of these letters are, in respect to
their opinion on Color-Line drawing, most representa¬
tive Northern people and they are people who chal¬
lenge the respect of the world on account of all that
goes to make up a Christian and an American of the
highest type. They strenuously object to the drawing
of the Color-Line in State or Church, especially in
Church, because of a profound conviction that it is
both un-American and un-Christian. And these people
must be reckoned with and squarely faced in this
defense of the Arkansas Plan. In making the neces¬
sary effort to convince them that the ground they
occupy is untenable, I know of no better course to
6
The Crucial Race Question
pursue than to relate an interesting dialogue which
recently took place at a Northern dinner party.
It was an ideal dinner, because it not only met the
requirements of those who "live to eat," but also of
those who "eat to live" and was, therefore, quite as
much of an intellectual as of a physical feast. After
the usual pleasantries and common-places, conversa¬
tion began to run into more serious channels, and
finally concentrated in an animated discussion of the
Appeal of Afro-American Churchmen for Bishops and
Missionary Jurisdictions of their own and the Arkansas
Plan of answering that Appeal. The chief debaters
were a highly endowed and cultured Northern lady
and a "Southernized Northerner." Passing over
the comparatively unimportant observations of those
who were listeners rather than participants in
this part of the conversation, I shall relate in two
sections the substance of their prolonged and animated
dialogue, though I shall also embody the more import¬
ant of the observations made by the others who now
and then were extended the courtesy of the floor.
II
i. The Northern Lady to the "Southernized North¬
erner" "The Northerners among us are greatly inter¬
ested as to the opinions of you Southerners about the
way in which the Episcopal Church can accomplish
most for the Colored people of the South and of the
country generally. I say 'generally' because, even in
this little suburb of the metropolis, we have something
of the 'Race Problem' and there is a great deal of it in
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 7
the city. We understand that you Southern Church¬
men recommend the drawing of the Color-Line in the
Church by the creation of Negro Bishops and Juris¬
dictions that will have no representation in your
Diocesan Conventions and that you base this recom¬
mendation upon the contention that, if the Church is
to make any progress in the South, there must be a
complete separation of white and colored Churchmen
into separate and distinct ecclesiastical organizations,
as independent the one from the other as are the vari¬
ous branches of the Anglican communion. Now what
we Northerners are very desirous of knowing is how
you as a Christian and a Southern gentleman can
justify such a proposition; and, in order that the most
may be made of this opportunity for our enlighten¬
ment by a 'real live Southerner,' we want to avoid gen¬
eralities by giving you what we regard as a hard nut
to crack. You see we have talked the matter all over
among ourselves and planned for this occasion. Now
this is the nut that we would like to have you crack for
us:
"A Negro Professor of a Theological Seminary for
the education of Colored Students for our Ministry
recently made an appeal in our Church for funds
for the institution of which he was, in our esti¬
mation, a most worthy representative. During his
sojourn in the metropolis and its neighborhood
he was the guest in the lovely home of one
of our most cultured families and much general
interest was centered in him. He was exceed¬
ingly well-bred, and as he seemed to be very happy
8
The Crucial Race Question
among us we induced him to prolong his stay a few
days beyond the time of his anticipated departure.
Upon one occasion, towards the close of his memorable
visit, he touched us to tears by a pathetic narrative
in which he contrasted the difference in the treatment
which he was receiving from us, with that which upon
his return to the Seminary he would receive from his
fellow Professors who were white men, he being the
only colored man on the faculty. We drew him out
along this line and one of several sad experiences
which he related particularly excited our sympathy
for him and resentment towards his white colleagues.
" T accepted,' he said, 'my professorship because it
was urged upon me by the white members of the
faculty. Under such circumstances, I thought, and
I believe you will agree with me, that I was entitled to
receive the treatment of a social equal. But not only
was I never invited to dine at the home of the Dean or
of any of my fellow Professors but, upon the occasion
of a Seminar}^ picnic they went off by themselves and
ate their luncheon under one shade tree, while I was
left to eat mine with the Colored students under
another tree.'
"Now, we always have heard a great deal about the
urbanity of the typical Southern gentleman and, there¬
fore, this treatment of our interesting guest who cer¬
tainly was a cultured gentleman is inexplicable to us.
We often have talked the matter over and always have
reached the conclusion that, of all persons, Southern
gentlemen who are professors in a theological faculty
should have exhibited in their treatment of their
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
9
Colored colleague the fairest fruits of Christian cour¬
tesy; and yet, from our point of view, and we cannot
understand how it can be looked at in any other way,
the white colleagues of our colored friend were most
outrageously rude to him. We would like to hear
your justification of this instance of Color-Line draw¬
ing. Perhaps I should confess frankly, beforehand,
that it appears to us as being so highly reprehensible
that we really have no idea that you will be able to
relieve it of the ungentlemanly and unchristian char¬
acter which we have attributed to it. Nevertheless
we shall try to be open to conviction and, if you can
convince us that their conduct was justifiable, you will
at the same time persuade us that the -Color-Line
should be drawn through the Church in accordance
with your recommendation."
2. The " Southernized Northerner" to the Northern
Lady: "You certainly have stated the case against
Color-Line drawing strongly, and undoubtedly there is
a deep pathos connected with the situation of your
Negro guest and friend. In such frank, 'heart to heart'
conversations as the one'in which we are engaged, you
will find Southern people as ready to confess as you
are to recognize the hard, sad lot of the Colored people
of this country. Speaking for myself, and I know
that I represent a large class of my countrymen, their
present condition and future prospects are so pitiable
and pathetic as to excite in me a deeper commiseration
than is felt for any other people in the whole history
of mankind. The lot of the Afro-American appears to
me to be, indeed, most unfortunate.
10 The Ceucial Race Question
"The position of the Negro in this country is anal¬
ogous with that of the Israelite in Egypt; but in the
matter of outlook or destiny it is mluch worse and
comparatively intolerable. The Israelite had the real¬
ization of a great and inspiring promise for which to
live. Moreover they must have seen and felt that they
were the superior race. But in the case of the poor
American Negro all this is reversed. Those of his
race who have eyes to see must perceive that without
some wonderful change this country is for them, as a
people, 'the Valley of the Shadow of Death' and that
there is not for them any way or hope of escape as
there was for the Israelites while in Egypt. And the
most hopeless feature of the whole situation, as I, and
Southerners generally, see it, is that very lack of 'race
pride' exhibited by your friend, the Colored Professor,
in his complaint against his white colleagues.
"Is there any record in the sacred narrative of a
complaint on the part of the Jews because the
Egyptians did not invite them to their tables? Joseph
and Moses were members of the Cabinet of the King
of Egypt and their relationship to the Egyptian mem¬
bers of that Cabinet was, no doubt, such as to give them
as much right to a place at their tables as was that of
the Colored Professor to those of his white colleagues.
But Joseph and Moses in their respectively widely sep¬
arated generations received exactly the same treatment
from their official associates in the Egyptian govern¬
ment that the Professor received from his official asso¬
ciates in the Theological Seminary. Now, though the
Israelo-Egyptian Princes received essentially the same
treatment as the Afro-American Professor, there was
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 11
a most notable and significant difference between them,
they did not complain; he did! The reason why the
Jewish dignitaries did not complain, while the Negro
dignitary did, is found in the most important fact that
they did, while he does not, possess 'race pride.' It is
this fundamental difference, this vital lack in the
American Negro which constitutes by far the greater
part of our Race Problem.
"What a fortunate thing for the Jewish people in
particular and for the world at large that, so to speak,
Joseph and Moses notwithstanding their exalted offi¬
cial positions could not if they would, and would not if
they could, have sat under the same shade tree with
their official companions on a picnic occasion. For if
those Jewish Princes had been like the Negro Pro¬
fessor, there would have been no going out from
Egypt, no wandering in the wilderness, no conquest
of Canaan, no David, no Solomon, no Temple, in fact,
there would have been no way prepared for Christi¬
anity and so there might have been, up to this time, no
Jesus and no Christian Civilization.
"Do you not see that if the Afro-American is ever
to amount to anything he must, like the Israelo-
Egyptian have his own vine and fig-tree under
which he will prefer to eat his luncheon by himself?
Anglo-Americans prefer to be by themselves. Why is
not this true of Afro-Americans? This is the 'nut'
which I give you Northerners to crack.
"It is necessary to the continued development of the
Anglo-American that he should keep himself aloof
socially from the Afro-American by going apart to his
own shade tree at meal time. For the table always has
12
The Crucial Race Question
been, is now, and probably always will be the chief
gate-way to the garden of our social Eden. There
probably is something in the nature of things which
makes this so. If, therefore, Southern people were to
follow your example in the matter of entertaining
Negroes it would not be long until the black race
would be absorbed and the white race ruined as the
result of intermarriage, and so God's plan in the
creation of the two races, so far as America is con¬
cerned, would be defeated. I contend therefore that
the White associates of the Colored Professor did
right in eating their luncheon under a separate shade-
tree, and that Southerners in so far as they draw the
social Color-Line do a great service to both God and
man.
"Human nature was made by God, the Father, and
the Gospel was revealed by God, the Son. They must
therefore be in line. Now, if we judge of the conduct
of the White Professors by arranging it between
these two divine standards it will appear that very
little, if any, fault can be found with it. Of course,
you will not allow me to forget that the devil has a
good deal to do with human nature, but I must con¬
tend that, inasmuch as God made yellow, black and
white people, instead of only black or yellow, or white
when He could have made all any one of these colors,
it must be concluded that He had some great purpose
to accomplish in doing so.
ITence, the amalgamation of the races, or the aping
of one by the other, must be wrong because it thwarts
God's plan. In order to prevent such a thing God has
planted in human nature a race pride or prejudice.
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 13
This innate antipathy which, as everybody knows, is
growing stronger in the South and spreading in the
North, forever will keep the races apart socially, polit¬
ically and even ecclesiastically. This is as we believe
it should be and such being the case, it is right that
the Color-Line should be drawn rigidly about the
table; for as we have said, if a representative of one
race admits one of another to his table, he opens a wide
door to social equality, and the thwarting by inter¬
marriage, of God's plan in the creation of different
races.
"I must with deep humiliation confess that the
Mulatto population of the South, constituting one-
sixteenth of the Negro race of this country, bears
undeniable witness to the sad fact that Southern men
do not always practice what they preach in the matter
of Color-Line drawing. But, while this is most
unhappily and deplorably true of the bad among
Southern men, I am so glad that it is almost equally
true of Northerners that they do not practice what
they preach about disregarding the Color-Line.
"In the course of this conversation I was asked an
important question which I must not fail to answer
before yielding the floor. That question, with its pre¬
amble, was put as follows: 'You Southerners believe
that political and social equality are necessarily and
inseparably connected, but was there any more of
social equality in the Reconstruction Period when the
Negro freely exercised the right of Suffrage than there
has been since?' I reply, no. But, I ask, why? Was
it not because the period was too short and stormy?
It certainly was not because of any repugnance of the
14
The Crucial Eace Question
Negro to social equality; for it was that very period
which dates the beginning of that horrible, nameless
social crime which cannot be satisfactorily explained
upon any other hypothesis than that of a most insa¬
tiable desire for the forbidden fruit of social equality,
and a desperate determination to partake of it at any
cost.
"With all Aryan peoples, race prejudice is exception¬
ally strong. It always has been and it ever will be 'a
flaming, turning sword' at the domestic, political and
ecclesiastical gates to our garden of Eden. Owing to
the peculiar circumstances, when, in this country, the
Negro approaches any one of these entrances this
sword always will defend it with unwonted vigor.
"In view of this relentless race prejudice and jeal¬
ousy, good statesmanship and sound philanthropy
require that the Negro should not even be encouraged
to hope for a part in the government of the United
States, or in any of our White Churches. Every time
that the hope of political or ecclesiastical equality is
held out upon any condition whatsoever the work of
settling our Race Problem is retarded, and rendered
more difficult."
CHAPTER II
The Adverse Criticisms of Statisticians Stated and
Answered.
I
" Aug. 7, 1907.
"The Right Rev. W. M. Brown, D. D., Bishop of Ark.
"Right Rev. and Dear Sir:—I acknowledge the
receipt of the prospectus of your forthcoming book—
"The Crucial Race Question." You have also honored
me by sending me the advance sheets of the book, and
by asking me to express frankly my opinion of the
merits of the book. I have carefully read the book, and
I frankly confess that my opinion is not entirely favor¬
able. That you are sincere in all that you say, no one
who knows you, will for a moment doubt. That you
have expended a great amount of labor on the book,
will be evident to all who read it. But that all your
positions are tenable, is by no means clear.
"A distinction should be made between the main
thesis of your book and the arguments by which you
support that thesis. The thesis is that the Negro com¬
municants of the Church should be set off in an
autonomous Church with their own Bishops. Whether
this should be done, or whether missionary Bishops
should be given to Negro Churchmen, or whether their
16
The Crucial Race Question
request for Negro Bishops should be denied, are ques¬
tions with which I am not now concerned. The argu¬
ments by which you support your thesis, are, among
others, those which, in the prospectus, you call "the
five assumptions" of the book. I especially ask you to
attend to the third of these assumptions. As stated by
you, it is as follows: 'Under present conditions the
American Negro is degenerating instead of advancing
towards civilization.' A book is not, as a newspaper
article, or as this letter, hastily written; but it is care¬
fully composed, and every statement, especially such
an important statement as the foregoing, is closely
scrutinized by the author. The supposition then is,
that the above 'assumption' is not a rhetorical exagger¬
ation designed to arrest attention, but the exact expres¬
sion of your views of the present condition of the
American Negro.
"May I ask you to notice what is exactly the import
of your statement? You do not say that the American
Negroes have not made the progress which their
friends expected them to make. Nor do you say that
there are many, perhaps very many, bad Negroes in
this country. Nor again do you say that they have,
as a race, degenerated in some respects and not in
others. But you make the general, unqualified state¬
ment that 'under present conditions the American
Negro is degenerating instead of advancing towards
civilization.' Permit me to remind you that such a
statement implies on your part wide and accurate
knowledge of the economic and moral condition of all
the Negroes of this country. And permit me also to
express astonishment that in your book you have not
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 17
supported the statement by any statistics. You have
said repeatedly that in your opinion not more than
one-tenth of the Negroes belong to what you call 'the
Elect' and 'the remnant.' But you owe it to your
readers to tell us how you know this. Have you
merely guessed it? I understand that you rely on your
knowledge of Arkansas, and have assumed that Arkan¬
sas is, in this respect, typical of other Southern States.
But how do you know this? And besides, you have
given us no statistics of Arkansas, and how can your
readers know that your estimate is correct? Are nine-
tenths of your Negro people lazy and immoral and
only one-tenth industrious and moral?
"The charge you bring against the Negro race, as a
race, is very serious, and should be either conclusively
established or withdrawn. You have not only not
established it, but you have not even made a beginning
of establishing it.
"Now, as a matter of fact, you are wrong in your
assumption. The fact is that the Negroes have made
encouraging progress since the Civil war, and it is as
necessary for an author to accept the facts connected
with his subject as it was for Margaret Fuller to accept
the universe. It may be true that there are many cases
of degeneration among the Negroes, and that many
of them have developed, or at least manifested, traits
of character which they were not known to possess
before the emancipation. But that 'the American
Negro is degenerating rather than advancing towards
civilization,' not only is not supported, but is refuted
by the statistics given in the Twelfth Census and
issued by the Census Bureau.
18
The Crucial Race Question
"Permit me to call your attention to the following
facts: At the close of the Civil war the Negroes were
practically all illiterate, but the illiteracy has been
reduced to 44.5 per cent. Does that look like degenera¬
tion? Moreover, in some of the States, notably South
Carolina, Florida and Mississippi (and there may be
others) the Negroes not only support their own
schools by the taxes they pay, but they pay more taxes
than is necessary for the support of their own schools
and thus contribute to the support of the white schools.
Further, it was reported in 1900 that there were then
1,500,000 Negro children in the common schools;
40,000 Negro students in the higher institutions; 30,000
Negro teachers; 17,000 Negro graduates; 500 Negro
physicians, and 250 Negro lawyers. I am at a loss to
know what you mean by charging that the Negroes
as a race are degenerating. And again, these schools
have a large measure of success. In a public address
in New York City, Dr. Frissell, the President of
Flampton Institute, said that 87 per cent of the school's
living graduates are known to be profitably employed.
Dr. Booker Washington, on the same occasion, said
that 'not a single graduate of Hampton Institute or
Tuskegee Institute can be found today in any jail or
state penitentiary.' It is useless to try to cast reflection
on these men and to call Dr. Booker Washington 'a
figurehead.' They are honored and trusted by
wealthy and prominent men of the East, and these
careful business men would not pour their money
into these institutions, if, as you imply, they were
turning out degenerates.
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 19
"I have left myself but little space to note the acqui¬
sition of property, for this is also a test whether 'the
American Negro is degenerating.' I find by the Census
Report that the Negroes of the continental United
States operate 746,715 farms. They own entirely 21
per cent of these, and partly 4.2 per cent. Thus about
one-fourth of the Negro farmers have become land
owners. This is a large increase over 1880. I think
that I cannot do better here than quote Dr. Frissell.
He says: ' When you hear that the Negroes are all
bad, and daily growing worse, will you remember
that in spite of all their difficulties, the Negroes have
accumulated property, since the war, amounting to
nearly $300,000,000 in farms, houses and various busi¬
ness establishments; that they have themselves raised
toward their own education $13,000,000; that they
have accumulated in church property $40,000,000, and
in school property $15,000,000.' Please observe that
the foregoing is not a statement of impressions, but of
facts. Is that degeneration ?
"Let me also quote as bearing on the general ques¬
tion, a statement of Joel Chandler Harris, of the Atlanta
Constitution. He says: 'The point I desire to make, is
that the overwhelming majority of the Negroes in all
parts of the South, especially in the agricultural
regions, are leading sober and industrious lives. A
temperate race is bound to be industrious, and the
Negroes are temperate, when compared with the
whites. Even in towns the majority of them are sober
and industrious.' You surely will not say that Harris
is prejudiced, or that he lacks the opportunities of
20
The Crucial Race Question
observation, for he is well acquainted with the entire
South; and he does not agree with you.
"I have written at length on this one point—the
degeneration of the American Negro—because the
charge you bring is unjust to the race. I repeat that
you have not established the charge. You call it 'an
assumption,' and you leave it 'an assumption.'
"I take no active interest in the question, whether
the Negro Churchmen should have Negro Bishops; but
I leave it entirely to the wisdom of the General Con¬
vention.
"I am, with great respect,
"Truly yours,
"X. Y. Z."
II
This essay was written upon the supposition that
"The Great American Race Problem" is a sad and
portentous reality, not merely a horrible nightmare,
and its author has built much upon the assumption
that, so far as the Episcopal Church is concerned,
the greatest contribution that she can make towards
the solution of that problem is a favorable reply to the
reiterated, pathetic Appeal of Afro-American Church¬
men for a racial Episcopate. But to the minds of the
representatives of the Church at the South the great
objection to such action is based upon a widely pre¬
vailing and profound conviction that the American
Negro is not yet prepared for the establishment and
the care of such an institution, and is not likely to be
in the near future.
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 21
It is confidently asserted by many people who are
as worthy of consideration and who have lived as long
at the South as the distinguished editor of the Atlanta
Constitution, that the Negro constituency of the Epis¬
copal Church can neither supply the requisite "timber"
for the- erection of the institution for which their Con¬
ference of Church Workers are asking, nor keep it out
of the dust if it were given to them. For five years or
more I have been a zealous advocate of a racial Episco¬
pate for our Colored Brethren in the Lord; but all
along my great fear has been that this deep rooted
conviction respecting their moral degradation and
intellectual incapacity would prove to be an insuper¬
able obstacle to the securing of it.
A great and good man who is a native of the Ameri¬
can Negroes' Paradise, and who for many years has
had the very best of opportunities to know concerning
the blooming of the very flower of the race, took me by
both hands at the Boston General Convention, and
with marks of distress on his face, and voice quivering
by intense earnestness pleaded with me to abandon the
idea and advocacy of an Afro-American Episcopacy.
He based his appeal upon the ground that we have
not in the Church and are unable to create a Negro
constituency that can safely be intrusted with a com¬
plete Ministry. I have not heeded the plea of this
gifted Southern gentleman, whose name is a house¬
hold word in the Church and throughout the country;
but I have felt that a conviction which could move such
a man to make such a plea must be reckoned with,
and it has been in mind while many a page of this book
was being written.
22 The Crucial Eace Question
If I had written my essay without reference to this
conviction and upon the supposition that the present
condition and future prospects of the American Negro
are what the writer of this statistical letter evi¬
dently thinks them to be, I should have been false
to the truth as I see it, and to all the important
interests concerned in the great controversy in which
the Church is about to engage; and, moreover, my
labors would have tended to the complication, rather
than to the solution of a problem which in its wider '
aspects is not only the most perplexing and pressing
one which confronts the Anglo-American, but it is
rapidly becoming the problem of the Aryan or Cau¬
casian Race throughout the civilized world. Mr. R. P.
Sharpless, who is, I believe, a Philadelphia Quaker, in
a short but noteworthy article to the Public Ledger,
gives forceful expression to this great truth. I quote
one of his paragraphs :
"The world is getting to be full of people—very
full—and the different races of men, the white, the
yellow, the brown, the red and the black, are crowd¬
ing each other, and there is friction. The fundamental
laws of the civilized nation say that all men are created
free and equal. Nature denies this statement. She
says that they are different and may not be so com¬
pared. She demands that they keep apart, and decrees
that if they mingle, the children of the amalgamation
must die prematurely. That is what nature says, and
that is what the people of America unconsciously
demand when they exhibit this natural feeling of race
hatred. Race antagonism is not confined to the United
States. It is manifested all over the world. This great
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 23
question of the separation of the races of man is bound
to come forward for solution sometime and somewhere.
Without necessarily deciding which races are better
than others, a plan will some time be formulated and
enforced to keep them apart. The advancement of
humanity demands it. It may be done without war,
but if it is not done, then war will come from it, and
the stronger antagonist will put up the bars to keep
the other out."
My expressions of opinion upon the subject of
Negro degeneration are not at all due to race hatred
or to a low estimation of the Afro-American. I hope
that I have enough of the spirit of the World's Saviour
to give me some love, in the Gospel sense of the term
for all mankind, and that I have learned from the
Great Teacher not to call any man who bears the
image of God, common or unclean. I speak, therefore,
of Afro-American deterioration only by reason of an
unavoidable necessity which my conscience lays upon
me, and for the sole purpose of showing the complete
and hopeless failure of old methods for his moraliza-
tion, and our consequent bounden duty to devise new
and more successful methods for his salvation. In
what I have said upon this painful subject, I have
assumed that the melancholy observations and sad
experiences of the whole people of the South as wit¬
nessed to by the overwhelming majority of its most
representative citizens are entitled to as much of
credence as any statistics bearing upon the subject
which a census bureau could collect. The truth is,
that the degeneration of a People in its most important
aspects is a matter for experimental conviction, rather
24 The Crucial Race Question
than for statistical tabulation. How can the moral and
physical condition of a deteriorating race be adequately
exhibited in all its ghastly features by a table of sta¬
tistics? As a writer in The Churchman of July 27th,
1907, aptly says: "The great difficulty is that the data
which would be the basis of a correct knowledge of the
Negro is unprintable; and he who had the temerity to
give to the world the collected facts of a first-hand
study of the race, would find himself immediately the
target for hostile criticism from every quarter."
The men who will give expression to convictions
that are the result of a long life in a Southern Black
Belt, will have, and they ought to have, more influ¬
ence upon the General Convention than those whose
convictions are due to theories based upon statistical
investigations. When the crucial hour for the Appeal
of the Conference of Church Workers among Colored
People has arrived, it will be found that the testimony
of one man of the Bishop Dudley type, and there will
be many men of that type in both houses, will out¬
weigh all the weighty statistics in the able letter of
this accomplished Northern gentleman, which statistics
he evidently regards as quite sufficient for the invalid¬
ation of a considerable part of the argument of this
essay.
I am a Southernized Northerner. Before reading
very far in this book Southerners would perceive this
fact without being told of it, but it would not be so
apparent to the Northern reader to whom I am person¬
ally unknown. In order, therefore, that all may under¬
stand me better, I will state that I had never been
south of the Ohio River until I went to Arkansas as
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
25
its Bishop Coadjutor-elect. I was consecrated on June
24th, 1898. Until that time my ignorance concerning
the Great Race Problem was dense, and my opinions
about the present condition and future prospects of
the Southern Negro were those that are commonly
held at the North. I must have been sixteen years of
age before I ever saw a colored person, and in all my
pre-Southern life I had never spent fifteen minutes in
continuous conversation with one. Of course I had
heard about the "Great Race Problem of the South,"
but, having practically no knowledge of the Negro,
the factors of it and its magnitude were almost
entirely unknown to me.
I am now in the tenth year of my residence in
Arkansas. I have studied our Race Problem long
enough to realize the truth of the oft-repeated, striking
remark of one of the most distinguished among my
teachers, the late gifted and eloquent Bishop of Ken¬
tucky. In the course of almost every conversation upon
the subject, that great "Apostle to the American
Negro," used to say: "The longer I study the black man
and the more I know about him, the blacker and the
bigger does our Race Problem grow." This has been my
experience as it has been that of everybody who has
gone into the problem on the field. The only persons to
whom it is small and easy are those who theorize from
a long distance as does this critic. Bishop Dudley's
solemn words will find more than an echo on the floor
of the General Convention and the intense conviction
to which they give expression will, I greatly fear,
prevent a favorable response to the Appeal of Afro-
American Churchmen for a Racial Episcopate.
26 The Crucial Bace Question
I shall presently make a statistical showing from
data furnished by expert statisticians which will much
more than offset that of my critics, and make the
heart of the reader sick. But really and truly there are
no statistics that can be made to tell half the story to
one who has not lived in a Southern Black Belt.
What statistician has tabulated the data which ade¬
quately exhibit the beastly squalor that is so distress¬
ingly familiar to one who sees much of Negro life in
the South, and which goes so far to account for the
alarming prevalence and virulency of the so-called
"dirt diseases?" How can figures manifest the soul
and body-destroying cancer of social impurity that by
common consent has spread until it threatens the
vitals of the race? Who has collected and arranged
the statistics that give the Northern man or
woman any conception of the literal regard of the
average Negro for the Gospel precept which forbids
anxiety about the morrow and the consequent demoral¬
izing results of shiftless, hand-to-mouth habits? Where
are the numerical .tables which tell of the lamentable
growth and effects of the vices of idleness, of gambling,
of drunkenness and of the cocaine habit? Are there
any numerals from which Northern people can form a
real conception of the horrible dread which hangs over
the Southern White woman who finds herself in an
unprotected situation, or of the woeful degeneration
which accounts for the prevalence of the nameless
crime to which that dread is due?
These questions are my apology and defense for not
giving the chapter and verse from a statistical bulle¬
tin for many of the representations and arguments in
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
27
this essay. My failure to do this is not correctly
accounted for by the assumption of my Northern
critics that I attach too little importance to
statistics, but rather to the fact that I take into the
dreadful account much important data which neces¬
sarily eludes the Northern statistician and theorist, but
which inevitably forces itself upon Southern White
people. What the people of the North need as a pre¬
requisite of an intelligent consideration of the Great
American Race Problem is not less of statistical light,
but more of illumination by the candles of observa¬
tion and experience.
No wonder, then, that in my addresses and publi¬
cations I have thought that I was on safe ground while
I kept to the paths indicated by the shocking and dis¬
heartening facts that were constantly before my eyes
and by the vastly predominant opinions of the most
intelligent and reputable among the people of my be¬
loved adopted land. But in this letter the wisdom of my
course has been challenged. Appeal against my judg¬
ment has been made to the Caesar of Statistics, and I
must appear before the tribunal of that potentate. To
Northern People this is the Supreme Court of Appeals,
and its decisions are infallible. But it is not so with
Southerners. If the pronouncements of this Court
run counter to their observations and experience, they
are held in little esteem. But since I must go with this
letter to the Northerner's Supreme Court, I may as
well take with me an extract from another statistical
protest just received from my good colored friend
Archdeacon McGuire. I quote from his letter:
28 The Crucial Eace Question
"The Business League, of which Dr. Booker Wash¬
ington is President, has spent time and means in
gathering much information from sources that are reli¬
able and trustworthy. What is the poetic story of
the figures thus collected? It is: that Negroes now
own $40,000,000 worth of Church property; that they
have erected 19,000 churches, with a seating capacity of
6,000,000; that in their institutions for higher learning
are 40,000 Negro students; that there are in our com¬
mon schools, 1,500,000 children; that engaged in the
training of these children and students are 30,000
teachers and instructors of the race; that 25,000
Colored people are learning the various trades; that
1,250 are pursuing scientific courses; that 1,150 are
taking business courses; that Colored college gradu¬
ates number 26,000; that in the Negro libraries there
are 250,000 volumes; that there are 156 distinct institu¬
tions of higher learning for sons and daughters of
Colored people; that their physicians number 800;
their authors 350; their lawyers 521; their magazines
6, and their newspapers 522; that the value of the
books in the libraries referred to is $550,000; that the
value of the farms owned by Negroes is $66,000,000;
that the value of their homes is the colossal sum of
$335,ooo,o°o; and that to this must be added the sum
of $172,000,000 for personal property.
"These figures are silent but eloquent tongues that
tell truly and convincingly of the material and intel¬
lectual evolution of a people only given their freedom
40 years ago. Bishop, can you duplicate this achieve¬
ment among the nations of the ancient or modern
world? You cannot, sir!"
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 29
And there the mail man comes again! Is he the
bearer of more letters of statistical criticism from my
kind and helpful proof readers? Yes! Here is one
from the Rev. Professor Tunnell, another prominent
Afro-American Clergyman. He encloses the following
interesting tabulated exhibit which he says is "from
Bulletin 8, of the Department of Commerce and
Labor." It covers again some of the ground of the
two other exhibits but it also contains some import¬
ant items left out of them and the painstaking tabulat¬
ing work is valuable. Three exhibits from three such
men must certainly cover the whole field traversed by
the paths in which it can be claimed that the Negro
is making progress towards the goal of civilization.
I also take this exhibit to Court. Surely if my essay
can endure the light of all these statistics I need have
no fear for its fate so far as it depends upon the criti¬
cisms of Northern and Negro Statisticians.
"The Census for 1900 shows employment of the
Negro in the following lines of service: (1) Agricul¬
tural pursuits 2,143,154; (2) professional callings
47,219; (3) domestic and personal service 1,317,859;
(4) trades and transportation 208,989; (5) manufactur¬
ing and mechanical pursuits 275,166; total 3,992,387.
"In the upper lines of these pursuits (1) farmers,
planters and overseers as distinct from farm laborers
757,822; (2) clergymen 15,528; lawyers 728; physicians
and surgeons 1,734; dentists 194; teachers and profes¬
sors in college 21,267; actors and professional show¬
men 1,439; architects, designers and draughtsmen 45;
artists and teachers of art 126; electricians 169; civil
30 The Crucial Eace Question
engineers and surveyors 112; journalists 191; musi¬
cians and teachers of music 2,397 J government officials
584; total 802,336.
"(4) Trade and transportation; agents 2,105; book¬
keepers and accountants 475 ; clerks and copyists 6,172;
merchants and dealers 9,095 ; salesmen and saleswomen
2,799; stenographers and typewriters 395; total 21,041.
"(5) Manufacturers and mechanical; blacksmiths 10,-
100; brick and stone masons 14,386; boot and shoe
makers and repairers 45,7545 carpenters and joiners
21,113; cotton mill operators 1,425; dressmakers 12,-
569; engineers and firemen 10,224; iron and steel
workers 12,327; machinists 1,263; manufacturers and
officials 1,186; painters, glaziers and varnishers 5,782;
plumbers, gas and steam fitters 1,193; printers, litho¬
graphers and pressmen 1,220; tailors and tailoresses
1,845 5 total 140,387.
"The farms operated by colored farmers, planters and
overseers aggregate 38,233,933 acres, or 59,74! square
miles, an area equal to the states of New England.
The valuation of property in these farms is $499,943,-
734, and the products raised by the farmers was $255,-
750,435, 21 per cent of which was owned and paid for
by them, or 187,797 acres.
Grand total of Afro-Americans engaged in civilized
employment is 4,956,151."
Ill
I am now before the Northern Supreme Court of
Statistics and the Judge is on the Bench. I am to
defend myself against the serious charge against me,
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 31
preferred in the letter and statistical showings under
review, which is to the effect that in my utterances and
writings upon the great American Race Problem,
I have been guilty of ignorantly or maliciously ignor¬
ing such highly creditable showings as those made in
these statistics, and representing in the face of them
that "while about ten per cent of Afro-Americans are
pursuing an upward course towards the higher planes
of civilization, about 90 per cent are going backwards
towards the lower levels of barbarism." May I ask the
reader to put himself or herself in the place of the
Judge while I defend myself as best I can against this
charge. I shall proceed upon the assumption that if I
can show that the Negro in the United States is losing
ground morally and physically I shall be acquitted.
For it will be readily seen and admitted that if a People
is going down hill morally and physically it cannot
permanently be going up hill mentally, industrially,
commercially or in any other respect. Moral rectitude
and physical soundness, undoubtedly, are the indispen¬
sable pre-requisites of any people's advancement, and
the absence of them is prima facie evidence of degen¬
eration. Believing that the testimony of expert statisti¬
cians would be of most service to me I have turned to
the writings of men whose labors in the department of
statistics have made them famous. They are Professor
W. F. Wilcox of Cornell University, Chief Statistician
of the United States Census Office, a Northern man,
and Professor William Benjamin Smith, a mathemati¬
cian and scientist of Tulane University, a Southern
man, the author of a remarkable book entitled,
"The Color-Linethe most interesting chapters of
32
The Crucial Race Question
which are made up of a painstaking analysis and an
illuminating explanation of Professor Wilcox's great
statistical Bulletin No. 8, relating to the Negro popula¬
tion of the United States.
i. In respect to the moral degeneration of the Afro-
American, Professor Smith says : "It is often urged that
the comparative criminality of the Negro in the South
is exaggerated. The white trangressor has friends,
money and social position and manages to evade the
law; the Negro is poor, friendless, and outcast and falls
an easy victim. In a measure, this may be true—we are
ashamed to confess; but it cannot alter the general
fact, only its degree. On the other hand, very many
offences of black against black must go unchallenged
by the law, both from apathy and from fear. These
two considerations, very likely, about balance each
other. It is thoroughly decisive, however, that the
Negro appears a greater criminal in the North and
East, where there is no prejudice against him, than in
the South, where the prejudice is supposed to be so
strong.
"If we compare the states, we may see this even
more clearly. In Massachusetts the prisoners were,
according to the showing of the last census in Bulletin
No. 8: Whites, 5,157; Blacks, 161. Since the latter
formed not 1 per cent of the population, their crim¬
inality appears over three times as great as the white;
yet they are, presumably, the very elect of the race—
the best Negroes in the world. In New York, there
were 10,745 white prisoners and 723 black; but the
latter numbered only 117 per 10,000; hence, their
criminality was six times as great as that of
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 33
the white. In Pennsylvania there were 5,749 white
prisoners and 738 black; but the latter formed
little over two per cent of the population; hence,
again, their criminality was six times that of
the white. In West Virginia there were 320 whites in
prison and 130 blacks; these latter formed not 5 per
per cent of the population; they were seven times
as criminal as the white. Washington City is the
Mecca of the Negro; there, if anywhere on earth, he
should show himself at his best. What is the prison
record? Whites 138, blacks 358, yet he numbers only
328 per thousand—he is more than five times as
criminal as the whites. In Ohio there were 481 black
prisoners, representing 247 per 10,000 of the popula¬
tion, and 2,415 whites; again, an eight-fold criminality.
In Michigan there is no prejudice against the Negro,
but rather for him, and how stands the court record?
He numbers only 73 per 10,000 of the population, yet
he furnishes 141 prisoners against 1,998 whites—this
time a criminality ten fold! In the South this record
is seemingly better. In Louisiana the blacks number
one-half, but the population of the prisons was 367
whites, 1,238 blacks; the latter were not quite four¬
fold criminal. In Alabama the population-ratio was
5,516 to 4,484, but the prison ratio was 422 to 2,096.
On dividing the former by the latter, we find the
crime-ratio of six to one. In Mississippi, the popula¬
tion-ratio was 4,342 to 5,658; the prison-ratio was 119
to 1,058; their quotient, the crime-ratio, was over six
to one. In Virginia the ratio is over six, in South
Carolina a little under six, in Indiana nearly five, in
Georgia over eight, in Illinois nearly nine.
34 The Crucial Race Question
"Thus it appears that the Negro everywhere, many
times oftener than the white man, falls into prison;
but in the North still oftener than in the South, and
not only is he relatively more frequently criminal in
the North—he is absolutely so. For, to judge from
the court records, the Negro in the South is in general
more law-abiding than in the North."
2. As to the physical degeneration of the Afro-
American, Professor Smith, after giving many sta¬
tistical tables bearing upon this subject and making
valuable comments upon them, quotes the significant
confession of Professor DuBois, the ablest among
American Negroes: "Laziness and promiscuous sexual
intercourse are the besetting sins of the lower
class." Professor DuBois finds about 15 per cent
belonging to the higher class of Negroes, a percentage
which Professor Smith says, "a wider investigation
would hardly maintain," and then quotes Professor
DuBois: "Unless we conquer our present vices, they
will conquer us. We are diseased; we are developing
criminal tendencies, and an alarmingly large percent¬
age of our men and women are sexually impure."
Professor Smith concludes his survey of the whole
field of Afro-American physical degeneration with the
most significant observation:
"From all of this it is clear, not only that the colored
birth rate is low and is falling, but why it is low, and
why it is falling. It is almost impossible that it
should long remain so much as thirty-five per thou¬
sand per annum, or even thirty-four or thirty-three.
It seems certainly descending toward thirty— that
is 300 births per 10,000 yearly. But the present
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 35
death rate is 296 per 10,000; it fell only three, from
299 to 296, in the decade from 1890 to 1900.
"Thus," continues Professor Smith, "it appears cer¬
tain that the birth and death rates of the Negro cannot
continue very far apart, that they are "steadily
approaching, and that without some strange reversal
of present tendencies, the birth rate must ere long
fall below the death rate in all but a very few districts,
and at no distant period even in them. In all likeli¬
hood these tendencies will be rather strengthened
than weakened with advancing years, and there are
those now living who will actually see the Afro-
American moving rapidly towards extinction."
IV
And now may I ask the reader to let me introduce
Professor W. F. Wilcox, the expert among experts in
the statistical field, the Chief Statistician of the Census
Office of the United States. He will bear testimony to
the effect that industrially the Afro-American is
unhappily losing ground in the South. He will also
confirm the inexpressibly sad and almost incredible
representations of Professor William Benjamin Smith
about the Moral and Physical Decadence of the
Negro population of the United States both North and
South.
1. Industrially the Negro is certainly losing ground
in the South. "The staple crops upon which the
Negroes were occupied before the War," says the
Chief Statistician, "were probably cotton, tobacco,
sugar and rice. In i860 the great mass of the work
in the cotton fields was done by Negro labor. White
36
The Crucial Eace Question
labor was used, to be sure, in Texas, but at that time
the whole cotton crop of Texas was less than one-
twelfth of the country's product. It would probably
be a conservative statement to say that at least four-
fifths of the cotton was then grown by the Negroes.
The only official estimate for any date since that time
is that of the Statistician to the Department of Agri¬
culture in 1876. He concluded that about three-fifths
of our cotton was raised in that year by Negroes. At
the present time probably not one-half is thus grown.
In 1859 Texas produced one-twelfth, in 1897-98 one-
fourth, of the cotton of the United States; and, as in
that state white labor is usually employed in the cotton
fields, the advance of Texas means the advance of
white agricultural labor.
"Similar changes have been going on in the tobacco
crop. In 1859 twenty-eight per cent of it was grown in
Virginia, and mainly, it seems, by Negro labor. In
1889 less than ten per cent of our crop was grown in
that State, and the Virginia crop of that year was less
than two-fifths of what it had been thirty years before.
In 1889 Kentucky produced over forty-five per cent
of the tobacco of the country, while ten years earlier
it produced only thirty-six per cent. American tobacco
growing evidently is tending to center in Kentucky,
and yet it is the only Southern State in which the
number of Negroes decreased during the last decade.
In over half its counties and in the State as a whole,
the Negro population decreased, while the white
increased between 1880 and 1890. It seems that
tobacco growing, like cotton growing, is passing more
and more into the hands of the whites.
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 37
"Of the cane sugar crop of the United States in
1889, over ninety-seven per cent came from Louisiana;
and the increase of yield in the preceding decade was
almost confined to that State, where the acreage
under cane increased seven per cent and the yield
forty-two per cent. Apparently, the increase of yield
in the last ten years, notwithstanding the losses result¬
ing from recent federal legislation, has been quite as
rapid. In a paper read in 1898 before the Louisiana
Agricultural Society the statement was made that this
rapid increase in the production of cane sugar was 'due
especially to the establishment of large central fac¬
tories.' The machinery in these factories is managed,
I am informed, almost entirely by white men.
"With regard to the rice crop of the country, in
1879 less than one-fourth of the acreage was in Louis¬
iana, in 1889 over one-half was there. During the last
decade the acreage outside Louisiana decreased forty-
two per cent, while that within the State more than
doubled. In this, as in other staple agricultural indus¬
tries, there has been a marked tendency towards con¬
centration; and the center of production has passed
away from South Carolina, which in 1849 produced
three-fourths of our crop, but in 1889 less than one-
fourth. This transfer of the rice growing industry is
largely due to the superior efficiency of white labor.
"In agricultural pursuits" continues the Chief Statis¬
tician, "the competition between Whites and Blacks
can be traced more clearly than elsewhere, because in
that field we have fuller information. Still, there is some
evidence, derived mainly from statements of educated
38 The Crucial Bace Question
Negroes, that in other occupations, also, this competi¬
tion is seriously felt.
"Thus Professor Hugh M. Browne, of Washington,
said, in a speech five years ago to a negro audience:
White men are bringing science and art into menial
occupations and lifting them beyond our reach. In my
boyhood the household servants were colored, but now
in the establishments of the 'four hundred' one finds
trained white servants.
"Then the walls and ceilings were whitewashed each
spring by colored men; now they are decorated by
skilled white artisans. Then the carpets were beaten
by colored men; now this is done by a white man,
managing a steam carpet-cleaning works. Then laun¬
dry work was done by negroes; now they are with
difficulty able to manage the new labor-saving
machine.
"Similar testimony comes from another Negro, Mr.
Fortune, editor of an influential Negro paper. He
said in 1897: 'When I left Florida for Washington
twenty years ago, every brakeman, every engineer
and almost every man working on the railroad was
a black man. Today a black man can hardly get a
job at any avocation. This is because the fathers
did not educate their children along the lines in which
they were working, and, as a consequence, the race is
losing its grip on the industries that are the bone and
sinew of life.' At the same conference Mr. Fitch, the
field missionary of Hampton Normal Institute,
reported that he found the old men everywhere work¬
ing at the trades they learned in slavery, but nowhere
did he find young men learning these trades. Similarly,
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 39
Principal Frissell, in the opening address, said: 'There
is great danger that the colored people will be pushed
out of the occupations that were once theirs, because
the white tradesmen are coming in to fill their places.'
"The 'Black Belt' " continues Professor Wilcox, "may
be defined as those counties in which the Negro popu¬
lation outnumbered the White. In Maryland in i860
there were five such counties, and in 1890 only two.
In Virginia there were forty-three and in 1890 only
thirty-three. In North Carolina there were nineteen
and in 1890 only sixteen. The group of adjoining
counties in southeastern Maryland, eastern Virginia
and northeast North Carolina, which formed the most
northerly outpost of the black belt in i860, has
decreased in thirty years from sixty-two counties to
forty-six, or almost exactly one-fourth. In i860
Kentucky had one county belonging to the black belt,
while in 1890 it had none. In i860 Northern Alabama
had two counties belonging to the black belt, but in
1880 both of these had disappeared from the map. In
the cotton-growing regions of the more southerly
states there has been an increase of the counties
belonging to the black belt, but not enough entirely to
offset these changes. It seems that locally the
Negroes have begun to yield ground to the whites in
the regions most favorable to the latter, and that such
a change is likely to continue."
2. We come at last to the Chief Statistician's rein¬
forcement of the melancholy representations of Profes¬
sor Smith about the Moral and Physical Decadence of
the Afro-American, and his outlook for the future.
Professor Wilcox says:
40
The Crucial Race Question
"In the Northern States, in 1890, there were twelve
white prisoners to every ten thousand whites, and
sixty-nine Negro prisoners to every ten thousand
Negroes. In our own State of New York the Negroes,
in proportion to their numbers, contributed over five
times as many as the whites to the prison population.
These facts furnish some statistical basis and warrant
for the popular opinion, never seriously contested, that
under present conditions in this country a member of
the African race, other things equal, is much more
likely to fall into crime than a member of the white
race. This is the unanimous opinion of the Southern
whites, and is conceded by representative Negroes.
Thus, among the resolutions adopted by the Negro
Conference at Hampton, Va., in July, 1898, was the
admission that 'the criminal record of the colored
race in all parts of the country is alarming in its
proportions.'
"The Negro prisoners in the Southern States to ten
thousand Negroes, increased between 1880 and 1890
twenty-nine per cent, while the white prisoners to ten
thousand whites increased only eight per cent. Here,
again, to the obvious inference that crime is increasing
among the Negroes much faster than among the
whites, the same objection is sometimes raised, namely,
that prejudice against that race is so influential in the
South as to invalidate the argument. The same appeal
as before to the figures for the North and West consti¬
tutes a convincing reply to any such contention. In
the states where slavery was never established, the
white prisoners increased seven per cent faster than
the white population, while the Negro prisoners
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 41
increased no less than thirty-nine per cent
faster than the Negro population. Thus the increase
of Negro criminality, so far as it is reflected in the
number of prisoners, exceeded the increase of white
criminality more in the North than it did in the South.
"I have no time to go into complex statistical evi¬
dence bearing upon the vitality of the Negro race,
and its power to meet successfully the increasing
industrial competition, to which it must be exposed,
as these states fill with people, as cities spring up and
prosper, and as industry, trade and agriculture become
diversified and more complex. The balance of the
evidence, however, seems to me to indicate for the
future a continuance of changes already begun, viz., a
decrease in the Negro birth rate decidedly more rapid
than the actual present or probable future decrease in
the death-rate. This would result obviously in a
slackening rate of increase, and,then in a stationary
condition, followed by slow numerical retrogression. If
this anticipation should be realized the Negroes will
continue to become, as they are now becoming, a
steadily smaller proportion of the population.
"The final outcome, though its realization may be
postponed for centuries, will be, I believe, that the
race will follow the fate of the Indians, that the great
majority will disappear before the whites, and that
the remnant found capable of elevation to the level of
the white man's civilization will ultimately be merged
and lost in the lower classes of the whites, leaving
almost no trace to mark their former existence.
"Where such a lower people has disappeared, the
causes of their death have been mainly disease, vice
42 The Crucial Race Question
and profound discouragement. It seems to me clear
that each one of these causes is affecting the Negro
race far more deeply and unfavorably at the present
time than it was at the date of their emancipation.
The medical evidence available points to the conclu¬
sion that they are more than ever afflicted with the
scourges of disease, such as typhoid fever and con¬
sumption, and with the physical ills entailed by sexual
vice. I have argued elsewhere to show that both in
the North and in the South crime among the Negroes
is rapidly increasing. Whether the race as a whole is
as happy, as joyous, as confident of the future, or
thoughtless of it, as it was before the War, you, my
hearers, know far better than I. I can only say that in
my studies I have found not one expression of dissent
from the opinion that the joyous buoyancy of the race
is passing away; that they feel upon them a burden
of responsibility to which they are unequal; that the
lower classes of Negroes are resentful, and that the bet¬
ter classes are not certain or sanguine of the outcome.
If this judgment be true, I can only say that it is per¬
haps the most fatal source of race, as of national, decay
and death."
The Hon. Eaton J. Bowers of Mississippi is not a
statistician of the same high rank with Professors
Wilcox and Smith, but he is quite the equal of any
among my statistical critics. In 1894 he made a notable
speech in the House of Representatives bearing upon
the race problem in which he showed from the 1890
United States Census Report that the number
of Negro prisoners to a million of Negro inhabitants in
the United States was in 1870, 1,621; in 1880, 2,480, and
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 43
in 1890, 3,775. The speech was a reply to certain reflec¬
tions upon the South by a Massachusetts Representa¬
tive. The accuracy of his astonishing representation
was not questioned at the time, nor has it been since.
It may be contended that according to this orator's
showing, the increase in the number of Negro prisoners
in 1890 over 1880 was 74 short of what it had been in
1880 over 1870; but this slightly favorable symptom is
unhappily offset by the fact that there had been ten long
years more of freedom and education, and, especially,
by the fact that at the North, where the Negro is in the
enjoyment of the most of these and other advantages of
racial equality, the percentage of criminals increased to
an alarming extent; while in the South, where the edu¬
cation of the Negro, particularly in the higher branches,
is not so generally encouraged, and where the Color-
Line is drawn a great deal more rigidly, the percentage
was comparatively inconsiderable. The ratio of increase
in the number of Negro criminals per one million of
their population in all the Southern States from 1880 to
1890 was only 678, whereas in Massachusetts, the
Negro's mecca of social equality and opportunity, the
ratio was 1,877, and in New York, 2,079.
If this sad showing does not prove me to have been
right in asserting that the Negro is degenerating
morally, it is difficult to see how anything can be
proved by statistics. And as morality is the foundation
without which there can be no super-structure it is evi¬
dent that the Negro as a race has not yet even com¬
menced the building of the splendid palace of civiliza¬
tion, but is still living in the rickety hut of semi-
barbarism.
The Crucial Eace Question
V
i. My Northern statistical critic quotes a statment of
the Atlanta Constitution to the effect that "the over¬
whelming majority of Negroes in all parts of the South
are leading sober and industrious lives." It is not my
privilege to see much of that paper, but I do see a great
deal of the Negro in one of the large Black Belts of
the South, and I must be excused for believing my own
eyes and the unanimous testimony of the most intelli¬
gent and reputable among the citizens or Arkan¬
sas, instead of this representation of the Atlanta
Constitution, especially since I happen to know that the
state of which its editor is a distinguished citizen was
compelled on account of the increase of intemperance
among its Negro population to pass a prohibition law;
and that so worthless and shiftless has Negro labor
become that the large cotton planters all through the
Mississippi Delta are beginning to import Italian labor,
a thing which the sugar planters of Louisiana com¬
menced to do long ago.
Much of this essay was written on the train while I
was traveling hither and thither through the Black
Belt of my Diocese, or sojourning in the homes of
people within the limits of that extensive region of
25,000 square miles; and, naturally enough, therefore,
it reflects the facts of observation, experience and tes¬
timony rather than of statistics. But Professors Wil¬
cox and Smith evidently did their work in the quietude
of their studies and with the library of an University
at their command. Accordingly they make statistics
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 45
the basis of all their representations and arguments.
Nevertheless, they in their studies and I in my field
have reached substantially the same conclusions.
Indeed, they make a worse showing than I do as to the
present condition and future prospects of the Afro-
American. They show that he is failing morally and
physically, everywhere, both North and South; and
Doctor Bowers shows that his moral failure in Massa¬
chusetts and also in New York is colossal.
I am not a statistician, but I am an observer of the
actual facts and the collector of what I regard as the
best testimony of both the Caucasians and the Negroes
living in a fairly representative Black Belt. But statis¬
tics have been demanded of me and accordingly I have
been compelled to make my dark picture of observa¬
tion and testimony much darker by introducing the
black pigment of the official numerical data bearing
upon the melancholy subject of Afro-American degen¬
eration. And as my figures and the explanations and
deductions from them are quotations from the writ¬
ings of the highest authorities whose exhibits have
never been called in question, and whose representations
stand unchallenged by their peers, I respectfully claim
from the judge, my reader, acquittal from the serious
charge of having done the Negro an injustice in the
allegation of a moral and physical degradation which,
without a general reformation, renders his outlook as a
race hopeless.
2. In the statistics presented by the able protesters
whose communications are under consideration, there
is a showing of increase in wealth and an intimation
that in the financial field of endeavor the Negroes in
46 The Crucial Eace Question
some places are outstripping the Whites and finding
it necessary to assist them in the education of their
children!
But so far as I can ascertain, there are only three
Southern States which list the property of White and
Colored People separately. These are Virginia, North
Carolina and Georgia. In these states the average per
capita wealth of the Negroes is according to the best
available statistics, considerably less than $25.00,
whereas the average per capita wealth of the White
people is more than $300.00. The Negroes of these
states are among the best to be found anywhere in
the country, and this being the case I shall be very
much surprised if it can be shown that those of South
Carolina, Florida and Mississippi are in a better or
even as good financial condition. I am almost certain
that they are much worse off in Arkansas.
The school tax everywhere is based upon property
valuation and undoubtedly the great bulk of property
in South Carolina, Florida and Mississippi belongs to
white people. It would seem therefore that there
must be something wrong with the representation that
the colored people in those states not only are paying
all the cost of the education of their own children,
but also are contributing considerable sums to educate
the children of their white neighbors.
To one whose impressions concerning the Afro-
American depends upon observation and testimony
rather than on statistics, this statement bears on the
face of it a most suspicious aspect. I am at a loss to
know how my statistical critic or his authority got the
interesting information the statement is supposed to
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
47
contain. At my request a distinguished Mississippian,
who I knew would be fair to the Negro, looked into the
matter so far as it concerns his state. He reported, "I
called at the office of the Superintendent of Public In¬
struction and found him out, but afterward received the
reports of the two years preceding the last meeting
of the Legislature. I could not get from this report
figures which would prove your critic's statement, nor
that would disprove it. I have no doubt that Missis¬
sippi Negroes pay more taxes than would be necessary
to educate their children, but taxes are used for other
purposes than education, and my information from
reliable sources is that the taxes on the School Account
from Negroes fall far short of the amount needed for
the education of their own children. It would seem
somewhat strange that your critic up North could re¬
ceive accurate information on the subject when I, in
personal touch with the Superintendent's office cannot
get it. The truth is, the Superintendent does not keep
his books in that way. I think your critic would do
well to acquaint himself more fully with the facts
before venturing to publish a statement of that nature."
Then the Mississippian goes on to observe that those
in his State who are opposed to the over-education
or the wrong education of the Negro are advocating
a division of the school tax, a fact which to his mind
conclusively disproves the statement under con¬
sideration.
As to Florida, the Superintendent of Education in
that State says: "There is no way of determining the
amount of taxes paid by the Negroes. It is estimated,
however, that they do not pay more than two per cent.
48
The Crucial Eace Question
cf the entire taxes of the State. Under separate cover
I am sending you a copy of my latest Biennial Report.
You will find that the salaries of Negro teachers
amount to sixteen per cent, of the entire amount paid
for the salaries of teachers."
I am unfortunately obliged to go to press before
hearing from the South Carolina gentleman to whom I
wrote. But I have a letter from a most intelligent
Arkansas correspondent that throws some light upon
the whole subject of Negro school taxes. I quote from
it:
"The time is too short for me to get the exact sta¬
tistics for which you are looking. Your Northern
statistician's statements are partly right and partly
wrong. As to the point about which you are especially
desirous of exact data, I have no hesitancy in saying
off-hand that he is mistaken. If his contention is
correct then why is it that in the very states mentioned
by him there is a quite general desire for the segrega¬
tion of the school tax. In Arkansas the Negroes with
nearly a third of the population pay less than a ninth
of the amount given for public education. I am making
this statement from memory, but am sure it will be
verified as soon as I hear from the Superintendent of
Education.
"My experience teaches me that you had better scru¬
tinize carefully all floating statistics bearing upon the
Negro question, for they are apt to be padded. You are
wise in determining to confine yourself largely to the
statistical exhibits of Professors Wilcox and Smith and
in accepting their interpretations of their own show¬
ings. They are men of science, one a representative
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 49
and reliable man of the North, and the other equally
so of the South. They seem to have reached much the
same conclusions. Keep your book in line with their
representations, and its statements as far as they bear
upon the condition and outlook of the Negro will be
uncontrovertible.
"Of course we all know that your critic is right in
his general conclusion that many Negroes have made
and are making gratifying progress along material and
educational lines. That they are doing this is evident
from their creditable exhibits at various industrial
expositions; but as you always have contended the
moral condition of the great majority of the race is dis¬
couraging. From the conversations we have had I am
perfectly certain that the ground is secure under your
feet, and that you are not likely to be successfully
assailed on account of the darkness of your picture.
But Bishop, do brighten it up by leaving out some of
the darker shades, for as you so well know, your
Northern friends, especially those of Boston, will not
look at the real picture and it is dispiriting to our good
Negroes whose number is increasing, if slowly, yet
surely. They are as you so aptly call them 'the Elect.'
As compared with the whole population they are few.
They are engaged in a noble effort to uplift their race.
It is a stupendous, discouraging and thankless task.
They are distrusted by the Negro and suspected by
the white man. They need encouragement. For their
sakes make your picture as bright as the truth will
admit of. I hope the Church not only will give these
'Elect Negroes' an adequate Episcopate, but also sup¬
port it adequately."
50
The Crucial Eace Question
But if it be true that, in South Carolina, Florida,
and Mississippi, Negroes pay more school-tax money
than is expended upon the education of their children,
then it must be that a decadence is beginning also in the
matter of education as well as in some other important
things that make for civilization. I happen to know that
in some Southern places the Negroes are losing their in¬
terest in the schools. If they open in September very
few will send their children before November or De¬
cember, and the majority leave in April or May. This
would indicate that the Negro of the South is becoming
more anxious to loaf or take chances of picking up a lit¬
tle money now and then by doing odd jobs than he is
to acquire an education. The money being collected,
the white supervisors are not foolish enough to let it
go to waste; so that, if there is any of the colored
money spent upon white schools, I think it is entirely
due to the fact that the Negroes do not any longer
flock to the schools in sufficient numbers to warrant
the expenditure of all the money which they con¬
tributed.
3. As for Dr. Booker Washington's oft-quoted remark
that "not a single graduate of the Hampton or Tuske-
gee Institutes can be found today in any jail or state
penitentiary," my answer is a demand for a list of the
graduates of those institutions. I do not believe that
in either case it will be forthcoming, and I am morally
certain that the publication of such lists, and the inves¬
tigation of them would be a revelation to "the wealthy
and prominent men of the East." I call for the list or
the withdrawal of both Dr. Washington's statement,
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 51
and the objection of the statistical critic to my repre¬
sentation that the Negro is degenerating, morally and
physically, and that the Hampton and Tuskegee Insti¬
tutes are not doing what at the North and South they
are popularly supposed to be doing to turn the tide.
In concluding my answer to the statistical showing
of my Northern Caucasian and Negro critics, I call
attention to the fact that if their statistics had any
great realities behind them, the American Race
problem is a myth and there is no need for any radical
change of national, ecclesiastical or philanthropic
policy touching the Afro-American nor for an argu¬
ment intended to show that our Colored Brethren in
the Lord are entitled to the Episcopate and capable of
caring for it. I gladly welcome every iota of truth
that is represented in such statistics, but I cannot be
deceived by them, and I think the time has come when
Negroes and Northern people should be undeceived.
Nothing can be done while, by the citation of such
statistics, men continue to "cry peace, peace, where
there is no peace."
In view of the sad facts concerning the moral and
physical degeneration of the Afro-American, all the
effort that is made to show that he is progressing in
the ways which lead to mental illumination and mate¬
rial acquisitions, even if it should be successful, is
without much bearing upon the subject of this book.
For neither individuals nor races can be saved by
either knowledge or wealth. "Righteousness exalteth
a nation." Professor Smith, towards the close of his
most painstaking and fair-minded book, makes a true
remark bpapf^g iiJ^W^^f^ibject which will be a
52 The Crucial Bace Question
revelation to some among my readers and go far
towards convincing them of the degeneration of the
Negro: "The whole family of facts here assembled,
especially those that establish the greater and faster
growing criminality of the Northern Negro, show
clearly that education is not the cure for his ills.
Generation after generation of coddling and sym¬
pathy in the North has not effaced a single racial trait
nor raised by a single notch the average character,
moral or mental or physical, of hundreds of thousands
of the pick of their race. Nearly forty years of devoted
and enthusiastic effort to elevate and educate the
Southern Negro lie stretched out behind us in a dead
level of failure. We grant freely and gladly that there
are exceptions, rare and remarkable enough. But that
the average of the Negro, both moral and physical,
has fallen and is falling measurably under all
endeavors to lift him up, is a fact that shines out
clear in the light of the foregoing statistics."
One of the ablest among my critics writes: "The
gravitation of the Afro-American downward is the
natural pruning which is going on at all times with all
people. With the Negro, owing to his past and che
conditions in which he is found, it is rapid and whole¬
sale and seems to threaten his extinction. If there were
not the 'Elect' the process would end in extermination.
So it was with the Israelite when he came out of Egypt.
The whole generation, save Caleb and Joshua, left their
bones in the desert. So it was at the time of the
destruction of Jerusalem. The 'natural pruning' of a
people given to vice and immorality cuts out all but the
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 53
'elect' upon whom, and not upon the multitude, the
future rests."
But really there is very little of analogy between the
ancient Israelo-Egyptians and the modern Afro-Ameri¬
cans as to the causes for their rapid perishing. The
fearful mortality of the Israelites in the wilderness was
for only a generation and it was due chiefly to external
causes over which they had little or no control. But
the perilous death rate of the Afro-American appears
to be rising as time goes on and its roots are inward
vices. So far as social purity^ was concerned the
Israelite was an example to the world and he owed
very few deaths to it, while the impurity of the Afro-
American is a by-word with all peoples and is the chief
cause of their astonishing mortality. After forty years
there was a great improvement in the moral and physi¬
cal condition of the new generation of Israelites. Who,
White or Black, will compare our young Negroes with
the old time Negro to the disparagement of the latter?
As soon as the Israelo-Egyptians reached the Promised
Land they multiplied rapidly and made progress
in the way of building up a racial civilization, the
influence of which after more than three thousand
years is felt throughout the world. Where is there so
much as a sign of such civilization that is to be the out¬
come of Afro-American emancipation?
I have been driven to the study of statistics by my
Anglo-American and Afro-American critics, and it has
resulted in the conviction that all the figures as well
as all experience, observation and testimony point to
the conclusion, that, unless the Afro-American
stream of moral and physical vitality can be changed
54
The Ckucial Race Question
so that it will flow into the Ocean of Life instead of
the Ocean of Death he, considered as a race, is in the
Valley of the Shadow of Death. And it would seem
from the showing- of these great and unimpeachable
authorities that it is as a narrow valley, hemmed in on
either side by precipitous, and to them, inaccessible
mountain ranges of incalculable heights on the
summits of which are the sunny plateaus of modern
civilization. The rising sun of righteousness will
indeed shine into this abysmal valley but, in it, the day
of light and warmth necessarily will be of compara¬
tively short duration. It is our duty as Anglo-Amer¬
icans to make that day for Afro-Americans as long and
as bright and as warm as possible. It is the contention
of this book that we Anglo-American Catholic Chris¬
tians can contribute most to this philanthropic end by
the creation of an autonomous Afro-American Epis¬
copate and Church.
CHAPTER III
The Adverse Criticism of an Anglo-American Priest
Stated and Answered.
I
The view of th'ose who object to a favorable
response of any kind to the Appeal of Afro-American
Churchmen, especially to the one recommended by
the Arkansas Memorial, finds frank and vigorous
expression in a letter to me from a gifted and cultured
Southern Clergyman of high social and ecclesiastical
standing who undoubtedly represents the opinions
and the feelings by which many members of the Gen¬
eral Convention will be influenced in their attitude
towards and final action upon the Appeal:
"Bishop," he says, "when you speak as if we
objected to a Negro Episcopate because it will be
'imperfect' and then point to the imperfection of the
representatives of our own Episcopate as an answer
to our objection you are simply setting up 'a man of
straw and then destroying him.' On the point of
morality, I have known Negroes in whom dependence
could be placed for truth and honesty, yet whose repu¬
tation for sexual morality was bad.
"On this point of intelligence we have only to con¬
sider what the Negro Methodist and other Churches
56 The Crucial Eace Question
have become under Negro leadership, that is, political
clubs, where discontent and opposition to the White
race are fomented.
"I know one Negro Baptist Church
which had to be sold, the congregation having scat¬
tered from the pastor, because he boasted that he
never went outside of his own congregation for his
concubines. I have known several Negroes in our
own Ministry who, when they were put in places of
authority, could not stand it; one became a gambler
and drunkard, one became irregular in his sexual
morality and went to the Methodists, one became dis¬
honest and had to resign after twenty years.
"The practical objection to Negro Bishops is not
that they would not be 'perfect;' but that they would
not measure up to the standard of intelligence and
morality expected in the Episcopate. This is the
crux of the whole matter to me, and to most men who
know the Negro well.
"The only reason for giving the Negro an inde¬
pendent or any other kind of Episcopate, is to get them
into the Church which alone seems able to moralize
them. But, Bishop, if you set them up by themselves,
do you not destroy the only thing which makes the
Church able to help them, that is its White leadership?
And will not your proposed independent Afro-Amer¬
ican Church, though having valid orders, soon sink to
the level of the other so-called Churches of the
Negroes? How is Methodist Episcopacy working?
"There is another thing to be taken into consid¬
eration. When you consecrate a man Bishop you
make him a 'Bishop in the Church of God,' having the
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
57
highest rank of the Christian Ministry and entitled
to the rights of that office, and there are many Negroes
who would try to claim those rights. What would be
the practical results? Suppose, 'an upstart' Negro,
for instance should be made a Bishop, I know
him well enough to know he would try to force him¬
self just as far as his office would carry him. Such
aggressiveness on the part of such Negro Bishops
woulcl, as I and many Southern men know, mighty
soon give us a practical schism not only in the body
of the American Church, but probably in the body of
the proposed Negro Episcopate as well.
"There is the trouble, Bishop. They don't want to
become an independent Church, sir, with no connec¬
tion with our Church; they want to have the highest
rank of the Ministry so that they can go to the North
and take rank over White Priests. All this is right
from their point of view, but it is against nature and
impossible in this country. Somebody at the General
Convention is mighty apt to talk along these lines,
using more politic language possibly, but still talking
on these vital objections to your proposition."
II
In reply to this representative Southern objector
to the Arkansas Plan and Memorial I will say:
i. I believe that any attentive reader of my essay
as a whole, who is not blinded by prejudice will see
that "a man of straw" does not quite fairly represent
the success of my effort to state and answer the objec¬
tions to the creation of the proposed Afro-American
Episcopate, which are based upon the allegations that
58 The Crucial Race Question
the Negro is not "morally and intellectually" qualified
for the Episcopate. In my contention on behalf of the
Appeal of Colored Churchmen and the Arkansas Plan
of answering it, I everywhere practically admit that
Colored Bishops would not "measure up" in these
and, perhaps, other respects to the standard of White
Bishops. In view of this reiterated admission on my
part it hardly can be said of me that I am "setting up
a man of straw and then destroying him" when I claim
that Anglo-American Churchmen cannot reasonably
and consistently deny to Afro-American Churchmen
the Episcopate, because their Bishops would not
"measure up" to ours, morally, intellectually and edu¬
cationally, or when I intimate that in respect to these
qualities it is quite possible for us to deceive ourselves
as to the loftiness of our own Episcopal standard, and
our right to insist upon the measuring of the Epis¬
copates of other races by it.
Upon the principle that "from him to whom much is
given much will be required and from him to whom
little is given little will be required," I am right in the
contention of this essay that it would be wrong for us
to refuse a favorable reply to the Appeal of Afro-
American Churchman, because they have no "Epis¬
copal timber" that will "measure up" to what we have
in our Episcopate, and which exists in such super¬
abundance in our Clerical forests. The truth of the
matter is exactly as I represent it; that it would not be
impossible to create an Afro-American Episcopate
which relatively would "measure up" to our Episco¬
pate, and that, therefore, we cannot reasonably and
rightfully deny the appeal of our Colored brethren
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 59
upon the ground of the alleged moral and intellectual
defect in their Episcopal timber.
I admit that there is a sad possibility that some
representative of the proposed Afro-American Episco¬
pate might fall into the sin of social impurity or of
ecclesiastical schism; but I contend that the con¬
templation of these possibilities should no more deter
us from the creation of that Episcopate, than our own
melancholy history respecting the same sins should
prevent us from the perpetuation of the Anglo-Amer¬
ican Episcopate.
No doubt the Colored Clergy are conscious of their
moral weakness as the White Clergy are of theirs but
we must not forget that responsibility makes a man
do his utmost to "measure up" to the demands made
of men in similar position. Our Negro Priests are, on
the whole, the most moral of Negro Ministers and
people in the land, and it is not fair to deny their
appeal for racial Bishops because of the failure of the
weak members of their Ministry. Unhappily Angels
have fallen from their first estate, and so have Arch¬
angels. But happily this has not served as sufficient
reason to distrust other Angels and Archangels.
Gabriel still stands in the presence of God, and
Michael still continues to lead the armies of the Lord
of Hosts, even though Satan rebelled and mutinied.
Bishops, and other Clergy, have experienced sad
moral failures, but we do not therefore say no man
shall be admitted to our White Episcopate and
Ministry.
These Colored men have met the canonical require¬
ments, mental and moral, for ordination as Priests
60
The Crucial Eace Question
and their credentials have been signed almost always
by the White Clergy who have known them. I verily
believe that the various Bishops under whom the
more prominent of our Negro Clergy serve, and from
among whom the candidates for the Episcopate would
come, will be willing to give them as good endorse¬
ment for moral rectitude as they would give to any
White Clergyman nominated for the same high office.
We need not be pessimistic about our Negro Epis¬
copate "measuring up." Bishop Ferguson of West
Africa and Bishop Holly of Hayti, surrounded with
idolatry in the one case, and with Voodooism in the
other, living in the midst of Negro peoples deprived of
white association, and seeing all the good and all the
bad in the life of Negro Republics, have nevertheless
"measured up" to the morals of the White Episcopate.
Not a breath of suspicion has ever attached to these
two Negro Bishops who have lived for long years amid
heathen and unmoral surroundings, and who since
their consecration have, from the standpoint of morals
at least, made glad the heart of the American Church.
The English Church has the same story to tell of its
first Black Bishop Samuel Crowther, and his two or
three successors in the heart of Africa. Of about five
Black Bishops already consecrated by the Anglo-Cath¬
olic Church, not one has been reprehensible for error
in doctrine, viciousness of life, or desire for schism.
They all have "measured up." The highest confi¬
dence has been reposed in them. Let us hold up the
examples of what all of our Negro Bishops have done,
and not deal with the shortcomings of some Negro
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
61
Priests and Deacons who would never stand any
chance for the Episcopate. Let us be charitable.
As to intellectual "measuring up" our Negro breth¬
ren are modest. They know that they can never hope
to be, under conditions which exist, the intellectual
equals of the White Bishops, mass for mass. But
there are individuals among the Negro Clergy who
may be the intellectual equal of this or that member
of the House of Bishops, and Negroes as well as
Whites know this. But has the Church ever set, as a
requirement to the Episcopate, excellence in the higher
learning? We are not aware of it. Were this a sine
qua non there are several members of the House of
Bishops who would be willing to confess that among
their White brethren of the Priesthood there are many
better fitted for the Bishopric from the intellectual
and educational standpoints.
2. The letter which we are reviewing is written by
a strong man and he states the great objection of a
large class of people in the Church, especially through¬
out the South, against the proposed Afro-American
Episcopate as strongly as it is likely ever to be stated
in our Church papers or on the floor of the General
Convention. But all the illustrative incidents which
he cites in support of this objection, upon which so
many have taken their stand, are in favor of our posi¬
tion rather than his. The Baptist people fell away
from the "libertine." The "gambler" and the "drunk¬
ard" were compelled to leave the Episcopal Ministry
and so was the "dishonest" man. This is a promising
showing, big with hope. The moral sentiment which
62 The Crucial Race Question
makes it possible is a great credit to the Negro, and it
seems to me that its existence conclusively proves that
the Episcopate may safely and profitably be given to
the Afro-American.
In none of the cases does the commendable and
effective moral sentiment appear to be directly due to
White leadership. It would seem therefore that the
point respecting the necessity of a White, rather than
a Colored Ministry, is not well taken. I admit that it
is highly desirable and, indeed, I have gone so far as
to insist that it is absolutely necessary for the Negro
to have White leadership; but, it is one of the main
contentions of this essay, that such leadership must be
that of indirect good example and helpful co-operation.
In what he says about "up-start Negroes" my gifted
friend and frank critic is putting the fatal logical noose
over his own head for his representation, which I
admit to be in exact accordance with the truth, affords
a strong argument in favor not only of Afro-Amer¬
ican Bishops but of Autonomy for them. The truth
of the matter is that the writer of this criticism of the
Arkansas Plan would regard any Negro who was
given rank over Priests and Deacons, and equality
with Bishops in the Anglo-American Church as "an
upstart," if not in an invidious sense at least in the
sense of being out of place.
It may be broadly asserted that the Southern White
man does not live who would be pleased to see either
Booker Washington or Professor DuBois walking
with his Bishop in a procession or sitting with him at
a banquet, and the great, overwhelming majority
would be very much displeased at such sights. And
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 63
as a matter of fact what is true of our Bishops is almost,
if not quite, equally true of our Priests and Deacons
and even of the Laity. Practically no one among us
likes to see a mix up of White and Colored people
of any rank on any occasion, and this is almost as true
of official mix-ups as of social mix-ups.
The Southern Whites cannot tolerate mix-ups of
any kind and the better they are the less tolerant they
are of them. Not only do native Southerners feel this
way but Southernized Northerners are, if anything,
even more radical in this feeling. Nor are Southerners
without sympathizers at the North. The Copper¬
heads are not all dead up there. On the contrary, in
many places they are very much alive and increasing
rapidly. Every indication points to a time, certainly
not more than twenty-five years hence, when the
Color-Line will be drawn almost as rigidly in many
Northern places as it always has been and always will
be in the South. The trend everywhere is all in one
direction. There are a number of towns above the
Mason and Dixon line from which the Negroes have
been run out. My representations will be called
in question by only a very few people who have their
heads in a sand heap of prejudice so deeply that they
are incapable of taking account of the rising tide of
race prejudice against the Negro, but it will not be
long before the advancing waves will level the sand
that they have piled up for themselves.
Now what does this dislike to mix-ups which is
universal in the South and growing at the North
mean? Well, it may or it may not mean a good many
64 The Crucial Race Question
things, but to my mind it certainly does mean that the
day of the White leadership in the Church, of which
my gifted friend and frank critic speaks is "done
past" and "done gone." And in truth white leadership
of the kind he has in mind never was an abiding sub¬
stantial reality. At best it has been nothing more
than the beautiful vision of the dark outlines of a
sailing ship passing before the full face of the rising
moon. White leadership in the sense of an official
Ministry can no more control the destiny of the
Colored Race than white sails can regulate the
movements of the moon. Under existing conditions,
in these United States a White Ministry has about
as much of a mission to the Negro as white sails have
to the Man or the Madonna in the moon.
Present conditions and also the very nature of
things make it impossible that beyond a good example
and helpful co-operation there should be any White
leadership of the Afro-American in the heavenward
ways of religion and morality. But in what opposite
ways has much of our Southern White leadership
taken the poor Negro! The leadership of impure
Southern men! O may God and the Negro forgive it!
How much of sad truth there is in these words which
I quote from the letter of a deeply religious, brilliant
Southern woman who like this gifted Clergyman also
kindly read the proofs: "After all it isn't so much the
'race problem' as it is the world-old 'sin problem,' that
threatens our Southland, not so much the 'Black Peril'
that endangers our Anglo-Saxon religion and civiliza¬
tion as it is the peril of impurity, intemperance, selfish¬
ness and greed."
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
65
Yes, O yes, the Negro does indeed need White
leadership! O, how sadly he needs it, but the only
white leadership that we can give him is that of good
example and co-operation. Impure white men of the
South, how about your leadership? Christian men
and women of the South, how about your co-oper¬
ation? Churchmen, both South and North, if we
refuse a favorable reply of some kind to our Afro-
American brethren how will we be co-operating with
them? The whole of the great Southern objection to
such a response in spite of the strongest support that
can be given to it by one of our ablest Clergymen falls
to the ground and I do not know of any objection
against the appeal of Afro-American Churchmen and
the Arkansas Plan of answering it that will stand. If
we refuse that appeal we withdraw the hand of White
leadership and lose the greatest opportunity for
such leadership that ever will be presented to the
Anglo-American Church.
The office of a Bishop is indeed a great one, and he
who desires it desires a good thing, but we are unfair
to a race, and unfair to many tried and true Negro
Priests who have the moralization and betterment of
their people at heart, when we make the allegation
that they simply "want to have the highest rank of
the ministry so that they can go North and take
rank over White Priests." I submit that this reason
given to the world as our refusal to grant the
Appeal of our Negro Brethren for Bishops would
mark us as unjust, unreasonable, illogical, and incapa¬
ble of dealing with such matters as the evangelization
of the races of the earth.
66
The Crucial Race Question
My esteemed critic fears that the proposed Afro-
American Church will repeat the history of African
Methodism. There are two widely differing classes of
African Methodist Episcopal Churches.
1. The schismatic Bethel A. M. E. Church and the
Zion A. M. E. Churches, of Northern origin, withdrew
from White Methodism and consecrated their own
Bishops. Their notorious Africanization and their bit¬
terness towards the Whites are due to this interruption
of communion.
2. The Colored M. E. Church, of Southern origin,
but with a respectable Northern following, represents
the second type. By mutual consent this Church was
organized from the loyal colored membership of the M.
E. Church, South, shortly after the war, and two Negro
Bishops consecrated by White Bishops. The mother
Church is proud of the record of the daughter Church,
giving her counsel and financial support. She main¬
tains two institutions of higher learning for the
Negroes, and occasionally invites their Bishops to
address White congregations. This relationship has
effectually prevented the Africanization which is the
mournful characteristic of the schismatic African
Methodist Churches, and has proven most salutary to
the younger Church which is producing a high class of
Negro Christians and citizens.
It is this type of independent Afro-American Church
that I desire to have duplicated in our communion, and
I am confident that the Anglo-Catholic would be an
improvement upon the Anglo-Methodist type of auton¬
omous Colored Church.
CHAPTER IV
The Adverse Criticisms of the Church Papers Stated
and Answered.
The last Lecture of this book is devoted wholly to
the answering of objections against the making of
a favorable reply to the appeal of Afro-American
Churchmen and the adoption of the Arkansas plan of
autonomy; but a general survey of such objections in
these introductory remarks will add to the perspicuity
and consequently to the interest of the entire book.
It has occurred to me that this preliminary and
desirable, if not, indeed, necessary, survey may be
made to the best advantage by taking a position on
the opposite side of the one occupied by the editors of
the Churchman, the Church Standard and the Living
Church.
I
A long and varied experience and wide obser¬
vation as a Missionary have produced in me a most
profound conviction that the Anglo-American Church
has no real and permanent mission to Afro-Americans
68 The Crucial Race Question
unless it be to give them an autonomous Episcopate
and Church and in all possible ways to help them in
its extension and upbuilding. Unless we create such
an Episcopate and Church and lend it a helping hand,
so far as that people is concerned, there is no mean¬
ing for us in our Saviour's command: "Go ye into
all the world and preach the Gospel to every mce!'
May I ask the reader who has been influenced by
the editorials of the Churchman to cast his lot
with those who are opposed to the making of
a favorable reply to the appeal of Afro-American
Churchmen, to note that "tribe" and "race" are the
root and primary meanings of the Greek word which
our translators have rendered "nation." This simple
little fact invalidates the great argument of the dis¬
tinguished editors of those papers against a racial
Episcopate, so far as it is based upon the representation
that legitimately there can be only one branch of the
Church Catholic in a country. The truth is that there
may be, and when Christ's command is obeyed there
will be, as many branches of that Church in this
country as there are races. And, in some cases, there
may be autonomous "tribal" as well as "racial" Epis¬
copates and Churches, for, though the Chinese and
Japanese are of one race they are different tribes, and
it well may be that, in time, it will appear that if we
are to go into all the United States part of the world,
which should be regarded as our special field, and
preach the Gospel to every "race" and "tribe," we must
give both of our tribes of the Mongolian race a com¬
plete autonomous ministry.
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
69
The editor of the Churchman has placed the
powerful influence of his pen and periodical unalter¬
ably against not only the Arkansas plan, but against
any plan, "Missionary" or "Suffragan," looking towards
the creation of Afro-American Bishops or any other
racial Episcopate by the Anglo-American Church. In
what he has to say in opposition to our plan of
autonomy he characterizes it as being, in the
light of the Indian Caste System, too superficial and
absurd for serious consideration. We must recover our
child from the ugly gash and bruise of this cut and blow
and protect it against a repetition of them or it cannot
survive. Fortunately we can paralyze the right arm
of our powerful antagonist by hurling against it the
fact that there is no analogy whatsoever between the
conditions which confront a missionary in India and
one in the United States "Black Belt."
It is true that the Caste System is a great hindrance
to the spread of Christianity among the Hindoos,
but, from a missionary point of view, there is very •
little, if anything, in common between the problem
which the antipathies between the several castes
present in India, and the Church extension and
upbuilding problem presented by the race antipathy
which exists in the United States between the Anglo-
American and the Afro-American. For in India, caste
antipathies operate with the result of preventing the
making of converts to Christianity; but in the United
States the race antipathy operates, with the result of
preventing the assimilation by the churches of Negro
converts. When the representatives of the different
social castes of India meet in the Church as converts
70
The Crucial Eace Question
to Christianity the problem has been solved; but when
representatives of the Negro and Caucasian races
meet in the American churches their problem in each
case begins.
Moreover, our problem in the Episcopal Church
is rapidly becoming a two-fold one. We have found
it not only impossible to assimilate our Negro con¬
verts, but it is increasingly difficult to make such
converts. If present conditions are to continue, our
problem in the course of a short time will be solved
in the almost total abandonment of the Church by the
self-respecting Negro who is not "in it for the loaves
and fishes." The only way of preventing this unhappy
solution of the problem is by the creation of an inde¬
pendent, autonomous Afro-American Church, As
matters now stand the Negroes will not come into the
Anglo-American Church in any great numbers and we
cannot assimilate the very few who will come.
Nor will the analogy by which the editor of the
Churchman seeks to discredit the Arkansas plan of
ecclesiastical autonomy for Afro-American Church¬
men stand in the face of the fact that Caucasians and
the inhabitants of India may be said to be kindred
peoples while nothing of the kind can be affirmed of
Anglo-Americans and Afro-Americans. Ethnological
research conclusively proves that the pure Hindoos
and Caucasians originally were members not only
of the Aryan Race, but also of the same family of that
race. They therefore share with us essentially the
same intellectual and moral characteristics. "If," as a
great ethnologist points out, "we style them 'heathen'
we must remember that they are wise and thoughtful
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
71
heathen, armed with science and philosophy far above
our contempt."
But, though, if we go back far enough, it may be
true that the same blood flows in the veins of every
lepresentative of the human race, yet no one will
pretend that between the Afro-American and the
Anglo-American there exists, to even the least degree,
the latent affinities of their kindredship which bring
homogeneity within the range of the remotest possi¬
bilities. On the contrary some Biblical and many
scientific authorities of first rank contend that the
Negro is a Preadamite, and on this ground, some
who, like the editor of the Churchman, object to the
making of a favorable response of any kind to the
appeal of Afro-American Churchmen for Bishops of
their own, are going so far as to maintain that inas¬
much as the Negro has not Adam and Noah as his
progenitors he has no part in the Mosaic and Christian
Covenants, and therefore Christianity has no mission
to him.
The editor of the Churchman has never given any
intimation of his adherence to the Preadamite point
of view respecting the origin of the Negro, and yet,
it is really the only ground that one who is against a
favorable reply to the appeal of Afro-Americans for
the Episcopate can occupy logically. For surely it will
not be pretended that, if Christianity is ever to take any
deep and permanent root among the Hindoos, it will do
so with an Anglo-Saxon ministry. A native ministry
for India is universally acknowledged to be an ultimate
necessity. And yet, the affinity of racial kindredship
between us is such that an Anglo-Saxon ministry
72
The Crucial Race Question
would stand ten chances of success among the Hindoos
to one among the Negroes between whom and us there
is no such affinity to mitigate racial antipathy. It is
tiue that Hindoos and Caucasians are separated by
thousands of miles of space and by widely different
civilizations, which have been growing apart for three
thousand years, but the radical geneological, physical,
mental and institutional differentiations between
Anglo-Americans and Afro-Americans constitute a
spiritual separation, which is ten times, yes, a thousand
times, greater than any which exists between one
Aryan family and another.
II
The editor of the Churchman is against, while
the editor of the Church Standard is for, a favorable
response to the appeal of Afro-American Churchmen.
The two editors have had quite a controversy about
the tenability of their respective positions. Both are
great philosophers, but unfortunately neither the one
nor the other is missionary enough to see that prac¬
tically they occupy the same ground; for the "one
Bishop, or at the most the two experimental Negro
Bishops" advocated by the editor of the Church
Standard would be worth just about as much to the
cause on behalf of which Afro-Americans are appeal¬
ing to the General Convention, as the "no Negro
Bishop" advocated by the editor of the Churchman.
If we are to create to any practical purpose, a Negro
Episcopate of any kind, suffragan, missionary or
autonomous, we must start it off with a college of at
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
73
/east three Bishops for the South and one Bishop for
the North and the number of Southern Bishops must
be increased by at least an average of one every year
during the next decade. Let us not begin to build
unless we count the cost and are prepared to go ahead
with the structure.
The editorials of the Church Standard relating to the
appeal of Afro-American Churchmen for Bishops and
Jurisdictions of their own have been numerous and,
from a theoretical point of view, they are very strong.
The Church Standard has always enjoyed an enviable
reputation on account of its editorials, a reputation
which it seems likely to sustain notwithstanding the
lamented death of Doctor John Fulton, its brilliant
and versatile founder. Five of Doctor Fulton's artis¬
tically superb editorials, in which he did some of the
best work of his life, have been reprinted and widely
circulated under the title, "The Church and the
Negro." These editorials have had a great influence
in moulding opinion in the Church in favor of a Negro
Missionary Episcopate.
They no doubt had much to do in bringing about
the remarkable action of the Diocese of Pennsylvania
which has to be reckoned with in this discussion. That
Diocese is the greatest "Missionary force" in the
United States, and naturally it takes a lively interest
in the appeal of Afro-American Churchmen for Mis¬
sionary Bishops and Jurisdictions of their own. Its
Philadelphia Clerical Brotherhood is probably both
the largest and ablest association of Anglo-Catholic
Clergymen, with weekly meetings, in the world. It
has discussed this appeal thoroughly. The Convention
74 The Crucial Race Question
of that Diocese has among its lay members some most
eminent philanthropists and at least one ecclesiastical
canonist of first rank. This Convention at its last
session heard and carefully considered the report on
the appeal of our colored brethren by a large repre¬
sentative committee appointed at the previous session,
the members of which had divided the work connected
with the gathering of the information and the forma¬
tion of the report among sub-committees, all of whom
labored assiduously throughout the year.
This exceptionally competent and painstaking com¬
mittee reported almost unanimously in favor of grant¬
ing the appeal and, as might be expected, we have in
its report at once the most complete data and the
strongest arguments that ever have or ever can be
presented on behalf of the affirmative of this crucial
question. The report will have and, considering its
source, it ought to have, a great deal of influence upon
the thought of the Church and the action of the
General Convention. To my mind the facts and argu¬
ments which are submitted for the purpose of proving
the necessity of racial Bishops for the work of the
Church among Afro-Americans are conclusive and I
shall be surprised if there is much more discussion on
that part of the question. Dr. Fulton was a member
of this committee. He had the data collected by it
before him while writing his editorials and he made
the most of it. This being the case, in answering his
skillfully put arguments in so far as they are in favor
of racial Missionary Bishops and logically against an
Autonomous Episcopate, we at the same time shall also
nullify the corresponding parts of the great report
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
75
presented to the Pennsylvania Convention by its Com¬
mittee.
The argument of the editor of the Church Standard
in favor of a Missionary and against an Autonomous
Episcopate will be summed up fairly and correctly, I
think, if he be represented as briefly stating his thesis
in the following two assertions: (i) The Negro's
moral condition is largely due to the fact that he is
left to himself in the independent Methodist and
Baptist Churches, and (2) the Episcopal Church, by
reason of the fact that no separation in ecclesiastical
organization has taken place between the whites
and the blacks, has done much for the Negroes who
are identified with her and is in position to do a work
for the evangelization and elevation of the whole Afro-
American population which no other body of Chris¬
tians in this country can hope to do so well.
1. I need hardly remind the considerate reader that
the treatment which will be given here to these compre¬
hensive assertions is necessarily of a preliminary char¬
acter; nor ask him to look in other connections for a
more detailed and complete answer to the sweeping
objections which are raised upon them against our
proposition to complete the drawing of our ecclesias¬
tical Color-Line by the creation of an autonomous
Afro-American Episcopate.
I agree in the conclusion that the moral con¬
dition of the Negro would be greatly improved by
the establishment of a closer relationship between him
and the good white people of the South, but my
contention is that the gulf deplored can be bridged
only by the drawing of a complete and impassable
76 The Crucial Eace Question
Color-Line about our social, political and religious
institutions.
Before the emancipation the relationship between
the people of the South was very much closer and,
from a moral point of view, the average Negro was
better than he is now. These are undisputed facts.
But the supposition that the salutary relationship
which existed in slavery times was in any way to any
degree connected with anything resembling the eccle¬
siastical unity now existing between colored and
white churchmen is, I believe, fundamentally wrong.
Nor does this unity, in my judgment, afford ground
for congratulation and hopefulness on the part of
either race concerned. For in reality there is no
resemblance between that relationship and this unity,
because the one was due to a most complete drawing
and recognition of the Color-Line, while the other
is accounted for by a partial, and so far as the white
people of the South are concerned, an intolerable
breaking down of that line.
Previous to the war, colored Churchmen had no offi¬
cial representation in any Southern Parish or Diocese.
Their relationship to white Churchmen was that of
religious wards, and they were ministered to by white
pastors. But, since then, a colored Priesthood has
arisen, and with it arose an official relationship and a
consequent disregard of the Color-Line. This has so
changed the situation as to make it wholly unlike
that which previously existed.
I am not contending that a continuation of the
relationship of colored and white Churchmen in ante¬
bellum days is possible or even desirable in these
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
77
post-bellum times. On the contrary, I believe that
the civil emancipation of the Negro necessarily carried
with it religious emancipation. And I do not hesitate
to go further and say that emancipation, whether civil
or religious, presupposes the right and imposes the
duty of self-government.
The issue of the Revolutionary War gave our
emancipated fathers the right, indeed it imposed upon
them the necessity of assuming the responsibility of
both civil and religious government. But, in the case
of a people situated as the Negro was and is, the
exercise of this right is inseparably dependent upon an
exodus. When the Negro became free he had a right
to leave the United States as the Israelites left Egypt
and to govern himself; but, if he remained in this
country he had no right to civil self-government. It
is indeed true that the party in power at the time of
the emancipation tried by legal enactments to give the
Negro the right to self-government without an exodus,
but their laws were annulled by a law of nature which
requires either a conquest or a going out as a pre¬
requisite on the part of any enslaved people who would
govern themselves.
What is true in respect to the necessity of an
exodus or a conquest in the case of slaves who would
govern themselves in civil affairs is equally true of
religious self-government. A pre-requisite of self-
government in any sphere is an exodus or a conquest.
Without an exodus or a conquest there can be no more
of self-government for the Negro in the Church than
in the State. In either case, if he remains, any effort
to take a part in the government means trouble and
78 The Ceucial Race Question
a widening of the breach between him and the white
man. The Negro may continue to live in the United
States and he may continue to live in the Episcopal
Church; but by a law of political and ecclesiastical
economy which is as immutable as the law of gravi¬
tation by which the relationship of the bodies which
make up the universe is governed, he can never be
more than a nominal citizen of our country or a
nominal member of our Church: In other words,
without an exodus or a conquest the emancipation so
far as the exercise of the right of self government in
State or Church is concerned has been and, in the
nature of things, must continue to be, a failure.
2. We come now to the second contention of the
advocates for a continuation of the present order of
things which is based upon the assumption that by
reason of the fact that no separation has taken place
in the ecclesiastical organization, the Episcopal Church
has done much for the Negroes who are identified
with her and is in position to do a work for the
evangelization and elevation of the whole Afro-Amer¬
ican people which no other body of Christians in this
country can hope to do as well.
There is much truth in this representation, but
what there is of it is not correctly accounted for. The
Church has retained its Negro membership, or rather
some of the best of it. She has had a remarkable
influence for good over that membership; and she
could do more than any other religious body towards
the moralization of our Afro-American population.
All this and perhaps even much more is quite true of
tfie Episcopal Church and the Negro.
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
79
But we claim and believe that our contention is
substantiated by the facts in the case, that the con¬
tinuance of our colored brethren among us and our
comparatively good influence over them are due to
the Church's superior system of teaching and to her
conservative influence which carried the conditions
of the old regime further into the new than was done
by say the Baptists and Methodists. It certainly is
not due in the least degree to any part which Negroes
have taken in the government of the Episcopal Church,
and if the prospects of the usefulness of the Church
to the Afro-American are dependent upon his taking
an increased part in her government they are very
slim. Indeed all the facts as well as all the philosophy
bearing upon the question, point to the conclusion that,
as matters now stand, in proportion as Negro Church¬
men meddle with the Church's government her spread
among and influence upon Afro-Americans will be
checked.
Thus from every point of view the conclusion is
forced upon us that if the Episcopal Church is to
make any great contribution to the evangelization and
elevation of the Afro-American he must either give up
all effort at ecclesiastical self-government or he must
go out from us. If it were felt by both white and black
Churchmen possible and desirable to restore ante¬
bellum conditions in the Church, our Afro-American
brethren might remain with us to our mutual good;
but such a restoration is not thought by anybody to
be within the range of either possibilities or desira¬
bilities, and this being the case there is no rational
80
The Crucial Race Question
course for us to pursue but to give them an autono¬
mous Episcopate and let them go. Things being as
they are there must be in Negro Churchmen a repeti¬
tion of the history of the Israelites in an exodus.
The idea that separation means neglect is not
necessarily true. On the contrary, I am convinced thai
white Baptists and Methodists do a great deal more
for colored Baptists and Methodists than white
Churchmen do for colored Churchmen. When I had
$650.00 with which to extend and develop the Church
among the Negroes in Arkansas the colored Baptists
had $14,000 for the same work. The neglect of
colored people by white Churchmen, under present
conditions, is astonishing and shameful to a high
degree. The largest amount that we have ever spent
in one year for the widening and deepening of the
Church's influence among them was two-thirds of a
cent per capita! Surely no one will argue seriously
that there would be any more of financial neglect under
a regime of real Negro ecclesiastical autonomy than
there has been under his sham participation in our
government.
In Arkansas we have had practical autonomy for
two years. Under the old regime we spent $650.00
upon the work of the Church among Negroes and it
was all we needed; under the new we are spending
$7,000, and we could use three times this amount to
a great and good purpose. I am fully persuaded that
something like this change would take place in every
Southern Diocese within two years after the conse¬
cration of a sufficient number of autonomous Bishops.
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
81
It may be said that the general adoption of the plan
now in operation in Arkansas would be all that would
be necessary to bring about this happy result; but such
would not prove to be the case because the Arkansas
plan is built upon the hope that colored Churchmen
are soon to have Bishops of their own.
In conclusion let me say the only argument worthy
of much serious consideration which can be opposed to
the Arkansas solution of our problem is the one based
upon the assumption that Afro-American Churchmen
are not as yet sufficiently developed morally and intel¬
lectually to make it safe to give them the Episcopate.
Personally, I do not believe this can be shown to be the
case, but if the opposers of autonomy succeed in mak¬
ing good their contention, then, I shall be compelled to
go over to the ground occupied by the Bishop of
Alabama and help him in his earnest contention that,
pending the further development of Afro-Americans,
we should cease the ordination of Negroes to the
Diaconate and Priesthood. If the Church is to act
wisely it must either go back to his position or come
forward to mine. Our positions though separated as
widely as the East is from the West, are yet in one
all-important matter essentially the same. We both
recognize the absolute, indispensable necessity of
drawing the ecclesiastical Color-Line. Though there
is a gulf between us it is yet possible for him and me
to stand united on the Color-Line question. This,
in reality, is the crucial, the burning, the only real
question before the Anglo-American Church at this
time. Either he or I may be right or wrong on the
subsidiary question upon which we differ as to
whether or not there shall be, by the creation of an
82
The Ceucial Eace Question
autonomous Afro-American Episcopate and Church,
a favorable response to the appeal of our colored
brethren, but there is no ground between us that can
be occupied by those who favor Missionary or Suf¬
fragan Negro Bishops; for we are separated by a gulf,
and those who try to walk between us are "in the
air,"—perilously so.
Ill
The editor of The Living Church is on the
fence with an inclination to get down on the side
of those who are in favor of creating some type of the
Episcopate for Afro-American Churchmen. So far
as he has given expression to any preference, it has
been in favor of the Suffragan type. He, like the other
editors, has no patience with the "Autonomous" idea!
The Suffragan Bishops toward which the Living
Church is inclined, would supply a great need
of the Church in her work among widely diver¬
sified peoples of the same race, but it would
be no good in the case of a population composed
of different races. The Suffragan Episcopate is an
institution admirably adapted to Northern Dioceses,
having a conglomerate population so far as it is made
up of different families of the same race which are
being assimilated by the dominant or national part of
the family. Such Dioceses need two or more Bishops
of the same race, and such Bishops would have enough
in common to enable them to work together to some
great and lasting purpose. But the Suffragan Episco¬
pate will not do at all for the Southern Dioceses hav¬
ing a population of two unmixed and unmixable races.
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
83
In the majority of cases there is no need of Suffragan
Bishops in Southern Dioceses because the Christian
White people are so generally of the same family and
the comparatively very few representatives of other
families are absorbed so rapidly. But throughout
the South there are many Jews and there is a great
Negro population. If the Church wants to do any
work for the Jews or the Negroes the only way in
which it can be accomplished is by the creation of
Israelo-American and Afro-American Episcopates.
The only purpose which a Suffragan Episcopate could
serve would be the making of Anglo-American Church¬
men out of the Germans, Swedes and other kindred,
assimilable peoples. Where there are enough of
such to make it worth the while, as in Texas, Suffragan
Bishops would do a good assimilating work.
Suffragans are essentially and only assimilators and
this being the case, they would have no mission to the
Jew or to the Negro parts of a Southern population,
for neither of these can ever be assimilated and made
into Anglo-American Churchmen. If they become
Churchmen they must in the nature of things, become
Israelo-American Churchmen and Afro-American
Churchmen. If we will not make it possible for them to
become racial Churchmen we might as well give up all
work among them; for it has become perfectly certain
that they will not come into our Anglo-American
Church, and that if they were to come in any great
numbers we would not know what to do with them.
They would be as much of a menace to the peace and
prosperity of the Church as the "undigested securi¬
ties," to which Mr. Pierpont Morgan has called atten¬
tion, are to the financial stability of the country.
84
The Crucial Race Question
Next to the Arkansas Plan of answering the Appeal
of the Conference of Church Workers among Colored
people, the Suffragan idea is to my mind the best solu¬
tion of the problem presented by the Appeal. For it
takes into account the important factor of race antipa¬
thy. But unfortunately for this suggestion, such racial
antipathy is about the only factor of the problem that it
does cover at all, and even here the covering is alto¬
gether insufficient for the beds which it is intended to
furnish. It fits out the Southern Anglo-American
Churchman's bed pretty well, but there is nothing left
for the Afro-American's bed. In fact a Suffragan Epis¬
copate without representation would not give him any
covering or bed either, and so there would be nothing for
him to do but to keep on his rags, throw himself down
on the floor at the foot of the White man's bed with his
head towards the fire in the grate. This is what he
has been doing all along, but he is getting tired of it.
He wants an ecclesiastical bed of his own.
I cannot and do not blame the Afro-American
Churchman for his aspiration. It is perfectly natural
that he should want some comfortable ecclesiastical
clothing and a well-furnished bed like other people.
The fault I have to find with him is that, through "the
Missionary" Episcopate with representation in the
General Convention, the Afro-American Churchman is
trying to appropriate the Anglo-American's clothing
and to get into bed with him. If all our Afro-Amer¬
ican Churchmen lived in Boston, perhaps this proposed
sharing of the ecclesiastical bed would work, but it
will not be allowed anywhere south of the Mason and
Dixon line. White Churchmen down here "kick" every
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
85
time a Colored Churchman gets up from the fire place
at the foot of the bed and tries to get into that bed. If
the Negro should become persistent the kicking be¬
comes correspondingly vigorous, and if the Negro gets
in one side the White man gets out on the other, and
lies down on the hearth with his feet to the fire.
Birds of different feather fly apart almost as natur¬
ally as birds of the same feather flock together. The
law of segregation which is so observable in the lower
spheres of animal life works with an intensified force
as the scale of existence is ascended. This being the
case, it is unreasonable to expect White and Black
peoples who are in other respects so widely differ¬
entiated that the representatives of the one naturally
lie with their heads to the fire, while those of the
other as naturally turn their feet towards it would
get along very well in the same ecclesiastical bed.
Thus if the Negro were to get into our ecclesiastical
bed, not only would he push us out but he would turn
the bed around so that the head would be towards the
fire. That would, among other things, render necessary
a radical change in our theology! Respecting this
encroachment upon, and use of our ecclesiastical bed,
Southern Churchmen agree with the Tennessee
mountaineer, who after hearing a Baptist preacher dis¬
course fervidly on the everlasting tortures of hell pro¬
tested : "I tell you, sir, the people won't stand it!"
I am not among those who sneeringly charac¬
terize the Negro as an "upstart," because he wants to
get up from the hearth and to get out of his rags into
suitable clothing and a comfortable ecclesiastical bed.
86
The Crucial Eace Question
It is inevitable that this perfectly natural desire should
develop with those who are making progress in the
way of civilization and I honor those who have mani¬
fested it in their appeal. But nothing can be done in
the direction of gratifying this commendable desire
unless we give much more than is asked for. The
great law of segregation being what it is and operating
as it does, I see that it is in the nature of things impos¬
sible that Afro-American Churchmen and Anglo-
American Churchmen should occupy the same ecclesi¬
astical bed and that, this being the case, it is wrong
for the Southern Negro to try to get into our bed or
for the Northern White man to allow him to do so.
He must have his own bed. That is all there is of it.
A "Missionary" Episcopate with "representation" in
the General Convention is therefore out of the ques¬
tion, because it would put birds of different feather
and birds which turn their heads in different directions
in the same nest.
Nor will the Suffragan Episcopate give Afro-
American Churchmen what they want, and what I
honor them for wanting, a comfortable ecclesiastical
bed. In fact such an Episcopate will not do anything
for them except to make them worse off than they are
now by denying them the privilege of lying on the
warm hearth at the foot of the White man's bed. A
racial ecclesiastical bed is inseparably connected with
a racial ecclesiastical Episcopate. The "Missionary"
Episcopate with "representation" in the General Con¬
vention scheme would give Afro-American Church¬
men a precarious place on the outer edge of the White
man's bed, but the Suffragan Episcopate scheme
Answers to Adverse Criticisms 87
would not give him the requisite bedstead and cloth¬
ing for a bed. A real Racial Episcopate is an impossi¬
bility without independence. There would be partial
independence in the proposed representative Mission¬
ary Episcopate but not at all in the suggested non-
representative Suffragan Episcopate. This form of
the Episcopate was not intended to give an inde¬
pendent Episcopate to a widely differentiated race. It
was not intended in theory, and it is impossible in fact,
to give an independent Episcopate to any class of
Christians through Suffragan Bishops. A normal
Suffragan Bishop with representation stands for no
more in the way of independence than an Archdeacon,
and an abnormal Suffragan Bishop without representa¬
tion would not stand for nearly as much independence.
The non-representative Suffragan scheme would not
get rid of the ecclesiastical monstrosity of "a black
body with a white head."
Moreover, if we create the Suffragan form of the
Episcopate at all we shall, undoubtedly, in the near
future have two classes of Suffragan Bishops, White
and Black. The White Suffragans would certainly be
represented in our Diocesan Conventions and probably
they would be given seats in the House of Bishops
without a vote. Anyhow they would be eligible for
election to the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies
so that they would be sure to be in one or the other
House of the General Convention. But the Colored
Suffragans would not be represented in any way in
either the Diocesan or General Conventions. A Negro
Suffragan Episcopate would therefore be nothing
88
The Crucial Eace Question
more or less than a side-tracked Jim Crow, Ecclesi¬
astical car and besides it soon would be an "empty,"
for Afro-American Churchmen would fall over each
other in getting out of it.
No other and better way for further enfeebling and
demoralizing the Negroes who have been with hope
long deferred, waiting for our Church to come to their
rescue, could be devised than the creation of a Negro
Suffragan Episcopate with no authority, no rights,
no privileges. There is no way out of the difficulty with
honor to all, but to grant the appeal of Negro Church¬
men as it stands, or to decline it. In declining it, how¬
ever, we should generously offer something better both
for them and for us. We should give them an Auton¬
omous Church which will afford them the opportunity
for self-government and ecclesiastical development.
The Editor of the Living Church is very apt to ask,
how about the Catholicity and the Unity of the Church?
I very much fear that Schism is the Banquo's ghost of
the Living Church's Editor, which will give him no rest
while he remains a Broad Churchman touching the
great question of racial Bishops now before the Church
And so I take time by the forelock and answer his
question in advance by asking another: How can there
be a schism, a separation, where, in reality, there is no
unity? Between the colored and white races there is not
and in the nature of things there cannot be, anything
like the unity that our "Catholic" brethren are thinking
of, any more than there can be such unity between
sheep and deer. There may be a good deal of spiritual
unity between sheep and deer, but, as they do not
naturally herd together, there cannot be said to be any
Answers to Adverse Criticisms
89
schism between them when, in the pasture or corral,
they gravitate each kind to themselves.
Even among the same species of animals different
varieties or breeds manifest a strong tendency to con¬
sort together. Owing to this natural disposition there
is very little of social comity between St. Bernard
dogs and rat-terriers. If dogs had any organizations
corresponding to State or Church, how absurd it
would be for some Republican or Catholic-minded dog
to set up a howl against the sin and danger of schism
because the rat-terriers and the Newfoundlands mani¬
fested a preference for Kings and Bishops of their
own breed.
Bees and ants are said to have queens. Think of a
swarm of honey-bees choosing a bumble-bee for its
queen, or a hill of black ants elevating a white or
red ant to their throne. But to expect honey-bees
to be satisfied with bumble-bee or black ants with
white ant queens would be about as reasonable as to
expect Afro-American Churchmen to be satisfied with
Anglo-American Bishops.
It would contribute greatly to the peace of mind of
the "Catholics" who are troubled by the constant fear
of schism, if only they would take a more philosophical
view of the fact that it is just as natural for Afro-
Americans and Anglo-Americans to have their own
hives as it is for bumble-bees and honey-bees, and
for black ants, red ants and white ants, to have
separate hives and hills. Moreover "Catholics" should
more deeply consider the fact that if bumble-bees
and honey-bees, black ants, red ants and white
ants were crowded together physically into one hive or
90 The Crucial Race Question
hill they would be separated spiritually much more
widely than if they occupied separate hives and hills.
Spiritual unity, "the communion of Saints," is the
essential thing in Christian unity and this necessary
unity would, in the case of Afro-American and Anglo-
American Churchmen, be hindered rather than pro¬
moted by longer compelling both to live together in
one ecclesiastical hive. Let us then give these black
bees a hive of their own and then there will be "some¬
thing doing" in the way of honey-making.
The Crucial Race Question
LECTURE II
The Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines
CHAPTER V. "Aunt Susanna" or the Domestic Color-Line.
CHAPTER VI. The Social Color-Line.
CHAPTER VII. The Political Color-Line.
PREFATORY
We are living in an age of science, and therefore he who
advances theories and offers recommendations, in order to secure
a respectful consideration for them must make certain that they
have a sufficiently broad and firm scientific foundation. In this
Lecture, consisting of three chapters, such a foundation is laid
for the Arkansas Memorial to the General Convention respecting
the creation of an autonomous Afro-American Episcopate and
Church.
I am of course aware that this essay, in justification of the
Arkansas Plan and in commendation of it for general adoption
will provoke criticism from both blacks and whites, and inas¬
much as I am primarily concerned with our race problem, so far
as it touches the appeal of Afro-American Churchmen for
Bishops -and Jurisdictions of their own, it will seem to many
that its omission would have strengthened my main argument
by avoiding irrelevant controversial matter and by focusing the
whole attention of the reader upon the real question at issue.
But I feel that an intelligent discussion of, and a wise action
upon, the appeal of our colored brethren, involves a thorough pre¬
liminary consideration of the whole problem from every point of
view. Especially does this appear to be true from the position I
have taken. For, if I were advocating the creation of either the
"Missionary" or "Suffragan" colored Episcopate with "represen¬
tation" in the General Convention, it might be assumed by the
reader that I am opposed to the drawing of the Color-Line at
least so far as ecclesiastical institutions are concerned. But,
inasmuch as a large part of my argument in favor of a wholly
separate, independent and autonomous Negro Episcopate and
Church is based upon the fact that necessarily and rightfully
the Color-Line has been drawn already about our Social and
Political realms, it was highly desirable, if not, indeed, an abso¬
lute necessity, that I should justify what has been done in the
way of Color-Line drawing and use it as a justification of that
which is proposed.
This subject of Color-Line drawing is a very delicate one and
my critics accuse me of not being tactful and considerate enough
in my utterances upon it. But, by way of apology for this seem¬
ingly unpardonable neglect, let me explain that I know by
experience that, speaking generally, Northern people who have
been constantly in mind are not able to receive the truth con¬
cerning the Race Problem to any profit if it is too heavily sugar-
coated. Indeed, in many cases, it is absolutely necessary that
the raw pellets of bitter facts should be administered.
Nevertheless, in the writing of this essay, I have tried to profit
by the criticisms which from time to time have been showered
upon me, and I trust, that I have so far succeeded that now,
nearly all, will give me credit for speaking the truth, as I under¬
stand it, in love.
CHAPTER V
"Aunt Susanna," or the Domestic Color-Line.
On my initial visitation trip through the Diocese
of Arkansas I was entertained by a typical Southern
family. If my memory serves me correctly, and I
counted accurately, it had nine children ranging from
the cooing baby to the young lady of sweet six¬
teen. These, from the youngest to the oldest, were
more or less under the control of "Aunt Susanna."
Indeed this seemed to be true of the parents them¬
selves. I must explain to my Northern readers that
Aunt Susanna was no ordinary personage. She was
an "old black mammy" of the kind that we read about
in the charming stories of Southern plantation life,
in "de good ole times befo' de war." I never could
understand or believe those stories until I had taken
in this family what I may call my First Lesson in the
Great American Race Problem.
No Northern man who takes up his residence in
the South remains long before taking his first lesson
in this problem. I have always congratulated
myself that it was my pleasant lot to begin my educa¬
tion relative to it under the hospitable roof of one of
the loveliest of all the families in the whole extensive
circle of my acquaintance, by witnessing the signs of
mutual affection which existed between the children in
it and that swarthy, wrinkled, homely old Negress.
I could hardly believe my eyes. Sometimes there were
94
The Crucial Race Question
as many as three around her, hugging and kissing her
with as much devotion as at other times they hugged
and kissed their beautiful and charming mother.
And not only did Aunt Susanna receive this treat¬
ment from the children in the most natural, matter-of-
course fashion, but the parents treated her with an
urbane kindness which would have been gratifying to
any near and beloved relative of the family. I could
not help contrasting the treatment that she received
with that which is generally the lot of white servants
at the North. She was serving for love, and she was
getting her pay in good measure, pressed down and
running over. Moreover she knew that when she
could serve no longer she would never want for love
or for the necessities of life as long as a member of
that family lived or had a crust to divide with her.
For some time after taking up my residence in the
South, I felt like a sojourner in a foreign land. Wisely
I determined not to know quite everything about the
unique features of my adopted country until I had
lived amid its strangely new environments for at least
three months! This was a fortunate resolve, for,
otherwise, I should have concluded hastily and
wrongly that here, in this lovely, exemplary Christian
family, was at least one place where the Color-Line
was not drawn. But I have long since learned to
know, that, though I did not see the Color-Line, it
nevertheless existed and was recognized by all con¬
cerned, just as much as it had been when "mammy"
was a slave. The fact that she recognized this line
as clearly since the Emancipation as before, explained
the circumstance that there was no gulf of separation
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 95
between the white people with whom she lived and
herself, or rather it accounts for the fact that the gulf
which naturally and unavoidably exists was bridged
completely.
This, then, was my first lesson in the great and
perplexing Race Problem: In order to bridge the
gulf between the white and colored people of the
South, the Color-Line must be recognized. Much of
my subsequent reasoning and action has been based
upon what I learned in that lesson. I saw at once
dimly, as by star-light, what subsequent observation
and investigation have enabled me to see clearly, as
by the light of the sun at noonday, that the ideal rela¬
tionship of the "old black mammy" to that white
mother and her children, would not, and in the nature
of things could not, exist, but for the recognition of
the Color-Line and all that goes with it.
It is the failure to recognize the Color-Line which,
more than anything else, accounts for the difference
between the relationship of the younger generation
of Negroes to the white people and that of the "old-
time darky" of which Aunt Susanna is a representa¬
tive. This failure also, in a large degree, accounts
for the awful degeneration which has taken place in
the moral and physical condition of the Southern
Negro.
This first lesson led to reflections which in the
course of time developed into the six fundamental
convictions which constitute the thesis of this book:
(i) No race can amount to anything without self-
government. (2) The only realm in which the Negro
in these United States can hope to govern himself is
96
The Crucial Race Question
that of religion. (3) Under present conditions the
American Negro, speaking generally, is degenerating
morally and physically instead of advancing to¬
wards civilization. (4) The Afro-American can be
saved from utter ruin and extinction only by the
bridging of the ever-widening and deepening gulf
which now exists between him and the Anglo-Amer¬
ican. (5) This necessary bridging cannot be done
without the drawing and recognition of the Color-Line
around the Social, Political and Religious Realms, and
(6) the necessity for self-government and for the
bridging of the gulf between Anglo-Americans and
Afro-Americans by the drawing of the Color-Line,
makes it necessary that American Negroes should
have wholly independent or autonomous Churches.
Of course the holding of these convictions forced
upon me the determination to do what I could to create
a separate Diocesan Convocation to which the Min¬
isters and Lay Delegates of the colored Parishes and
Missions should belong, and to exclude them from a
seat and voice in the Diocesan Council. The first step
looking to this separation was taken upon my recom¬
mendation at our 1903 Council, but the goal could not
be reached until 1905. It is, as has been indicated,
my purpose in this book to make it appear that our
great national Church should follow the example of
the little Diocese of Arkansas.
Another thing which I learned in the happy family
of which Aunt Susanna was an important member is
the fact that, quite contrary to the opinion which
prevailed in that part of Ohio from which I came and
in the North generally, the Southern people have a
much deeper interest in, and affection for, the Negro
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 97
than have Northerners. It is indeed true that they
regard themselves as the superior and dominant race,
and that they enforce the recognition of this distinc¬
tion, but they do this in as conciliatory a way as possi¬
ble. And I here want to say with all the emphasis
that I can put into my words, that in the recognition
of this claim, socially, politically and even religiously^
lies the salvation of the colored and the safety of the
white races. He who encourages either the white
man or the black to repudiate and disregard it is an
enemy to both races. There is not the slightest doubt
in my mind that the shocking deterioration of the
American Negro since the war is largely if not indeed
almost wholly due to the influence of scheming poli¬
ticians, and of well-meaning but mistaken philan¬
thropic theorists who have encouraged him to lose
sight of the most salutary and necessary distinctions
made by the Southern people.
The change that has taken place in the relationship of
the races at the South is well illustrated by the recent
experience of the family of which I have been speak¬
ing. Aunt Susanna, on account of age and infirmity,
was obliged about twelve months ago to abdicate her
throne in the kitchen and nursery. She had ruled in
those domains to the great comfort of all her contented
and affectionate subjects since the death of her pre¬
decessor, seventeen years before. Her sway had been
supreme. Indeed so far as the kitchen was concerned
she was as much of a tyrant as was ever a Roman Dic¬
tator or Emperor. She proceeded upon the theory that
"too many cooks spoil the broth" and Miss Ruth,
as she called the mother of the children and the
98 The Crucial Race Question
nominal head of the family, was allowed to enter
that sanctum only upon the rarest occasions as a
special favor. But, within the year since Aunt
Susanna was obliged to abdicate, she has had nineteen
successors, if indeed successors they may be called,
and poor Miss Ruth has spent much of her time
with them in the kitchen!
All the whites and old blacks are agreed that
the true and only explanation of this change is
found in the lamentable degeneration of the
Negro; and at least the Whites are in unity
in the belief that the rapid and portentous de¬
terioration which has taken place in the colored
people since their emancipation is due to false and
unattainable ideals regarding political and social
equality, or in other words, it is due to the disregard
of the Color-Line.
It is highly desirable, if not indeed indispensable,
that there should be made at this point a statement
in unmistakable terms of just what the root of the
whole matter of our race difficulty is. It is simply
this: A disregard of the Color-Line, as it is general¬
ly drawn in the South by either of the races con¬
cerned. It is this disregard by one or the other race
that is the chief cause of all the trouble, that
makes up the whole sad, perplexing problem.
This being the case, it follows as a necessary conclu¬
sion that the solution of this problem, by common
consent the greatest that is likely to confront the
American people in the whole course of the Twentieth
Century, is the drawing and recognition of the Color-
Line by the two races around their respective Social,
Political and Religious realms.
CHAPTER VI
The Social Color-Line.
I
As for the Social Realm, there never was any ques¬
tion among white people in the South and really there
is no longer any question among them at the North as
to whether or not the Color-Line should be drawn.
Practically the Color-Line always has been drawn
about the family and social circles at the North as
well as the South. Before the war, and for some time
afterwards, when there was a great deal of bitterness
and unreasonableness on both sides, some wild North¬
ern theorists maintained that the repugnance of
Southerners to the intermarrying of blacks and
whites was based upon unchristian prejudice, and in
heated controversies foolish parents were heard to
say that, other things being equal, they would as
soon have their daughters marry colored as white
men. Once in a while a fanatic among abolitionist
orators, like Wendell Phillips, would go so far as
actually to recommend the amalgamation of the races
as a duty: "Remember this, the youngest of you," said
Mr. Phillips, "that on the fourth day of July, 1868,
you heard a man say that, in the light of all history,
100
The Crucial Eace Question
in virtue of every page he ever read, he was an
amalgamationist to the utmost extent. I have no hope
for the future, as this country has no past, but in that
sublime mingling of the races which is God's own
method of civilizing and elevating the world."
But all the generation of foolish people who were of
this way of thinking and speaking has died out or is
rapidly doing so, and anyhow they never did practice
the silly and sickening doctrine that they preached.
They were excited controversialists and ravingly
uttered what white people now universally regard as
nonsense. Though Mr. Wendell Phillips was one of
the leading abolitionists with a tremendous following,
and, though he died as late as 1884, he has but few
disciples in our day and they are "Rip Van Winkles,"
who would be hooted to silence were they to attempt
to give expression to their Master's sentiments, even
at the foot of the monument of William Lloyd Garri¬
son in the city of Boston itself.
The strong, irresistible tendency of the God-
implanted race prejudice to assert itself in the draw¬
ing of the Color-Lines is manifested in the change of
sentiment that is taking place even in New England,
as evidenced by the utterances of such representative
men as the Bishop of Massachusetts and President
Eliot, of Cambridge University. The one is the first
man in the religious and the other in the intellectual
metropolis of both American Puritanism and Aboli¬
tionism, and, moreover, both are social aristocrats who
no doubt can trace their lineage through a long line of
the bluest of the blue bloods to ancestors who landed
on Plymouth Rock. These most representative men
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 101
are saying, I heard one of them say, that "the atti¬
tude of a person towards the question of Color-Line
drawing is determined by the number of Negroes in
his community rather than by the location of his
residence, North or South." Both of these dis¬
tinguished men evidently believe, and indeed they
publicly have expressed themselves to this effect,
that existing conditions and tendencies even in Boston
point to a time, which in their judgment is probably
in no very distant future, when segregation in the
churches and schools will have become a recognized
necessity, to such a degree as to make it a political
issue.
Such a confession from such men of such a city in
such a country really leaves nothing to be said by
Southerners in justification of Color-Line drawing.
And if proof were needed to show that these leading
New Englanders know what they are talking about,
and that they correctly represent a widespread and
growing sentiment, it is found in the fact that the
managers of hotels and the keepers of boarding houses
do not fall over each other in a scramble to secure
as their guests distinguished Negroes who come to
Boston Town. Indeed there is an ugly rumor to the
effect that the committee on hospitality for our 1904
General Convention could not get the Bishop of Cape
Palmas into any public lodging place and were obliged
to turn him over to a colored man of wealth who, upon
being told of their embarrassment, offered to relieve
them of it by extending to the Bishop a cordial invi¬
tation to become his guest. This astonishing and,
at least uncharitable, if not slanderous rumor may
102
The Crucial Eace Question
do, probably it does, a great wrong to Bostonian
consistency, and yet, without lifting the veil by a too
careful inquiry from a matter which if found to be true
would cause the illustrious Garrison to turn over in
his grave, I am perfectly convinced that, incredible as
it may seem, it has some slight foundation in actual
fact!
But Northern objectors to Color-Line drawing of
whom there are a few remaining will remind me that,
whatever may have been the case in times gone by,
New York is now in fact as well as in name the
Empire State, and that her great metropolis rather
than that of Massachusetts is really the place in which
the question of Color-Line drawing ultimately will be
settled. She, I will be told, is one of the greatest and
one of the most cosmopolitan among all cities of either
ancient or modern times. And the candid must
confess that there certainly never has been and there
is not now a city on earth which is less a respecter of
persons, than is Greater New York. If proof is desired
for the representation that the spirit of human equal¬
ity has shifted its abode from Boston town to New
York City it will be found in the fact that while the
Commonwealths of New England have been adding
limiting clauses to their franchise enactments, the
Empire State has been passing leveling laws, which
are intended to place all its citizens without respect
of racial, national or other differentiating features
upon the same plane, providing only, that he who
would take advantage of these laws is the fortunate
possessor of a great big, round, shining, silver dollar or
a crisp, green bank note of equal valuation.
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 103
There is some good blood in New York City, as
well as in Boston Town, especially Dutch blood; but
blood in New York does not count for as much as in
Boston. In fact in New York City there is nothing
that counts for much except money. Here perhaps
of all places on this earth the man who has a dollar,
irrespective of other accidental or providential cir¬
cumstances, such as previous condition of servitude,
race or color, might naturally expect a Rooseveltian
"square deal." The spirit of New York City naturally
has permeated the whole State. This is so much the
case that its legislature a few years ago actually
decreed that the managers of hotels, restaurants,
theaters, baths and other places, open for public hospi¬
tality, refreshment and entertainment, should welcome
and treat all alike who had the money to pay for what
they had to offer. Here then the Dollar-Line has been
drawn for the purpose of preventing the drawing of
the Color-Line.
Nevertheless the Color-Line is drawn in New York
City almost as closely as in Massachusetts or even in
Arkansas. For, though a Negro's pockets may be burst¬
ing with the silver dollars that count for so much at the
Metropolis, let him apply for a room at any first-class
hotel and the clerk will tell him "we are full up." He is
hungry and before starting out in the vain search of a
hotel which has unoccupied rooms, he goes with his
bag, umbrella and silk hat in hand to the restaurant,
but he finds all the waiters so busy that they cannot
get to him for a half hour, and when they have
exhausted all excuses for further delay, they serve him
in such a way with such stuff, that he is not very
likely to return for his breakfast.
104
The Crucial Race Question
Under the New York law, which is supposed to pro¬
tect the Negro from Color-Line distinctions in all
public places, representatives of the race have insti¬
tuted and won several suits for damages, but, in spite
of every effort to prevent it, the metropolitan Negro
finds that the Color-Line is being more and more
closely drawn, and that it is becoming increasingly
difficult to cross that line without the most annoying
and humiliating embarrassment.
New York City is the greatest Dollar center in the
world. It is as much of an attraction to the rich as the
magnetic poles are to the needle of the compass. When
a man's purse begins to burst with dollars he almost
resistlessly gravitates to New York. This is equally
true of white, yellow and black people. Yes, New
York is the Mecca of the rich. The richest aggrega¬
tion of colored people in the United States lives in
New York and the richest congregation of colored
Christians in all the world is St. Philip's Episcopal
Church, New York. But the dollars of the members
of this opulent Negro congregation in New York City
where the dollar looms up as far above everything
else as the sky-scraper above the church steeple,
have not prevented the Color-Line from being drawn.
II
Dr. Booker Washington has taken his stand upon
the Dollar-Line, and those whom he serves so well have
founded under the shadow of his name an educational
institution of wonderful dimensions upon the idea that
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 105
if Negroes will acquire the intelligence and the indus¬
trial skill which will enable them to pile up heaps of dol¬
lars all about them, the shimmering of the sun of finan¬
cial prosperity upon them will cause a gradual fading
and ultimate disappearance of the Color-Line. But why
cannot the idealists among our philanthropists who
are so generously backing the people who are so suc¬
cessfully using Dr. Washington see in the light of the
experience of the rich Negroes in the great Dollar
Metropolis that there is nothing under heaven that can
prevent the drawing of the Color-Line or accomplish
the obliteration of it! Everything that the wit of man
could put forward has failed utterly to do this: the
Emancipation, the Fifteenth Amendment, Religion,
Education, and even the almighty dollar. All these
have failed to get rid of the Color-Line and everything
else that may be tried, even a Missionary or Suffragan
Episcopate, will fail. In the very nature of things
there seems to be a law the resistless operation of
which renders it inevitable that an ineradicable and
impassable Color-Line be drawn around our social,
civil and religious institutions.
The attempt is being made just now to prevent the
operation of this natural law, so far as our Anglo-
American Catholic Church is concerned, by the creation
of an Afro-American Missionary Episcopate; but it,
like all other endeavors of a similar kind, is doomed to
failure, as necessarily so as would be any efforts that
men might be foolish enough to make to dam up the
waters of Niagara Falls.
The Anglo-Saxon branch of the Aryan Race is
happily exceedingly jealous of its blood. The Southern
106
The Crucial Eace Question
part of the American branch of our race is especially
guarded against the introduction of Negro blood into
its veins. It is, indeed, true that many Mulatto
children throughout the South bear witness to the
shameful mixture of Anglo-Saxon with African blood,
but they are all born of Negro women by impure
white men who are degenerates. The white women of
the South are pure. They are a high-minded, proud,
spotless race. If they were not this, the Anglo-Saxon
people in America would rapidly degenerate into a low-
grade, mongrel breed, and that would be the end of
American civilization, and the beginning of barbarism.
Among the many remarkable passages in Professor
Smith's scientific work entitled, "The Color-Line" is
one which so strongly supports the position I take
in this lecture and throughout the book that I quote
as much from it as my space will admit of: "It," says
the Professor, "was because the Anglo-Saxon so
cherished this feeling that he refused to amalgamate
with the Indians— a proud, and in some ways superior
race—but drove them relentlessly, and often, it may be,
unrighteously before him into the sea. It was just
because the Spaniard, though otherwise proud enough,
did not cherish this feeling, that he did amalgamate
with the victims of his greed and descend into the
hopeless depths of hybridization.
"Futile is the reply, so often made by our opponents,
that miscegenation has already progressed far in the
Southland, as witness millions of Mulattoes. Cer¬
tainly; but do not such objectors know in their hearts
that their reply is no answer, but is utterly irrelevant?
We admit and deplore the fact that unchastity has
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 107
poured a broad stream of white blood into black veins;
but we deny, and perhaps no one will affirm, that it has
poured even the slenderest appreciable rill of Negro
blood into the veins of the white race. We have no
excuse whatever to make for these masculine incontin-
encies; we abhor them as disgraceful and almost
bestial. But, however degrading and even unnatural,
they in no wise, not even in the slightest conceivable
degree, defile the Southern Caucasian blood. That
blood today is absolutely pure; and it is the inflexible
resolution of the South to preserve that purity, no
matter how dear the cost. We repeat, then, it is not a
question of individual morality, nor even of self-
respect. He who commerces with a Negress debases
himself and dishonors his body, the temple of the
Spirit; but he does not impair, in any wise, the dignity
or integrity of his race; he may sin against himself and
others and even against God, but not against the germ
plasma of his kind.
"Just here we must insist that the South, in this
tremendous battle for the race, is fighting not for her¬
self only, but for her sister North as well. It is a great
mistake to imagine that one can be smutched and the
other remain immaculate. Up from the Gulf regions
the foul contagion would let fly its germs beyond the
lakes and mountains. The floods of life mingle their
waters over all our land. Generations might pass
before the darkening tinge could be seen distinctly
above the Ohio, but it would be only a question of
time. The South alone would suffer total eclipse, but
the dread penumbra would deepen insensibly over all
the continent."
108 The Crucial Eace Question
And Professor Winchell, an equally great scientist,
and perhaps a greater authority upon ethnical ques¬
tions, at the conclusion of a similar noble protest
against the capital crime of miscegenation severely
criticises its advocates and points out that the
examples they give of the benefits of racial amal¬
gamation are inapplicable in the case of inter-mar¬
riage between an Afro-American and Anglo-American
because 'they are not examples of race-mixture, but
only of different family stocks of the white race, and
he observes that the commergence of the white and
the black races in America might promote the advance
of the black race, by annihilating it; "but what," he
indignantly asks, " of the interest of the white race, and
the civilization which it alone has created ? The policy
would set back humanity, so far as America is con¬
cerned, to the position which it occupied before Adam
—before the long struggle of contending forces had
developed a race capable of science and philosophy,
and evolved a civilization to which no other race ever
aspired. It would be to hurl back the ethnic pearls
selected with long-continued labor and risk, into the
all-concealing ocean of humanity."
As the question of miscegenation bears such a close
relation to the subject of this essay and is of such
vital importance to the American people, I shall quote
another eminent authority in support of the contention
upon which so much of our argument is rested. Mr.
James Bryce, the historian, and the author of the
"American Commonwealth," in his 1902 Romanes
Lecture cautiously but significantly says: "Where
two races are physiologically near to one another, the
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 109
result of the intermixture is good. Where they are
remote, it is less satisfactory, by which I mean that
it is not generally and evidently better than the lower
stock. The mixture of whites and Negroes, or of
whites and Hindus, or of the American aborigines and
Negroes, seldom show good results. The hybrid
stocks, if not inferior in physical strength to either
of those whence they spring, are apparently less per¬
sistent, and might—so at least some observers hold—
die out if they did not marry back into one of the
parent races. Usually, of course, they marry back into
the lower.
"The two general conclusions which the facts so far
as known suggest are these: that races of marked
physical dissimilarity do not tend to intermarry, and
that when and so far as they do, the average offspring
is apt to be physically inferior to the average of either
parent stock, and probably more beneath the average
mental level of the superior than above the average
mental level of the inferior. Should this view be
correct, it dissuades any attempt to mix races so
diverse as are the white European and the Negroes.
"The matter ought to be regarded from the side
neither of the white nor of the black, but of the future
of mankind at large. Now for the future of mankind
nothing is more vital than that some races should be
maintained at the highest level of efficiency, because
the work they can do for thought and art and letters,
for scientific discovery, and for raising the standard
of conduct, will determine the general progress of
humanity. If therefore we were to suppose the blood
of the races which are now most advanced to be
The Crucial Eace Question
diluted, so to speak, by that of the most backward,
not only would more be lost to the former than would
be gained to the latter, but there would be a loss,
possibly an irreparable loss, to the world at large
The moral to be drawn from the case of the South¬
ern States seems to be that you must not, how¬
ever excellent your intentions and however admirable
your sentiments, legislate in the teeth of facts."
These representations of scientific men of the
highest class, together with those of the great ethnol¬
ogist, Prof. Keane, who wrote the article "Negro" for
the Encyclopedia Brittannica, should cause every
Anglo-American to thank God daily for the fact that
the law of nature which so severely punishes the cross¬
ing of the Color-Line in the commingling of bloods
has not been broken at all in the South, or to any
noticeable degree in the North, and it should cause the
Negro to institute some effective measure of prevent¬
ing white villains from the further contamination of
his blood. This awful crime of the white man in the
light of all observation means the extinction of the
Negro by a terrible type of murder which destroys
both body and soul. To quote Professor Smith again:
"The general inferiority of mixed stock has passed into
a proverb even in Africa, where it is said: 'A god
created the whites; I know not who created the blacks;
certainly a devil created the mongrels.' "
CHAPTER VII
The Political Color-Line.
I
The question as to whether or not the Color-Line
shall be drawn around the realm of our political insti¬
tution is answering itself. Except during that memor¬
able "reign of terror," euphemistically denominated the
"Reconstruction Period," the Negro never had any
real part with the Anglo-Saxon in the government of
this country. Ever since then the process of elimin¬
ating the Afro-American from even a semblance
of influence and power in politics has been going on;
and there are Northerners, not a few, as well as
Southerners, many of the first rank, who have reached
the firm conviction that it would be for the great good
of both races if this process were completed by the
unconditional repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment, the
enactment of which they believe was a great wrong
to both the whites and blacks, and especially to the
latter.
Throughout the North this Amendment, at the
time of its enactment was generally supposed among
Republicans to be "the Magna Charta of the American
Negro," but, so far, history has shown it to have been
The Crucial Eace Question
rather his "Death Warrant." So evident is this that
many Northern men, Republicans even, and a few
Negroes, both North and South, are seeing and
admitting that as matters now stand, and are likely to
remain for generations, there is absolutely nothing
in politics for the Afro-American except a snare and
a delusion and that, at least for a long time to come,
he will find himself to be leaning upon a broken reed
whenever he tries to make use of it as a staff to help
him up to the higher planes upon which he has fixed
his eyes.
Northern Democrats and Dr. Washington hold out
the prize of membership in our body politic as the
reward to be realized in the more or less distant future
for educational, industrial and commercial achieve¬
ments. But many think that, though this is a much
more refined and plausible error than that for which
the Republican Party, Professor DuBois, and the
majority among Negroes stand it, nevertheless is really
the same fundamental and ruinous error which is the
tap root of all the trouble between the races.
Dr. Washington and Northern Democrats very
clearly show that, under present conditions, the
Republican way of holding out the prize of political
equality is a wrong to the Negro because it cannot be
delivered or attained in that way. Their argument is
that the Republican Party cannot fulfill its promise in
the Fifteenth Amendment, among other reasons,
because it has come widely to be recognized at the
North that the Negro is not yet qualified to take a
helpful part in the political affairs of the country; but
that, when he does become fit to do so, the Democrats,
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 113
North and South, should allow the Republican prize
of Negro Suffrage and even of political dominance,
where the blacks outnumber the whites, to be awarded.
This is a very plausible, misleading and ruinous argu¬
ment which will receive fuller consideration in another
connection; but let me here insist that it is based upon
the false promise of race equality or the disregard of
the Color-Line, and, therefore, there is nothing in it
for the poor Negro but bitter disappointment and
further degradation.
And as a matter of fact there really is no sense in
which Afro-Americans can claim the Fifteenth Amend¬
ment as their Magna Charta, for it was not obtained
in the way that any such bill of rights which has ever
amounted to anything to its possessors was acquired.
The great Declarations of Rights by which English¬
men cast off the yoke of the Roman Papacy and
Americans that of the British Crown were based
upon the determination not to endure further wrong
and the power to resist its continued imposition. But
the Fifteenth Amendment by which the American
Negro claims the right of a share in the government
of these United States does not rest upon the splendid
pillar of the heroic spirit of independence that is
founded upon the rock of intellectual and physical
power. The Negro seems to be sadly lacking in this
spirit and power.
An evidence of the Negro's defectiveness in these
supremely important respects is found in the very
appeal of Afro-American Churchmen with which this
essay is concerned. Imagine, if such a thing is possi¬
ble, a reversal of the relationship which has existed
114 The Crucial Race Question
between the Anglo-American and the Afro-American.
Could it have entered the head of an Anglo-American
Churchman who had been crowded out of the Parochial
and Diocesan organizations of the Afro-American
Church to suggest an appeal for a "Missionary" Epis¬
copate with "representation" in the colored General
Convention? No, indeed; the only thing that could
satisfy Anglo-American Churchmen under such condi¬
tions would have been an exodus. There would
be an imperative demand for Racial Bishops and
freedom to go out and to set up an entirely inde¬
pendent, autonomous Church. I am almost tempted to
contend that a "Missionary" Episcopate should not be
granted to any race, and that the offer of it to any self-
respecting people situated as the Afro-American is
should be regarded as an insult.
Nor will the gaining of the Missionary Episcopate
be to Afro-American Churchmen what the Magna
Charta is to the great Anglo-Catholic Communion of
Christians. The first provision of that renowned docu¬
ment runs "The Church of England shall be free and
hold her rights entire and her liberties inviolate."
Afro-American Churchmen have been humiliated by
Anglo-American Churchmen as Englishmen never
had been by Pope or King and yet there is nothing
like a Magna Charta ring to their appeal to the General
Convention for "Missionary" Bishops with "repre¬
sentation" in the General Convention of Anglo-Amer¬
ican Churchmen. As there has been nothing in the
Fifteenth Amendment but humiliation for the Negro,
so there would be nothing more for him in the granting
of the Episcopate for which he is asking.
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 115
But what will prove conclusively to all candid people
that the Fifteenth Amendment is not in any real and
true sense a Magna Charta, is the fact that it has not
had the effect of a real charter of liberty and was
not designed to have any such effect. Both the Amer¬
ican and English Charters of Liberty had as their
primary object national independence. So much was
this the case with the American Charter that it is
called the Declaration of Independence, and the day
on which it was promulgated is known as Independ¬
ence Day. In the case of England's Charter its key¬
note is a ringing word of the same import as inde¬
pendence, "free." To the English people the Magna
Charta was the banner under which they com¬
menced and continued the glorious battle by which
they freed themselves from the tyranny of Kings and
Popes, and established a constitutional government in
State and Church which has issued in the mightiest
civil and religious empire that the world has ever
known. And to the American Colonists the Declara¬
tion of Independence was the standard around which
they fought and won their freedom from the tyranny
of the mother country and about which they built this
glorious Republic which rivals the Mother herself as
an overshadowing world's power.
Does, then, anybody see the slightest resemblance
between the actual or potential effects of the Fifteenth
Amendment and the great liberty charters of the
Anglo-Saxon peoples? The difference between it and
them, which is as wide as the east is from the west,
appears in the very prepositions which are used in
connection with them. In the case of our charters we
116
The Crucial Eace Question
say freedom "from" enduring something. In the case
of their amendment freedom "to" do or be something.
Again the difference of which we are speaking
appears perhaps even more significantly in the verbs
that are used in references to the foundations upon
which the Anglo-Saxon liberty charters and the Afro-
American franchise Amendments respectively rest.
The Charters stand for liberties that were won by
patriotic peoples that were of one heart and mind, the
Amendments for "privileges" that were "given" by a
scheming political party. There is, then, at the
bottom, nothing in common, absolutely nothing,
between the Fifteenth Amendment and the great
Charters of Liberty which indicate the steep, rough
and blood-stained roads by which the Anglo-Saxons
have reached the highest planes and mountain peaks of
civilization and power that have so far been scaled and
occupied.
The South as well as the North is the White Man's
Country. There is a great deal of real, deep philos¬
ophy in this assertion which is so often on the lips of
Southerners when their right to the exclusive handling
of the political reins is questioned by Northerners.
The black man, owing to. the inevitable influence of
what is known as race prejudice or pride must always
be content with political insignificance.
Not only can the Negro never secure a firm foothold
in American politics, but unless he altogether with¬
draws from the political field soon and permanently,
he must, slowly perhaps, but, nevertheless, surely,
perish from among us. For if he does not take his
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 117
eyes away from the false ideals which mistaken phil¬
anthropists and scheming politicians are holding up
before him, he will lose his place in the industrial
field of the South, and then he will go the way of the
"Poor Indian." The chief reason why the American
Indian is dying out, or at least sinking into utier
insignificance, is to be found in the fact that he will not
work. The Negro has fared better than the Indian
because, and only because, he has worked more, and
therefore has had a greater industrial value; but indus¬
trially, as in some other important respects, speaking
generally, he, as we have seen, is degenerating. If this
degeneration continues, there is no future for him as a
race in this country, and it will continue as long as he
seeks political, or social, or ecclesiastical equality.
The rapidly developing new South requires a new
and better labor, new and better as to both skill and
reliability. The Negro labor today is neither skilled
nor reliable enough to hold its own, and it will never
become so until the Negro directs his attention away
from the higher educational and political fields and
turns it chiefly towards the industrial field.
For the sake of giving greater emphasis to the funda¬
mental truth upon which I am here dwelling, a truth
which is the basis of much of my argumentation in
favor of an autonomous Negro Episcopate, suppose we
admit that the Afro-American is making all the pro¬
gress in education and thrift of which Doctors Wash¬
ington and DuBois tell us: nevertheless if he does
not give up politics, it will turn out to be only
another way to his destruction. For, I reiterate, the
South is a White Man's Country, and that is true in
118 The Crucial Race Question
even those sections where there is only one white
man to ten colored men. There is scarcely a white
man in the South, even though he be of Northern
birth and a Republican, who would not shed his
blood rather than to see the Negro dominate again in
politics. Therefore, if education and wealth really are
being acquired rapidly and generally by the Southern
Negro, and if the acquisition of them is to lead to
any serious attempt to carry out Booker Washington's
program of political equality, to say nothing about Pro¬
fessor DuBois' program of social equality, there is a
race conflict brewing which will ultimately issue in his
extermination. For the American Negro all political
equality and social equality roads will sooner or later
be found to lead to the Rome of his destruction.
Race prejudice being a deep-rooted, God-implanted
instinct, it is inevitable that either the white or the
black race will ultimately occupy the political field of
this country to the practical exclusion of the other. If
the black race were more nearly the equal of the white
in numerical, physical and intellectual strength, the
question of political dominance in the United States,
human nature being what it is, would no doubt be
settled in the end by the issue of a sanguinary
struggle; but as the races are so unequal in the vari¬
ous elements of dominating power, it will, I am thank¬
ful to say, never come to that. But I can clearly see
that unless the Fifteenth Amendment is repealed, or
at least by common consent annulled, there is a great
deal of trouble ahead for this and future generations.
God grant to both races wise leaders who will guide
our feet respectively in the paths of uprightness and
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 119
peace and in the way of accomplishing Plis blessed
designs for both His black and His white children.
II
Afro-Americans are in great need of a Moses who
will take their mind away from Anglo-Saxon ideals
and lead them to the realization of their own racial,
social, political and religious ideals. Such a leader
has not yet appeared. Hence the existence of the
American Race Problem. When he does appear,
that problem will be solved and not until then. Some
think that Washington, others that DuBois is the
much needed Moses, but neither is destined to be an
universal leader.
Doctor Booker T. Washington, of Tuskegee, and
Professor DuBois, of Atlanta, the authors respectively
of "The Future of the American Negro," and "The
Souls of the Black Folk," and the joint authors of
"The Negro in the South," are undoubtedly the lead¬
ing Negroes of this country and generation, at least
they are popularly so regarded. Both of these men are
scholars, educators, writers and orators, who are a credit
to their race. But both are Anglo-American "White-
washers," not Afro-American "Artists." Their precepts
are written in the sand with a reed, not by the finger
of God on tables of stone.
Washington and DuBois are generally supposed to
represent radically different political programs for
their people, and a difference there undoubtedly is
both ip the goal that is held up for realization and
120
The Crucial Race Question
especially in the way that is pointed out for the reach¬
ing of it; but the diversity is not nearly so great as is
commonly supposed. So far as the goal to be reached
is concerned, Dr. Washington recommends colored
people to be content with the dream of ultimate polit¬
ical equality with white people, and to abandon the
hope of social equality. Prof. DuBois more frankly
advises his people to be satisfied with nothing short of
the vision of political equality, plus social equality
and the final coalescence of the races ! To my mind the
Professor is only a little more logical, consistent and
frank than the Doctor, and he has learned more of his¬
tory, so that he knows, what his rival does not know
or confess, that political equality inevitably leads to
social equality and intermarriage.
The most notable among the Republics of Antiquity
were those of Athens and Sparta and they were not in
either case built upon the foundation of universal
suffrage. On the contrary none but citizens could
vote, and only he who was admitted to be of pure
Athenian or Spartan descent could enjoy the highly
prized benefits of citizenship in the nation to which
he belonged. It may be said of both of these people,
that almost their very first concern was the purity of
their blood and, though they took widely different
measures to prevent its contamination, they were
equally and remarkably successful. It was almost
impossible for any foreigner even though a Greek to
become a citizen in either of these States.
History in the case of both the Greek and Roman
republics shows that Political and Social equality go
hand in hand, and it could not be otherwise than true
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 121
of this republic, if more than nominal citizenship
really were accorded to the Negro. As a matter of
actual fact in sections of the country where the validity
of the Fifteenth Amendment really is recognized, mis-
regeneration is already taking place.
Ill
In conclusion I desire to state and answer two or
three criticisms that have been received from eminent
Northern gentlemen bearing upon this Lecture, espec¬
ially the last Chapter of it.
i. One of my critics says, "You maintain that the
Negro is not fit and never can be made fit for political
self-government, and yet you contend that in an auton¬
omous church he would learn and exercise that degree
of self-government which is an indispensable pre-requi-
site of racial development and greatness. You admit,
then, in one breath that the Negro is capable of gov¬
erning himself as an Afro-American Christian, and
in the next breath you deny his ability for such gov¬
ernment as an Afro-American citizen. Bishop, if you
can show that this is not a contradiction verging upon
the reductio ad absurdum I shall be, notwithstanding
my strong bias in favor of the doctrine of political
equality, almost persuaded that your position is ten¬
able and shall begin the preparation of the way for
coming over to your side with what grace I can."
To this well put and plausible objection to my repre¬
sentation that the Negro can govern himself in the
ecclesiastical realm, while he cannot do so in the poli¬
tical realm, I will explain that I have nowhere in this
essay undertaken to show that the Negro is not fit
122 The Crucial Eace Question
at present or cannot become fit in the future to exer¬
cise the right of the franchise. My argument is not
hinged upon the question of fitness but of ability. I
am quite willing to grant that the Negro knows how to
vote wisely or at least that in the course of time he
may learn to do so, but I cannot concede that the day
has or ever will come when he will be in position to
render effective any expression of his will through the
ballot. To cast a vote is one thing and to make it
count is a very different thing.
An unified and stable Democratic government cannot
be made up of two races because in such a govern¬
ment there would be opposing forces which would
constantly be making for irreconcilable division; and
we have it upon high authority that a house so divided
against itself cannot stand. If, therefore, the Fifteenth
Amendment were operative the Afro-American and
Anglo-American would be in constant competition for
political supremacy and this would soon take the form
of a race conflict which would be disastrous to one
or the other of the races.
Fitness for political self-government depends upon
natural endowments, artificial acquirements, and also
upon relationships or environments. In this discussion
I do not approach very closely the delicate question as
to whether or not the Afro-American is fitted by
natural endowment to take his stand by the side of the
Anglo-American in the government of this country.
This is a matter of opinion or perhaps conceit which
only the future can settle; and I have avoided any
examination of it beyond what was necessary to show
by the citation of competent testimony that the issue of
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 123
amalgamation would be a new race inferior to both
the Anglo-American and Afro-American.
Our chief concern is with the second question, and
in its two-fold aspect it is this: is the Afro-American
the equal of the Anglo-American in artificial acquisi¬
tions, and if not, will he be allowed to become an equal
in this respect?
As to the first inquiry of this double question there
is not, so far as I am aware, any difference of opinion
among either whites or blacks, and it therefore need not
detain us except for the observation that, since civili¬
zation is measured by artificial acquisitions and since
the Afro-American is by the common consent of both
races so far behind the Anglo-American in their pos¬
session, he needs help. Fortunately the Anglo-Ameri¬
can is perfectly willing to help the Afro-American, the
Southerner no less than the Northerner, providing
that the Negro acknowledges his need of help and
providing also that the Negro does not aspire and
attempt to become a rival.
It is with the Anglo-American and the Afro-Ameri¬
can as with the giant and the pigmy and there is no
question in anybody's mind which is the giant as mat¬
ters now stand with the races. For the sake of argu¬
ment, it may, at least tentatively, be admitted that there
is a possibility of the Negro becoming a rival giant,
but all will agree that he is at present far from being
this. The strong are naturally chivalric. A man who is
conscious of superior strength is always willing to
help one who is comparatively weak, and it is happily so
in the case of races. But if the pigmy "swells himself"
and "makes believe" that he is as powerful as the
124
The Crucial Eace Question
giant and tries to crowd him aside, then, human
nature being what it is, all that he can expect is a kick
downward rather than a lift upward. Indeed there is
not anything that the strong can do for this sort of
weakness; for it is of that kind which the Great
Teacher had in mind when he said of its possessors:
"He that exalteth himself shall be abased."
Anglo-Americans will help Afro-Americans up to
a certain point, but not to the point of equality and
rivalry. The moment that the Afro-American com¬
mences to plume himself as an equal and a rival, the
attitude of the Anglo-American is changed and the
Afro-American in order to maintain his self-respect
must either conquer the Anglo-American or go off by
himself and set up an independent political govern¬
ment. This is why I maintain that if the Negro,
in natural endowments, is either the equal or the
superior of the Caucasians or even if he be inferior and
yet is determined to make the most of himself there
ultimately must be a separation. Human nature
renders any other alternative impossible. The separa¬
tion may be long deferred, no doubt will be; but the
Afro-American if he enters into competition with the
Anglo-American must either make a conquest or an
exodus. If he does not do one or the other he must
fall back; he must do the giant's bidding or die.
Negroes and Northerners generally, think that
wealth and knowledge will "fit" the Negro for the
occupation of the same political level with the white
man. But my contention is that no acquirements or
advancement of the Negro will enable him to peaceably
take such a position. It is perhaps within the range of
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 125
conceivable possibilities that the time may come when
the Negro will supplant the white man and the rela¬
tive positions of the two races will be changed; but
that can only be done by a conquest made possible by
the decadence of the Caucasian and a corresponding
improvement in the Negro. But in this essay we are
concerned with present conditions and immediate pros¬
pects, not with the changes and chances of a remote
future.
Now, inasmuch as the Anglo-American citizen is pre¬
vented by a law of nature from allowing the Afro-
American to be associated with him in the govern¬
ment of these United States, Anglo-American Church¬
men should give Afro-American Churchmen an auton¬
omous branch of the Catholic Church and thereby
put them into a position to work out their own salva¬
tion by the only self-government which it is possible
for them to exercise under present conditions. And,
from the standpoint of one who believes that the
Negro should be allowed to take part in our political
government and accepts the doctrine of religious free¬
dom my position is unassailable.
For surely, from that point of view, none can fail to
see that the Negro is entitled to religious self-govern¬
ment and as, according to the idea which prevails
among us, an autonomous Episcopate is an indispen¬
sable requisite of a complete ecclesiastical government
we should give it to him. Protestant Episcopal Anglo-
Americans who believe in the righteousness of the
Fifteenth Amendment should be about the last people
to deny an autonomous Episcopate to Protestant Epis¬
copal-Afro-Americans. The Bishop of Western Texas
The Crucial Race Question
and I would like the Anglo-Catholic Church to be
represented in the Councils of the Roman Church.
We are denied such representation, but the protests
of our Fathers who were represented in the Councils
of that Church has secured to us an autonomous Epis¬
copate. Why should not the protests of Afro-Ameri¬
can Churchmen have a like result?
When the true Negro Moses comes he will not incul¬
cate the body and soul destroying doctrine of racial
amalgamation as the ultimate result of successful
competition with the Caucasian in the higher indus¬
trial, educational and commercial fields of this white
man's country; but he will preach the gospel of the
segregation of the races and governmental autonomy,
as the final outcome of the recognition of the Divinely
drawn Color-Line and of success in avoiding competi¬
tion and in holding the lower industrial fields in the
South, until the time has come for an Afro-American
exodus, or at least a political separation of some kind.
The key-note of the economical part of his preaching
will be neither wealth, nor education, but work.
As some one has well said, "Civilization is a jealous
mistress. Wherever she meets a man she exacts his
service or his life. If he cannot labor he dies. Civiliza¬
tion met the Indian, and he has perished." This elo¬
quent exponent of a great truth might have gone on
to say, that Civilization has met the Negro, and he
may live if he will work and not attempt to enter into
competition with the white man. The black man has
a capacity for work and fortunately the white man of
the South wants him to work. If it were not so the
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 127
future of the Negro would be as hopeless as that of the
Indian.
A Northern student of our race problem, who sees a
part of the truth respecting the condition which con¬
fronts the Negro as unhappily it is not generally seen
by Northern people, has correctly observed: "In the
North the Negro is welcome to carry a torch in a poli¬
tical procession about election time, but he is not
allowed to carry a dinner pail in the great industrial
procession which takes place every day; while in the
South he is excluded from the field of politics, but
welcomed to the field of labor. The Negro, forced to
choose between the right to work and the right to vote,
has chosen the better part.' He has decided to work,
and notwithstanding his exclusion from the suffrage
by the Southern people, he has elected to cast his lot
with them and gain his subsistence on their soil by the
labor of his hands."
Is this true? Has the Negro "chosen" to do this?
I trust so; for in the decision to work in fields where
he does not come into too close competition with the
white man lies the only hope for the poor Negro.
Hard work along the lines of least resistance or sure
death, one or the other, is his unavoidable fate if he
continues with us. While the Negro remains in this
White man's country or at least until he in some way
attains political autonomy there is for him an inten¬
sified meaning in the decrees, "By the sweat of thy
face shalt thou eat bread"; and "If any man will not
work neither shall he eat."
The free black man in this white man's country has
a most difficult task to perform. If he would remain
128 The Crucial Race Question
here and live he must work, harder and more skill¬
fully must he work than he ever worked as a slave.
Nor can he, as a freeman, choose his field of labor
much more than he did as a bondman. And not only
must he still do the will of the white man, but he must
now make brick without straw as never before. His
is indeed a hard lot; and it will grow harder. For in
the competition with the Caucasian the Negro now has
a more exacting and cruel master than ever he had
in any Legree. He who has ears for such things and
does not stop them against the utterances of the unwel¬
come truth can plainly hear a cry of the emancipated
Negro for relief which is more piercing than any
that he uttered in slavery and also this reply of his piti¬
less new task-master: "Legree did lade you with a
heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. He chastised you
with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions."
2. Another of my Northern critics whom I highly
esteem as being at once the most distinguished, able,
representative and judicial among the objectors to the
position I have taken in this essay half reproachfully
accuses me of being "against the commendable efforts
which Negroes are making to acquire property and
education. You prefer that they should seek rather
'the kingdom of God and His righteousness.' But,
Bishop, 'that is not first which is spiritual, but that
which is natural, and afterwards that which is spir¬
itual.' In the order of natural things human improve¬
ment begins in the gathering of property. This calls
for industry, frugality and the improvement of the
condition of children. It also awakens a sense of
responsibility. If there had been no gain in this
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 129
respect I fear I should have despaired of the Negro,
But every man who gets a house and lot is pledged to
order and the maintenance of the peace by which his
property is secure. He is more likely to become a
good citizen and church member than if he spent and
squandered all he earned.
"And, Bishop, you are against Negro suffrage. I
believe that one of the strongest incentives to virtue
and achievement would be the hope of political enfran¬
chisement, and I believe that laws providing for the
giving of the elective franchise to worthy Negroes,
men whose worth is proved and known, would con¬
tribute much towards their improvement. I really do
not see why you should have labored so much to
put yourself squarely against it in arguing for an
Autonomous Negro Episcopate. It seems to me to
give unnecessary offense to the Negroes and to link
political and ecclesiastical questions together more
than is desirable for the purpose in hand."
Now it has not been my intention to discourage the
Afro-American in his effort to acquire property and
education; for I agree with this critic that it would be
for the good of both races that he should secure as
much of these as he can. And I most gladly admit that
some Negroes are making gratifying, if not indeed
phenomenal, progress in doing so. In the whole of
the Arkansas Black Belt it would be difficult if not
impossible to find a Negro who is a roving beggar.
I do not know of one and I have not heard of any.
Moreover, the responses to my inquiries of people who
are in position to give reliable testimony tend to the
130 The Crucial Eace Question
conclusion that what is true in this respect of Arkan¬
sas is equally true of Mississippi and of the South gen¬
erally. In the city of Little Rock many colored people
own their own homes and not a few of these are quite
as good and some of them better than the average
white home. This may also be said to the great credit
of the Negroes of Pine Bluff, Hot Springs, Helena,
Camden, Newport and of our larger centers of popu¬
lation generally. In Little Rock, several Negro
Churches are large, solid brick structures, better build¬
ings than my brick veneered Cathedral.
After only a few services of the Episcopal Church had
been held at Pine Bluff our small constituency, at that
time not exceeding a dozen persons, and only three or
four of them communicants, notified me that they
would guarantee $500 towards the building of a
Chapel. It has been my inestimable privilege to have
been permitted to devote the whole of my ministerial
life to aggressive missionary work. With the assist¬
ance of my co-laborers and God's blessing upon our
endeavors, I have established congregations and built
Churches in nearly fifty new places; I think it is due to
St. Andrew's Colored Mission Congregation, Pine
Bluff, that I should say that I have seldom received
a more liberal and never a more spontaneous pledge of
self-help from a correspondingly small and newly
organized white congregation.
Many Negroes on the streets of our chief cities and
towns look and act the prosperous, educated man and
woman. They dress and conduct themselves extremely
well, and not a few have carriages and horses. To all
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 131
this and perhaps more "even blind prejudice would be
obliged to bear witness."
A Mississippi friend tells me that this picture of
Negro advancement is true of his great Black Belt
State: "My former cook," he writes, "during this
present month, presented her daughter with a city
lot as a wedding present, and she herself lives in a home
very modest, but worth certainly not less than three
thousand dollars. The average Negro on the streets
is educated, many with a degree of refinement, and
genuine good manners."
A Florida correspondent says: "I think educationally
and as a property owner the Negro has everywhere
made considerable progress ;" and I have testimony to
the same effect from a competent Louisiana witness. So
far as I can ascertain there is general agreement in
the conclusion that everywhere a few Negroes, in the
aggregate a goodly number, are coming up education¬
ally and financially, and that they are learning to take
care of their property. We have a good bank in Little
Rock, the president of which is a wealthy, dignified
Negro who enjoys the confidence and respect of the
whole community, and he is fairly representative of a
growing class of Negroes whose character has never
been tarnished by a breath of suspicion of any kind.
Furthermore, this class of Elect Negroes is increasing,
and they will increase. It is true that by comparison
they cannot be regarded as more than a little leaven,
and there is a whole barrel of meal; but then they are
leaven, and happily leaven has wondrous permeating
and spreading propensities. Let us thank God for
132 The Crucial Race Question
this leaven, and do what we can to help it in its regen¬
erating work. The best thing we as a church can do,
is first to set up an independent Afro-American ecclesi¬
astical religious bread making establishment with head
bakers, and then co-operate with them in bringing the
meal and the leaven together under the most favorable
of conditions which can be created.
But, while I rejoice in the fact that Negroes are
seeking and finding education and wealth, I contend
nevertheless that they must not seek them with the
idea that their attainment will put them on the same
level with the white man socially, politically, ecclesias¬
tically, commercially, professionally or in any other
respect. The moment this becomes the object of
their endeavor to get wealth and learning, then and
there trouble begins, because an unequal competition
is entered into by them with the white man which, as
matters now stand, can end only in their degradation
and ruin.
One reason why I put myself "squarely against"
political equality in arguing for ecclesiastical autonomy
is found in the indisputable fact that the thing I
recommend would be wrong if that for which many
among my Northern and Negro critics contend would
be right. For, if, as they insist, political equality ought
to be given to the Negro, how can I maintain that he
should be denied ecclesiastical equality.
Therefore, in taking a position in favor of drawing
the Color-Line in the realm of religion by the creation
of an autonomous Afro-American Episcopate in
accordance with the Arkansas Plan, I was compelled
by the law of self-preservation to set myself "squarely
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 133
against" both political and social equality. If I had not
done so, Negroes and Northerners would have made
very short work of any argumentative superstructure
that I might have erected by depriving it of its logical
foundation.
Now manifestly, if it is wrong to draw the Color-
Line in the State, it is wrong to do so in the Church.
I have elsewhere shown that the reverse of this is true
because the unity of nature is such as that the social,
political and ecclesiastical realms of civilization are
indissolubly bound together, so that the drawing of
the Color-Line through one of them without doing it
in the case of the rest is to disregard God's will as it
is revealed in nature. It therefore follows, as by a
logical necessity, that if it be either right or wrong to
draw the Color-Line in the State it must be the same
in respect to the Church. Color-Line drawing is right
in each of the three great realms of civilization, if it is
right in any one of them, and, the converse of this is
true, or else the doctrine of the unity of nature which
is so generally accepted by scientists and philosophers
is not true. It was therefore incumbent upon me either
to prove that Northern people and Negroes are wrong
touching their social and political ideals or else to give
up my contention that the Color-Line should be drawn
in the Church.
Science and philosophy are agreed that the God of
nature and of the universe is a God that changeth"
not. The light of reason as well as that of revelation
shows the Divine Being to be the same yesterday, today
and forever. Therefore, since he saw fit to differen¬
tiate mankind into separate races at the beginning, we
134 The Crucial Eace Question
must conclude it to be his will that racial differentia¬
tions should be preserved and continued in their integ¬
rity to the end, and that the amalgamation of races
involves the disregard of God's will by every individual
who has any part in bringing it about. The proof posi¬
tive that this reasoning is correct and that amalgama¬
tion is a ruinous crime is found in the curse of inferior¬
ity which rests upon all hybrid races.
Thus, whether we reason from the hypothesis of the
unity of nature or the unchangableness of the god of
nature or the results of hybridization we must conclude
that the recognition of the Color-Line in the social
realm is eminently right and that the failure to do so is
equally wrong.
For an individual to sin with one of his own race
against the marriage relation is the breaking of one
of the fundamental laws of civilization, and is therefore
a crime of a heinous character; but for an Anglo-
American to commit the same sin with an Afro-Ameri¬
can is to add the crime of an iniquitous species of
body and soul-destroying murder to that of the most
debasing adultery. The libertine who cro'sses the
Color-Line in quest of his prey is the most execrable
of all criminals; especially is this true here in the
United States where two such dissimilar races are liv¬
ing in the closest proximity and where consequently
the danger of the weakening and extinction of the
inferior race and the degradation of the superior is so
perilously eminent. The Divine curse rested upon
Cain; he became a "fugitive and a vagabond," and in'
every generation his name is held up to utter detesta¬
tion for a crime that was venial compared with that of
miscegenation.
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 135
I need not further argue in favor of the contention
that any disregard of the Color-Line which tends to the
amalgamation of the Anglo-American and Afro-Ameri¬
can races is a sin of the blackest dye. Northern peo¬
ple and even Negroes are beginning to see this. But
it is asked what relationship has the political and
ecclesiastical realms to the social realm which renders
it imperative that the Color-Line should be drawn in
them as well as in it. I answer, if civilization be com¬
pared to the Garden of Eden, society may be regarded
as the Tree of Life, and the State and the Church are
the gates which admit to the garden. How fortunate,
therefore, it is that the angels of race prejudice stand
at the Civil and Ecclesiastical gates with their flaming
turning swords to guard the way to the Tree of Life.
The sum of the whole matter is this: One race can¬
not admit another race to political and ecclesiastical
equality because, to do so is to open the way to social
equality. If, for the purpose of illustrating our mean¬
ing we say that social equality represents the marriage
relationship, we may claim that political and ecclesias¬
tical equality represent the courtships which lead to that
relationship. And in view of the main purpose of this
essay, it is important to note that of the two courtships,
the one which is promoted by ecclesiastical equality is
more dangerous than that which grows out of political
equality. From every point of view, the conclusion is
unavoidable that it is not only right for Anglo-Ameri¬
cans to recognize the Color-Line in the social, political
and religious realms, but more than that it would be
a great sin not to do so.
136
The Crucial Eace Question
Hence the appeal of Afro-American Churchmen is
wholly justifiable in so far as it asks for racial Bishops
and Jurisdictions; for the creation of such an Episco¬
pate would be to draw the Color-Line about the ecclesi¬
astical realm for the purpose of protecting the citadel of
civilization, the social i^ealm. But that appeal is wholly
and entirely unjustifiable in so far as it asks for the
proposed Episcopate and Jurisdictions "representation"
in the General Convention; for the granting of it would
be to sheath the sword of one of the guardian angels of
race prejudice and to take him away from his post of
duty, the largest entrance to our Garden of Eden and
its Tree of Life.
The Color-Line in some way and to some degree is
now recognized in every Diocese having a considerable
number of Afro-American Churchmen. This would be
all right as far as it goes, but for the deception connected
with it. The Color-Line is quite fully recognized, and
yet we pretend that it does not exist. This criticism
applies to Southern Anglo-Americans in the political
realm. We are pretending that the Fifteenth Amend¬
ment is in force, while everybody knows that it is not.
Deception is wrong in the State as well as in the
Church; but it would appear to be especially so in
the Church. If we were to create an Afro-American
Episcopate with representation in the General Conven¬
tion, matters would be made worse rather than better.
As they now stand Southern Churchmen are com¬
pelled either to ignore the Color-Line in both the civil
and the religious realms, or to practice deception in the
recognition of it.
Domestic, Social and Political Color-Lines 137
We should get rid of this demoralizing necessity of
pretending what is not true. The creation of a mis¬
sionary Episcopate with representation in the Gen¬
eral Convention would not contribute to that end. The
only ways in which we can rid ourselves of the hurtfid
and humiliating deception which we Southerners are
practicing in both State and Church is by the repeal of
the Fifteenth Amendment and the creation of an Auton¬
omous Episcopate.
Finally let me say again, for it cannot be said
too often, that it will be a wide step forward in the solu¬
tion of the Great American Race Problem when it is
understood by all concerned that race antipathy will
forever prevent Afro-Americans and Anglo-Americans
from living together in any of the realms of civiliza¬
tion as equals and rivals. Competition, especially in
the political or industrial domain, will most certainly
and inevitably result in the ruin of the one or the other
of the races.
The United States is a stage. The world is waiting.
When the curtain rises the scene will be found to be
either the farce comedy of pigmies swelling themselves
against giants, or the blood-curdling tragedy of mighty
men fiercely battling for the supremacy.
My good friend, Mr. Charles E. Brock, of Wash¬
ington, calls my attention to the fact that the Govern¬
ment of our Capital City furnishes an apt and interest¬
ing illustration of the truth of my contention that two
races of people cannot occupy the same political plat¬
form. He says:
"The government of our Capital City is essentially
imperial in character rather than Democratic and, it
138
The Crucial Eace Question
is an open secret that the White people deliberately
made it such, in order to avoid the intolerable condi¬
tion of the political equality of the Black and the White
race, which was seen to be inevitable in the case of a
city situated as is Washington. The true civil and
ecclesiastical statesmen will discern from such straws
which way the wind blows. We cannot have real poli¬
tical equality in the Church any more than in the State.
At best it can only be a 'make believe' equality, and
the Church is no place for deception."
Professor Smith has a fine remark bearing upon this
subject in the chapter of his book, "The Color-Line,"
entitled, "A Dip Into the Future." "We think," the
Professor says, "that universal history attests the cor¬
rectness of this observation. Wherever border lines
have been closely drawn and distinctly recognized,
whether between species or races, nations or tribes,
castes, classes, or individuals, there have been found
at least comparative quiet, harmony, mutual regard,
and even happiness. But ill-defined borders have been
everywhere and everywhen the fruitful source of strife,
destruction, and misery.
"It was with a just feeling for this great truth that
the profound Gnostic, Basilides, declared that in 'the
restoration of all things,' at 'the consummation of the
aeons,' 'every element would seek its own place and
there abide forever, and not as if fishes were trying to
pasture with sheep upon mountains.' A kindred sense
of the fitness of things is revealed here in the South,
and also in the North, where one will often hear it said
that 'I like a Negro—in his place.' This does not
mean, at least it need not mean, any harshness or
over-haughtiness on the part of the speaker.
The Crucial Race Question
LECTURE III
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line
CHAPTER VIII. Little Black Cora and her Big White Doll, or the
Necessity of Negro Bishops.
CHAPTER IX. The Arkansas Plan.
CHAPTER X. An Afro-American Missionary Episcopate with
Representation in the General Convention.
CHAPTER XI. Results of the Arkansas Plan.
CHAPTER XII. The Failure of the White Ministry Among
Colored People.
PREFATORY
My design in Lecture III is to show (1) that the Color-Line must
be drawn about the Religious Realm as well as around the Social
and Political Realms of Anglo-Americans, and (2) that the welfare
of both Races and of all the interests concerned require that Anglo-
American Churchmen should give Afro-American Churchmen an in¬
dependent Episcopate and Church, rather than the "Missionary"
Episcopate with "representation" in the General Convention.
For if the two races of Churchmen would walk together in peace
and harmony both must remember at every step that beneath them
is a dangerous mine the powerful explosive of which is an implacable
racial antipathy. The fuse by which the batteries of this mine are
exploded is Anglo-American politics. There is a political side
to the Church as well as to the State, and it will not do for the
Colored man to touch either the religious or civil politics of the
White man. Therefore Afro-American Churchmen should not seek
representation in the Parochial Vestries, Diocesan Councils, or Gen¬
eral Conventions of Anglo-American Churchmen. The "peace and
good will among men" of different races upon which so much depends,
especially for the weaker race, render it absolutely necessary that
Colored men should not claim and exercise the rights of citizenship
in this White man's country, or of membership in our Anglo-Amer¬
ican Churches.
But according to our contention in this Lecture there is another
reason why the Colored man should withdraw from an active par¬
ticipation in the administration of the White man's State and Church.
He needs, and he ought to have, his independent racial Church which
is governed by himself, for himself. For things being as they are
it is only through such a Church that he can learn the all important,
indispensable art of self-government, and make progress in the up¬
ward way of civilization.
The advantage of Ecclesiastical Independence so far as it appears
from the practical operation of the Arkansas Plan, and the com¬
parison of the present condition and outlook of the autonomous
Negro Churches with those that are attached to White Churches is
set forth. It is, I believe, the statistical showing of chapters XI
and XII will convince many of the folly of creating a Missionary
Episcopate with representation in the General Convention, especially
since an adequate Episcopate of this type would transfer the racial
troubles of the Southern Dioceses to the General Convention and
Intensify them.
CHAPTER VIII
Little Black Cora and Her Big White Doll, or the
Necessity of Negro Bishops
My second lesson in the Great American Race Prob¬
lem was learned from the little daughter of our colored
man-of-all-work, and it has been an eye-opener,
not only to me, but also to many Southern people to
whom the trivial but illuminating incident has been
narrated.
The name of the child was "Cora," and this is how it
came about that, soon after my going to Arkansas in
1898, she set me to thinking along the lines that led
to the Arkansas Plan for the work of the Church
among Afro-Americans which, as we shall see in the
next chapter, is in successful operation under the
direction of our Negro Con vocational Archdeacon, who
is a Bishop so far as I can make him such without
giving him the power by consecration to perform
distinctly Episcopal functions.
Our first Christmas at the South was drawing near
and Mrs. Brown had planned to give Cora an up-
to-date doll-baby; the kind that can be put to sleep and
wakened up at the will of its juvenile mother. But
when she told me of the surprise that she was con¬
templating for the little black girl, a most interesting
142 The Crucial Race Question
question arose in my mind and I asked, "What color
will you have it?"
This question proved to be an embarrassing one to
both of us, and the more we thought and talked about
it, the more so it became. We did not take it up with
(any of our newly-made Southern acquaintance,
because we feared they would have a good laugh at our
expense and pass around the joke about the "new
Yankee Bishop." But when we were alone we often
discussed it over and over from every point of view
without reaching a conclusion in which both could
agree or that was quite satisfactory to either of us.
When Christmas had drawn so near that there was
no more time for the prolongation of our fruitless dis¬
cussion, we wisely agreed to settle our dispute and to
prevent the embarrassment of a mistake by taking
Cora's father into our confidence. His name was
Zach and he was very black. So we went out
to him and I said: "Zach, Mrs. Brown wants to give
a Christmas present of a fine doll to Cora, but as we
are Northern people, we are not able to decide what
color it should be." Zach smiled at our ignorance
and informed us that "all de colored little girls wants
white dolls, and dey won't hab nuthin' to do wid black
doll-babies." This reply was highly satisfactory to Mrs.
Brown. But as for me the ending of our controversy
was an illustration of the truth of the proverb, "a man
convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."
I was obliged to admit that little black girls prefer
white doll-babies, but nevertheless I have always
insisted that their preference should be for black doll-
babies.
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line 143
At first sight, there would seem not to be much
logical connection between a doll-baby for a colored
child and a Bishop for her people, but reflection
upon Zach's reply and the investigations to which it
led, ultimately resulted in my advocacy of the drawing
of the Color-Line about the Episcopal Church, by the
establishment of a wholly separate and independent
Diocesan Afro-American Convocation, a thing which
has been done already in Arkansas, and by the creation
of a national autonomous Afro-American Church, a
thing which I hope ultimately will be done in response
to the Arkansas Memorial to the Richmond General
Convention.
I have no doubt that, upon reflection, the reader
will agree with me that little Negro girls should want
and delight in black doll-babies, and that they would
do so under normal conditions. If such be the case,
Colored Bishops and all that would go with them,
would do much to make little black girls want black
doll-babies and to solve our Race Problem. Cer¬
tainly we could reasonably expect that Race Bishops
would do something towards securing to Afro-Amer¬
icans the uplifting, ennobling Race Pride in which they
are well known to be wofully lacking at present.
What can be expected of them so long as their little
girls reject doll-babies of their own color for white
ones ?
"Aliens to our race whether Deacons, Friests or
Bishops, cannot for fear of social ostracism identify
themselves with us, and, moreover, we do not put
the same confidence in one whose race asserts its
superiority to ours in no uncertain terms. We are
always reserved in our attitude towards him, so that
success, except in a very few cases, is well nigh
impossible. The only efficient human instrumentality
for the constructive work which lies ahead of us,
is the racial leader, one who is indigenous rather
than exotic. The White Missionary among Afro-
Americans, be he Bishop or otherwise, is no less
out of place than a Black Missionary among Anglo-
Saxons."—Archdeacon McGuire's Address to 1906
Conference of Church Workers Among Colored
People.
CHAPTER IX
The Arkansas Plan
I
In order to keep the theme of this book clearly
before the reader I will restate briefly its thesis in the
following syllogism. Self-government is necessary to
the development of any people. The Afro-American,
while he remains with us, can never have a chance at
civil self-government. Therefore religion is the only
all-inclusive realm in which he can govern himself,
and the Episcopal Church should give him a chance to
do so by making a favorable response to the appeal
for racial Bishops.
The American Negro can never do anything great
until, so to speak, he gets through school and in some
way strikes out for himself. While he remains in the
United States, and this probably will be, and, for his
own good ought to be, two or three hundred years
longer, he will always be overshadowed by the white
man, and he will be kept down and depressed by the
hardships and persecutions which through all history
have been the sad, but apparently unavoidable lot of
every people which has been situated as he is. At
present, one of his great defects is his lack of race
146 The Crucial Race Question
pride. This defect must be corrected before there can
be any wide outlook and substantial hope for the race.
But this cannot be accomplished without self-govern¬
ment. And, inasmuch as political self-government
always has been, is now and ever will be impossible
and out of the question for a race situated as is the
American Negro, the only field in which he can get off
by himself, and try his hand at self-government, is the
ecclesiastical field.
What is true of the necessity of drawing the Color-
Line around the social and political realms is equally
true of the religious realm. And as a matter of fact
the Color-Line has been drawn about all our
Churches. So far as the Anglo-American Church is con¬
cerned, this has been done more completely in the Dio¬
cese of Arkansas than elsewhere. We practically have
two entirely separate and independent Dioceses, one for
Anglo-American and one for Afro-American Church¬
men. They are indeed loosely connected through the
Bishop and a canonical provision which gives the Con¬
vocation, or Diocese of the Colored People, a right
to indicate to the Diocese of the White People its
preference as to the person or persons to be elected to
the Episcopate or to other important Diocesan offices;
but, while, in such elections, the Council of White
Churchmen is pledged to a respectful consideration of
the expressed preferences of the Convocation of
Colored Churchmen, it is not bound to regard such
expressions even in the light of nominations.
The "Arkansas Plan" has been criticised upon con¬
stitutional grounds; and at one time there was some
talk of an effort to exclude the Bishop and Delegation
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line 147
of the Diocese of Arkansas from the General Con¬
vention, because of the alleged unconstitutionality of
the action of their Diocesan Council in the exclusion
of Negro Clergy and Congregations from representa¬
tion in it and in the relegation of them to a Convoca¬
tion of their own. But the more cool-headed, even
among those who were bitterly opposed to the plan
and denounced it as unchristian, soon came to see the
truth and force of our representation that the Epis¬
copal Church was from the beginning and is now an
Anglo-American institution in which the Afro-Ameri¬
can has had no rights except such as have been
accorded to him and that even they are not inalienable
but may be revoked at any time.
A distinguished New England Clergyman, who cer
tainly was without a very strong bias in favor of the
Arkansas Plan, admitted to me in a letter that, in
view of the origin and history of our Anglo-American
Church and of the fact that it had never by legislative
enactment really opened its doors to Afro-Americans,
there was no legal ground upon which the Diocese of
Arkansas could be excluded from the General Conven¬
tion. "If," asks he, "the Church, as a whole, desires
to forestall and prevent the drawing of the Color-Line,
as proposed in Arkansas, will it not have to amend its
Constitution by the adoption of an article analogous
to the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States, reading somewhat as follows: 'The
right of members of the Protestant Episcopal Church
in the United States to be presented in, and to vote in,
the General Convention, or the Convention or Council,
of any Diocese or any Jurisdiction, shall not be denied
148 The Crucial Eace Question
or abridged by the General Convention or by the Con¬
vention or Council of any Diocese or Jurisdiction, on
account of race, color, or previous condition of servi¬
tude.' The 'Arkansas Plan' may be objected to as
un-American, and denounced as un-Christian, but until
the enactment of some such amendment as above
stated to the Constitution of the Church, can such a
plan be pronounced un-Constitutional ?"
A great Canonist, also a Northern man, but one
who had lived South long enough to know a good deal
about the conditions there, said: "All idea of exclud¬
ing the Bishop and Diocese of Arkansas from repre¬
sentation in the General Convention is nonsense and
could not be carried in the General Convention. If
that should be tried I would like to see who would
argue the case."
This feeling soon became so wide and strong that
the movement looking towards our exclusion from the
General Convention ended in the protest of the follow¬
ing Preamble and Resolutions which were passed at
the 1903 session of the Conference of Church Workers
Among Colored People:
"Whereas, The Diocese of Arkansas has, in Council
assembled, excluded by regular enactment the Colored
Clergy and Laity from membership therein, and
"Whereas, The adoption of such a plan denies to
Colored Churchmen their inherent ecclesiastical rights
and will have the effect of keeping the Colored People
out of the Church; be it, therefore,
"Resolved, That the Conference of Church Workers
among the Colored People, in its 19th Annual Session,
unqualifiedly deplores and condemns the action of the
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line 149
Diocese of Arkansas, and earnestly requests all fair-
minded Church people to use their influence to prevent
the spread of such legislation in the Church, and to
so plainly and forcibly express their disapproval of
the action of the Diocese of Arkansas, as will lead it to
a re-consideration of its unjust and uncatholic
procedure.
"Resolved further, That a copy of this resolution be
sent to the Bishop of Arkansas, the House of Bishops
and the Church papers."
Since taking this action some among the leaders of
that Conference have so far changed their minds about
the Arkansas Plan that they nominated from among
themselves the efficient man who became the head of
the condemned "Convocation," the creation of which
drew an impassable Color-Line about our Diocesan
Council. And, furthermore, a self-constituted com¬
mittee of five among the most prominent of our
colored Clergy issued the following circular letter to
the colored Parishes and Missions of the Church in
the United States, bearing date, Epiphany-tide, 1907:
"We, the undersigned, a voluntary committee, would
respectfully suggest that the Colored Clergy of the
Church, concentrate their Missionary efforts (outside
of their own Parishes) on some one central point, in
order to be able to show the General Church that we
are doing something for our people, by pointing to
some one thing that is being done on a large scale.
"We would further suggest that the field in which
Archdeacon McGuire is working, be adopted. The
Rev. Eugene L. Henderson, 356 Crown Street, New
Haven, Connecticut, will act as Treasurer. Please
150
The Crucial Eace Question
send to him all contributions, intended for Archdeacon
McGuire's work."
The conclusion that this letter commits the dis¬
tinguished members of the voluntary committee which
sent it out to an indorsement of the position I take in
this essay would be, no doubt, an unjustifiable infer¬
ence, but it is equally certain that its gratifying
request in favor of our Autonomous Afro-American
Convocation would not have been made but for some
great and general change of opinion regarding the
Arkansas Plan.
But, however this may be, it is an indisputable fact
that the Arkansas Plan is designed so far as such a
thing is possible in the Episcopal Church, under exist¬
ing circumstances, to meet the approval of an increas¬
ing number of Negro Christians. For it is a well
known fact that, especially in religious affairs, many
Negroes prefer to be by themselves. The truth of this
statement is established by the simple fact that only
the independent, autonomous Afro-American bodies
grow in numbers and flourish in other respects. Pro¬
fessor DuBois in a recently published lecture, points
out, apparently without observing the drift of the
remarkable fact against his general conclusions, that,
even before the war, Negroes, throughout the South,
manifested a strong disposition to get off by them¬
selves for the religious services and preaching of
Negro Ministers. He shows this tendency to have
been so general and persistent and its effects to have
been so detrimental to the institution of slavery, that
several states found it necessary to legislate strongly
against it.
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line
151
In this tendency on the part of American Negroes
to go out by themselves into separate religious organ¬
izations, is observable, I think, the working of that
law which is causing the history of the "Israelo-
Egyptian" to be repeated in the "Afro-American." I
have come to believe that the salvation of the
American Negro is bound up with religious independ¬
ence, and autonomy, as much so as was the case with
the Egyptian Israelites. They did not want to leave
Egypt and go out for themselves, but their leaders
saw that it was necessary for them to do so, in order
that they might amount to something by realizing the
destiny which God had ordained for them. It is
necessary for the same reasons that our Afro-American
brethren should go out from us. Their leaders see this
to be the case and are asking for racial Bishops. Let
us not deal with them as Pharaoh did with the Israel¬
ites when they were obliged to leave Egypt.
I deem it to be most fortunate that the strong tend¬
ency with which the American Negro is gravitating
towards ecclesiastical autonomy is rapidly settling the
question of the Color-Line so far as the institution of the
Church is concerned. Theoretical idealism, and Scrip¬
tural precept, as well, certainly do appear to support
the contention that the door of the Church should stand
open to all men and women without discriminating
distinctions based upon the differentiating features of
the several races of mankind. But we contend that
any idealistic philosophical theory or interpretation
of the Scriptures which ignores such distinctions must
be wrong, because it implies a mistake on the part of
God in the creation of them. God could have so
152
The Crucial Eace Question
ordered it that all men and women would have been of
one color and race. The fact that he could have done
so but did not do it, is to the thoughtful, reverent
mind, proof positive and conclusive that in ordaining
the existing features of differentiation He had in view
the accomplishment of some great purpose.
Now all right thinking persons recognize the great
fundamental truth that so far as God's designs are
concerned with the welfare of humanity they require
the co-operation of its representatives. But, in propor¬
tion as we ignore the distinctions in question, we
work against God and defeat His plans. Bishop
Penick, who as a gifted Southern man, and some time
Bishop in Africa, has probably devoted more intelli¬
gent thought to the Race Problem than any other
American, gives forcible expression to this great basic
truth which is so often lost sight of by Northern
theorists in their attempts to solve the problem. A
letter which he wrote to me, at the time when I was
"under fire" on account of my first public advocacy of
the division of the work of the Church among colored
and white people and of the establishment of an Afro-
American branch of the Catholic Church is so much to
the point and so convincing that I quote a large part of
it in the Appendix and repeat a paragraph or two here
"This I say, is a 'Race Problem.' It holds all that the
word race means, and that is a lot more than people
stop to think of. It is far deeper than a 'color' matter.
God made races and made them as different as ducks
from chickens. To treat two races alike produces
confusion, as real and radical, as to treat dogs and cats
alike, or apples and watermelons. In each race are
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line
153
wrapped forces leading- it on, fitting it for the work,
that God has cut out for that race, and no other.
"Do I make you see with me? Booker Washington
as Booker Washington, is a grand fellow. But Booker
Washington as George Washington, would be an
awful misfit and sad failure. Why cannot we make
people see this? It is certainly due to the Negro to
show him the peril of Pharaoh's palace, and also to
turn his face towards that mount where God waits to
give him his ideal."
II
It is not true as it is so often and earnestly con¬
tended b)7- Negroes and by the Catholic traditional¬
ists among white Churchmen, that the Arkansas Plan
is at once a denial of three fundamental doctrines, the
Catholicity of the Church, the Fatherhood of God and
the Brotherhood of Man.
We contend that our plan of drawing the Color-Line
about the Diocesan and General Assemblies of the
Church does not necessarily exclude Afro-Americans
from the Church, any more than the action of Florida
in disfranchising the Negro prevents him from living in
that State. The Church is both a Spiritual and a Polit¬
ical institution, an invisible and a visible communion.
She is one great tree with many branches and leaves
innumerable. The Spiritual, the invisible, the great
trunk portion of the Church is Catholic, for it may, and
it should, and as a matter of fact it actually does,
include all baptized persons without respect to any
features of differentiation whatsoever.
154 The Crucial Kace Question
There is only one Church and it is Catholic in the
sense of all-inclusiveness. Every baptized person is
a leaf of some branch of the Catholic Church. But,
mark you, the Church, like a tree, has separate
branches and leaves. The Catholic part of the Church
has for its boundaries humanity as a whole or at least
that part of it which looks to Christ for the life that
now is and is to come. The truth is that this is not
properly called a "part" of the Church, for really it is
the Church, the whole Church, trunk, branches and
leaves. But the visible, political parts of the Church are
in all cases a comparatively small branch, of which
there are many similar branches more or less diverse
and distinct, the one from the other. In the visible,
political sense, the Catholic Church always has been,
is now, and in this world, at least, always will be, more
or less sectarian.
Catholicity and Humanity represent parallel ideas
of illimitability. Neither the one nor the other is limited
by tribe, race or nation, much less by caste or family.
The only limit of which Catholicity takes any account
is a reception of the Christian Gospel throug-h Chris¬
tian Baptism, but even here there is a sense in which
the follower of Christ recognizes in an unbaptized
person the potentiality of Christian discipleship and
consequently looks upon him as a brother. Therefore
the true Christian in a spiritual sense holds to the
inspiring doctrines of the universal Fatherhood of
God and Brotherhood of Man. God created all
mankind of one blood so that there is but one all-
inclusive humanity, invisible and indivisible. But God
also created differentiating features by which, so to
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line
155
speak, Catholic humanity is sectarianized by individual,
family, tribal, national and racial distinctions.
Thus the drawing of the Color-Line in the visible
Church by the Arkansas Plan is not, as it is often
represented to be, the denial of the Universal Father¬
hood of God and Brotherhood of Man. Certainly this
can not be true so long as the operation of the plan
does not interrupt the spiritual unity of the Church
that finds its expression in that mutual peace, good
will, sympathy and helpfulness which in the ecumen¬
ical creed is designated by the "Communion of Saints."
If, in the nature of things, there must be visible divi¬
sions among human beings, and if these divisions can
and do exist without destroying the unity or Catho¬
licity of Humanity, there is no reason for believing
that when we leave the civil realm of the family, tribe
and state and enter the religious realm of the Church,
the Divinely ordained differentiating features are to be
ignored, or that the recognition of them is the destruc¬
tion of the spiritual Catholicity of the Church.
As we cannot have a watch with one wheel, so we
cannot have either a civil or an ecclesiastical world with
one government. As there must be a unity of com¬
bination and mutual helpfulness in the wheels of a
watch, so there should be a communion and mutual
helpfulness in the several governmental administra¬
tions of both the civil and ecclesiastical worlds; but
the idea of only one government in either of these
worlds is as unphilosophical and as impracticable as
would be the conception of a one-wheeled watch.
Diversity in unity is the Divine scheme according to
156
The Crucial Race Question
which the world has been built. In the Anglo-Amer¬
ican Church we are losing sight of this fundamental fact,
which is the key to the solution of all such administra¬
tive and philanthropic problems as the one which now
confronts us in the appeal of Afro-American Church¬
men for racial Bishops and Jurisdictions.
No rational explanation of the Divine commission of
our Lord to his Apostles and their successors can
make it out that we Anglo-Americans are required to
bring Afro-Americans under the sway of our Episco¬
pate. Rather the necessity laid upon us by Him in
that commission is to give them their own Episcopate
and help them, by that sympathetic co-operation which
is the result of the communion of one branch of the
Catholic Church with another, to work out their own
salvation.
CHAPTER X
An Afro-American Missionary Episcopate with Repre¬
sentation in the General Convention
I
One of my main contentions in this essay is that the
Negro must take a real, important part in the political
government of himself if ever he is to amount to any¬
thing. How shall he do this? My answer is, that of
the two great spheres of political self-government, the
civil and religious, the latter is the only one that is
now or ever will be open again to him in this country,
and that if Afro-American Churchmen are to take
advantage of their great and unique opportunities in
this field, they must have their own completely organ¬
ized and independent Church.
I often am asked, "Why do you advocate so strenu¬
ously the exclusion of the Negro from civil govern¬
mental affairs, and at the same time, are willing to
entrust the weighty interests of the Church to him?" To
this inquiry I make one all-sufficient reply: Because
(i) this is an Aryan white man's country and he will
not allow the Negro or any other race to share the
government with him, and (2) the Negro can govern
himself in ecclesiastical affairs without conflict with
158
The Crucial Race Question
his white brother; in fact it is the only way by which
he can avoid it. In order to prevent the conflict of
races it is necessary, paradoxical as it may seem, that
the Negro should in civil affairs be governed by the
white man, and that in ecclesiastical affairs he should
govern himself.
The Negro, I reiterate, can never hope to take any
real active part in the civil government of this country,
but he may become nevertheless a mighty power in
the government of the United States by pursuing the
course of the Israelites in Egypt and of the Christians
in the Roman Empire. Ten millions of people who
govern themselves well in the political realm of
religion, as the Jews and Early Christians governed
themselves in that realm, can bring about almost any¬
thing they want in the way of concessions from the
civil, political government. The History of Judaism
and Christianity show this to be the case. But the
Afro-American, in seeking to take .advantage of the
civil privileges unwisely accorded him in the Fifteenth
Amendment, is beginning at the wrong end in the
matter of self-government, and making as much of a
mistake as the Israelites would have made in Egypt or
the Early Christians in Rome by an attempt to take a
hand in the civil government. Perhaps somewhen and
somewhere, Afro-Americans will govern themselves
politically, but that will never be in this country or in
any place, until a deep and broad foundation for the
superstructure of civil self-government has been laid in
religious self-government.
There can be no real religious self-government
for Afro-American Churchmen with "Missionary"
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line
159
Bishops and "representation" in the General Conven¬
tion. There is a point of view from which it may be
seen by anybody that there is as much of politics in
religious governments as in civil governments. In
civil governmental affairs there is always a conflict
going on, a conflict between different political
parties, or different classes representing different
interests. It is often a fierce conflict too. Sometimes
so much so that it results in revolutionary wars.
Whenever and wherever an alien race attempts to take
any part in- the civil government of a race which is
established in power, there is a great conflict. While
present conditions continue and there is not the slight¬
est prospect of a change, the issue of every such con¬
flict between Anglo-Americans and Afro-Americans in
the future will be what it has been in the past.
The General Convention is the political arena of the
government of the Anglo-American Church, just as
much so as Congress is of the government of the
United States. What has been the history of the
Negro in the political arenas of Diocesan Councils?
But our Diocesan Councils are playthings compared
with the General Convention. Who can see the
slightest ground for the least hope that the Negro will
succeed in that great national arena in spite of his
complete and uniform failure in every Diocesan arena?
In the very nature of things, as it is revealed by the
whole history of Afro-Americans in the politics of
both State and Church, there is not, and there cannot
be, anything in a racial "Missionary" Episcopate with
"representation" in the General Convention but the
most humiliating defeat in every effort at self-assertion
160
The Crucial Eace Question
in opposition to Anglo-Americans. What is true of
the Missionary Episcopate would be equally true of
the Suffragan Episcopate.
There is therefore absolutely nothing for the Afro-
American Churchmen in any form of the Episcopate
except only the one which will give them a completely
independent and autonomous Church. Such an Epis¬
copate would be a great good to them because it would
give them a perfect school in which to learn the all-
important and indispensable art of self-government.
Let then Afro-American Churchmen at their next Con¬
ference give up the idea of a Missionary or Suffragan
Episcopate, which would be worthless and much worse
than worthless to them, and ask for an Autonomous
Episcopate the only one which possibly can be of any
value to them. And let Anglo-American Churchmen
not only create such an Episcopate, but also start it off
with a college of say four Bishops and guarantee
each Jurisdiction $20,000 a year for ten years. This
would be a "Missionary" Episcopate and an "Experi¬
ment" that would amount to something.
I once heard the distinguished Bishop Coadjutor
of New York at a great Missionary meeting say some¬
thing that impressed me very much about undertaking
Church extension and upbuilding work on a large and
worthy scale. He insisted, "The money will come!"
I believe he is right. If the General Convention will
only have faith and wisdom enough to create an ade¬
quate Afro-American Episcopate of the right kind, the
money will come for its support. The Bishop Coad¬
jutor of New York in a day each year at the work
on Wall Street could raise the $80,000 for such a
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line 161
magnificent undertaking. If he cannot command the
requisite time for this work, I believe that I can
do it in a month, and I know that my Diocese will be
glad to have me devote that much time each year to
the securing of subscriptions for the carrying out of a
scheme that would accomplish so much good and
reflect such great credit upon the Church. I doubt
whether any ecclesiastical legislative body in the
whole religious history of the world ever had such an
opportunity to set on foot so great and far-reaching
a missionary movement as the Appeal of Afro-Amer¬
ican Churchmen gives to the Richmond General Con¬
vention.
II
Most evidently the advocates of an Afro-American
"Missionary" Episcopate with "representation" in the
General Convention have not taken into the account
Caucasian and Negro natures.
If our branch of the Catholic Church is ever to take
deep root among Afro-Americans and be one of the
great means of their salvation, we must, in my humble
judgment, without delay give them an adequate Epis¬
copate ; and such an Episcopate, with the Jurisdictions
involved, if fully represented in both Houses of the
General Convention and in the Triennial meetings of
the Woman's Auxiliary, would have a much worse
effect upon the Church as a whole, South and North,
than Afro-American representation has ever had in any
Southern Diocese.
I am of course aware of the answer that will be
made to all this: "Don't lie awake nights thinking
162 The Crucial Race Question
about Negro representation in the General Convention,
There will not be enough of it to hurt anybody. No
one intends that we shall have more than one Negro
Missionary or Suffragan Bishop to begin with and that
only as an experiment." But this kind of talk of which
there is altogether too much, is not at all reassuring
and comforting to me. For I have spent the whole of
my ministerial life as a Missionary and, therefore, to
my mind, the consecration of but one Negro Priest to
be Bishop among all his people in this country would
be an absurd act on the part of the General Conven¬
tion, which would excite criticism and even contempt
both in and out of the Church, on the part of all who
have any appreciation of the pressing character and
stupendous magnitude of the work to be accomplished.
Is it asked, where is the money coming from for the
support of the adequate Episcopate which you would
have the Richmond General Convention put into the
field at once? I answer: We are per capita probably the
richest Church on earth and there is many a single Lay¬
man among us who could, if he would, support muni¬
ficently an Afro-American Bishop, perhaps the whole
Episcopate, without reducing the number of his auto¬
mobiles or private yachts. And we have the blessings
of three hundred years of Anglo-American Christianity
and the most desperate and pitiable needs that have
ever cried to heaven for relief with which to touch the
hearts of such.
Let then all this talk about an "experiment" of "one"
Afro-American Missionary or Suffragan Bishop cease
from among us. It is childish. Every person who is
at all competent to pass judgment upon the subject,
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line
163
sees clearly that the consecration of fewer than four
Negro Bishops, one for the North and three for the
South, would render us contemptible in the eyes of the
Christian world; and such see, with equal clearness,
that we cannot safely open the doors of the General
Convention to as many as four Negro Bishops and
delegations, especially with the prospect of more
than doubling their number within ten years. There is
therefore nothing to be done, absolutely nothing, but
to create an autonomous Afro-American Church.
It would be a physical impossibility for one Afro-
American Bishop to cover a territory which requires
over twenty Anglo-American Bishops. To visit the
existing congregations would more than consume his
time. He could do no constructive work. If only
two or three States were given him as his field, he
might do in them a little something of what would be
expected of him, but while this territory and the
Negroes within were being benefited to some extent,
what advantage would accrue to the Negroes in other
parts from such an inadequate Episcopate? Should
this "experimental" Bishop fail, as it is possible he
might, would a fair test be given to the Plan of Negro
Bishops? Would it be either a sensible or a just
"experiment?" Square dealing requires that we
should consecrate four or more of them and judge
results by the total achievements of all rather than one.
As to the request made by the Diocese of Missis¬
sippi that the Bishop of Africa be invited to undertake
the work for three years of building up a Negro
Missionary Jurisdiction in the South, it seems to me
to be preposterous. Bishop Ferguson has already
164 The Crucial Race Question
lived the allotted years of man; he is practically a
stranger to Southern racial conditions, for he left the
United States and went to Africa at six years of age.'
Hardships of railroad travel, such as Southern Negroes
experience, when, as is frequently the case, they cannot
purchase food or sleeping accommodations, could not
be endured by such an old man; and I am reasonably
sure that he would feel that he is at least physically,
unfit for the work to which it is suggested he should
be called. What is needed is a man, several men, who
have lived under the customs and traditions of the
South, and who are of middle age, possessing the
physique and endurance necessary for the demands of
the field. With all due respect for the good work done
by the Bishop of Africa, we would expect beforehand
nothing but "failure" as the result of any effort of his
to found and administer a Missionary Jurisdiction
among Afro-Americans.
I reiterate and insist that less than four Bishops for
Negroes would be deplorable. One recent corre¬
spondent to a Church Weekly advocates two such
Bishops, one for the North and one for the South. I
agree with him that at present the demands of the
North require but one such Bishop. But I cannot see
by what method of analogous reasoning the conclusion
is reached that there should be also only one in the
South. - The territory to be covered, and the millions
to be reached, since four-fifths of the Negroes are in
the South, indicate that at the very least three Bishops
are necessary for the States below the Mason and
Dixon Line. The work along the Atlantic sea board
from Florida to Delaware certainly would require the
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line 165
undivided energies of one man. The middle Southern
States, east of the Mississippi would keep a second
busy enough, and a third might well spend all his
time in the vast Southwestern region. Anything less
than this would be trifling with a solemn responsibility.
Ill
There is nothing to be gained, absolutely nothing,
and every thing may be lost by the attempt to con¬
summate the proposition of those who are engaged in
the hazardous business of trying to exchange through
a Missionary Episcopate a Negro representation in
the General Convention for that which already is or
soon will be a thing of the past in all Southern
Dioceses. There is no use of trying in any way by
any means to disguise the simple palpable fact that
practically all white Churchmen in the South and
many in the North feel it to be necessary to rid our
Parochial and Diocesan organizations of their colored
constituency, and by one means or another they are
saying to it: "We do not want you to come
in too great numbers, or in small numbers too
frequently, to our Services for Divine worship; we do
not want you to send your children to our Sunday
schools, and above all we do not want you in any
capacity as officers and representatives in the Church.
Still, we realize your need of our Church and we are
ready to give it to you as far as this can be done with¬
out disregard of the Color-Line and without creating a
schism in the Body of Christ, the Church."
166 The Crucial Eace Question
To this many colored Churchmen are replying, and
I honor them for their self-respecting dignity: "We
do not desire to thrust ourselves upon those
who do not want us. We have no anxious longing to
come to your Churches for Divine Worship. We would
much prefer to build churches for ourselves, in which
under our own vine and fig-tree none dare make us
afraid. We feel very uncomfortable in your Churches,
for either we are bored by the attention superciliously
given us in the North, or humiliated by the gallery or
back seats assigned us in the South. We do not wish
to send our children to your Sunday Schools, for expe¬
rience teaches us that they are always reminded there
that a great gulf lies between the white and the colored
child to the disadvantage of the latter. We do not
care to join your parochial organizations, for we are
never given opportunity to employ such talents as we
may possess ; and as for your Clergy, we are free to say
that our preference is for men of our own race, who
are able to be true pastors over us without always
fearing that they, or we, may in some manner cross
the invisible but well-marked Color-Line.
"We are not at ease in your Diocesan Councils when
you permit us to attend them. We go in such cases
from a sense of duty. You do not recognize our dele¬
gates even though their membership in your Conven¬
tions for long years may merit recognition. They are
a part of the 'silent host' only breaking the silence with
their 'Ayes' and 'Noes.' As for the receptions and other
hospitality connected with these Conventions, very few
of us attend them even in the North, as we feel that
an absence gives us credit for common sense, and that
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line 167
by staying away we avoid much uncomfortableness.
Those who speak to us on these occasions either dis¬
cuss the weather, or ask us about the few sheep we
left in the wilderness, for a Negro is not supposed to
know anything but the affairs of his race; he may not
join in the merry laugh nor appreciate a joke nor tell
a story. But now and then we meet with each other
in our Colored Conferences, and we feel all the manli¬
ness that others feel under like circumstances. We
have not to swallow any pill of inferiority, however
sugar-coated it may be. Moreover, we are given the
various offices in such assemblies, and we get an oppor¬
tunity to develop ourselves along the line of self-
government.
"We thank you for not entirely depriving us of the
blessings of your Church. We could wish that you
would do unto us as we do unto< you. When you visit
our Churches, as occasionally you do, we show hospi¬
tality to strangers, as we may be entertaining angels
unawares; but since you have not as yet advanced as
far in the observance of the Golden Rule as we have,
and are not likely to do so while your human nature
remains what it is, we will accept your Church never¬
theless. This is the essential thing, and we are not
concerned about the non-essentials. Give us the
Prayer-Book and the Episcopate, the kernels of your
Worship, Doctrine, and Discipline, and we care not for
the shell of your ecclesiastical edifices and assemblies.
'Let there be no strife between us for we be brethren
in Christ.' You go to the right and we will go to the
left. This separation in location or of organization is
but a convenience for an age, whether shorter or
1G8
The Crucial Race Question
longer, but there is no division or schism created by
this peaceful separateness. Christ's Body is not
divided because we worship in buildings of our own
or have separate organizations for government and
work. We share the same Charter of Salvation,—'One
Lord, one Faith, one Birth.' We bless the same Holy
Name; we partake of the same Holy Food; and with
every grace endued, we press onward to the one hope
of our calling.
'We are not divided, All one Body we;
One in hope and doctrine, One in charity.'"
I am not a stoic nor Calvinist but perhaps I am
more or less of a predestinationalist and fatalist, and
therefore in the all-important matter of Color-Line
drawing I feel that the General Convention should
recognize one fixed, immutable fact and act accord-
ingly. That fact stated in the vernacular of a planta¬
tion Negro is "de Color-Line am done drawei."
As the Rt. Rev. Dr. Galloway, a distinguished
Bishop of the Methodist Church, South, in his famous
address before the Birmingham session of the Confer¬
ence for Southern Education said: "In the study of
this momentous question some things may be consid¬
ered as definitely settled.
"i. In the South there never will be any social
mingling of the races. Whether it be prejudice or
pride of race, there is a middle wall of partition which
will not be broken down.
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line
169
"2. The political power of this section will remain
in the present hands. Here, as elsewhere, intelligence
and wealth will and should control the administration
of Government affairs.
"3. They will be educated in separate schools and
they will worship in separate Churches. This is alike
desired by both races, and is for the good of each."
That humble plantation "darkey" and that great
Methodist Bishop agree in the statement of a fact. We
cannot have it otherwise even in the most Catholic
Church on earth, and the majority among us would not
if we could. Let us therefore submit to the inevitable
by recognizing the fact and by creating an autonomous
Afro-American Episcopate and Church.
If we give the Colored brethren the "Missionary" Epis¬
copate with "representation" in the General Convention,
and the time ever comes when a half dozen Clerical and
Lay delegates of them are in the Lower House, the
people at the South, especially those who are not of
our household faith, will say that the Episcopal Church
is a "Nigger Church." Nor will that be all the diffi¬
culty. Afro-Americans, especially outsiders among
them, will say, "the Episcopal Church is the White
man's Church." Southern Churchmen, white or black,
know what this would mean to both parties and all
the interests concerned. Many good people of both
races would stand aloof from the Church.
Of course, if we should elect only one or two Afro-
American Bishops and divide the whole South into
as many Jurisdictions, the Colored Episcopate with its
delegations would perhaps not be embarrassing and
hurtful to an unbearable degree, but then, what good
170
The Crucial Eace Question
would be done by two or three Colored Bishops with
vast Jurisdictions? If an Afro-American Episcopate
is to justify the hope that its friends, black and white,
center in it, there must ultimately be nearly as many
Colored Bishops in the "Black Belts" of the South as
there are White Bishops now.
Should it be asked why the 83 Negro delegates are
not intolerable to the 667 white delegates of the Meth¬
odist Episcopal General Conference, I reply, that con¬
ference is exclusively a Northern body and the people
of the North have not yet fully awakened to the neces¬
sity of drawing the Color-Line.
If our branch of the Catholic Church is ever to take
deep root among Afro-Americans and be one of the
great means of their salvation, we must, in my humble
judgment, without delay give them an adequate Epis¬
copate, and such an Episcopate, with the Jurisdictions
involved, if fully represented in both Houses of the
General Convention and in the Triennial meetings of
the Woman's Auxiliary, would have a much worse
effect upon the Church as a whole, South and North,
than Afro-American representation has ever had in any
Southern Diocese.
CHAPTER XI
Results of the Arkansas Plan.
I
When I went to Arkansas I soon saw that my
strength and resources were quite inadequate for the
accomplishment of all that was to be done. I found a
State of seventy-five large, quite populous counties, in
fifty or more of which the foot of a Church Missionary
had never been set, except "to pass by on the other side."
I feel certain that no competent judge in Missionary
matters, who knows of the adverse conditions with
which I had to contend and of what has been accom¬
plished by God's great and gracious blessings upon our
humble and imperfect endeavors, will think that we
have not done all that could reasonably be expected.
Nor will any such claim that in beginning with our
white people, I commenced at the wrong end of the
line or that I have done proportionately too much for
them.
Early in my Episcopate it became evident that to do
successful work among the Colored people in my
172 The Crucial Race Question
Diocese, it would be necessary to set them apart in a
Convocation of their own. For nearly twenty years the
Church in Arkansas, with the aid of the Board of
Missions, had been doing some work among the
Colored people, but the net result was a moribund
Parish of about forty persons. This colored congre¬
gation and its Rector took part in the governmental
affairs of the Church in the Diocese. Their presence
was not agreeable to a large number of our people,
but my beloved predecessor was of the opinion that
the Catholicity of the Church required their continu¬
ance. So there was a great deal of heart-burning
among both white and colored Churchmen.
It was impossible to do any more work among the
Colored people, because of the attitude of the whites,
and because of the reluctance of the Negroes to enter
an organization in which they felt they were not wel¬
come. After we had organized our Convocation for
the Colored people and secured a Negro Archdeacon
of ability to administer it, the change of attitude on
the part of both our White and Colored people was
most gratifying to me, and the desert has suddenly
blossomed as a rose.
With gratitude I quote the following from the
report of my colored Archdeacon, who has now been
in the field about nineteen months, within which he has
made two most remarkable reports to the annual
sessions of our Diocesan Council.
"St. Philip's Church, Little Rock, has continued its
activities; its communicant membership has increased,
and best of all, it has decided to be a Parish in deed as
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line 173
in name, paying- all of its current expenses, including
the stipend of its catechist, a young man who has
recently came to us from the Methodist ministry.
"St. James's Mission, in the southern section of
Little Rock, has had erected upon its lot a beautiful
chapel, so that our holdings there are now valued at
$2,000. Our Church is the prettiest place of worship
in that section of the city; its Sunday school numbers
50, although there are rival schools. We have also a
creditable day school for the younger children who
cannot attend the distant public schools.
"St. Augustine's Mission, in Fort Smith, is that of
which I feel proudest. In last July, I visited the
'Border City' and lectured to the citizens on 'The
Adaptability of the Episcopal Church to the Afro-
American and Vice-Versa,' with the result that I was
requested to begin at once a work in that community.
The first service was held by me on August 5th, and a
catechist, formerly a Baptist minister, was left in
charge. In December the Bishop confirmed a class of
24, in February a class of 10, and on last Sunday two
persons more, a total of thirty-six in nine months."
"You will be delighted to learn that we have also
been making some progress in the matter of self-
support. We are ambitious to help ourselves, rather
than, as in the past years, to look to the Bishop and
outside resources for everything needed. The sum of
$965.00 may not appear very large, but it is with some
degree of pride and satisfaction that I report that this
sum has been collected in the various Missions, most
174
The Crucial Eace Question
of them less than a year old. Here is the list of our
congregations with the amount each has raised:
St. Philip's, Little Rock $300.00
St. James', Little Rock 25.00
St. Andrew's, Pine Bluff 200.00
St. Augustine's, Fort Smith I55-00
St. Mary's, Hot Springs 240.00
St. Luke's, Newport 45.00
"Our methods of work have not failed to attract the
attention of those outside our Diocese. The 'Arkansas
Plan' for doing the work of our Church among the
colored people, as you well know, meets my hearty
approval. We are grappling at present, not with ideal
theories of Church oneness and equality, but with the
actual conditions confronting us. What the distant
future may accomplish in the way of obliterating racial
lines in State, in Church, or in Society, is no very
grave concern of ours. The fact cannot be denied that
at present there must be total cleavage—complete
separation—all along these lines, if we desire peace,
success, and full development for all parties. Real¬
izing this truth we have gone to work in the only
natural and right way, and the results have been
widely noted and commended. The Church is becom¬
ing convinced, that we are working along practical,
if not ideal lines."
The single, little dispirited, pauperized congregation
that we had before the drawing of the Cilor-Line has,
as will appear from the above report, grown into a self-
supporting parish and multiplied itself by six, as to
congregations, and quadrupled itself as to communi¬
cants ; our Convocation property has increased from
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line
175
$1,200 to $12,000, and the staff of Missionaries from
one to eight. While the government of the Convoca¬
tion is legally not entirely autonomous, yet practically
it is so. Opportunity is given the people to manage
their own affairs. The result is that they feel their
responsibility more, and contribute much) towards
their local support. The fact that the work is now
largely directed by an Archdeacon of their own race
appeals to many Colored people, but not until there is
full independence, under Negro Bishops, will they
come in any large numbers into the Church. The
drawing of the Color-Line has brought success. But
the line must be drawn more clearly and higher, if
permanent success is to be achieved.
But this comparative showing of the accomplish¬
ments of the past few months, when placed in contrast
with the failure of many years to do anything, really
tells but little more than half the story. Without a
knowledge and consideration of the inspiring fact that
"a great door is open to us" now, which hitherto had
been shut, the reader will have a very inadequate con¬
ception of what the drawing of the Color-Line means
to the Church in Arkansas. Moreover it must be
understood that every attempt to open that door before
we drew the Color-Line was harmful to the "white
Church." I am perfectly sure that the Church in
Arkansas was set back at least a quarter of a century
by the representation of that one little still-born
colored Mission in the Diocesan Council.
Many of the great troubles which brought my ven¬
erable and learned predecessor in sorrow to the grave,
grew out of his prolonged and persistent attempt to
176
The Crucial Race Question
do something through the Church for the poor, neg¬
lected, straying colored sheep of his fold without
sufficiently drawing the Color-Line.
• Developments at the South, in the Great American
Race Problem, have been of late years rapid and in
a direction tending to make the ideals of Bishop Pierce
respecting the relationship of the Negro to the "White
Man's Church," and the ideals of the Republican Party
respecting the Negro's relationship to the "White Man's
Country," simply impossible of realization. I am not here
discussing the Tightness or wrongness of these ideals,
but only insisting that they cannot be realized by even
such great, strong men as Henry Niles Pierce on a
Bishop's throne or a Theodore Roosevelt in the Presi¬
dent's Chair. Such ideals can never be materialized
by an ecclesiastical or political leader or party, and it
will be far better for both Church and State to recog¬
nize this fact and govern themselves accordingly.
Indeed it is vital that they should do so.
We have now formulated and announced our plans to
enter the wide "open door" by adding at least two
new Churches, one Rectory and one Minister to our
Afro-American Convocation every year for the next
ten years. The announcing of such plans before the
drawing of the Color-Line would have stopped all
progress in the Diocese of Arkansas and have made a
martyr of me. I don't want to be a martyr! In the
light of Bishop Pierce's sad experience, I reached the
conclusion that I would rather be "an angel" of the
people of my race than to become a martyr by reason
of a fruitless effort to be the Bishop of two races.
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line 17 7
II
This showing of what might be expected as the
result of autonomy for our Afro-American brethren in
the Lord would be most incomplete without some
reference to what the autonomous Methodist Epis¬
copal Negro Churches have accomplished.
One class of Autonomous Methodist Churches orig¬
inated among the Negroes themselves without the
agreement of the whites. The direct causes of the
separation were (i) discrimination made against the
blacks during Divine Worship, (2) the desire of
Colored people to obtain equal privileges and advant¬
ages of government denied them in the congregations
of which they were members. Several such congrega¬
tions sprung up about the same time in different cities
of the North or Border States, and very early in the
19th century, two denominations were organized from
these scattered congregations,—The African Meth¬
odist Episcopal (Bethel) Church, of which Richard
Allen was elected the first Bishop, and the African
Methodist Episcopal (Zion) Church, of which James
Varick was made the first Superintendent or Bishop.
The autonomous Negro Methodist Churches and
the Negro Baptists all urge the Negroes of the Epis¬
copal Church to accept autonomy if it is forthcoming.
They know what it has accomplished for themselves,
and are rejoiced to hear that I advocate an Afro-
Amefican Episcopal Church. They ask our colored
Clergy, "Why don't you accept Bishop Brown's Plan?"
And the colored Clergy have no answer. They are
fearful that if they answer in the way they should, it
178 The Crucial Race Question
would be construed that they desire schism. The
opinion of the schismatic Negro Methodist Churches
is that such an Afro-American Episcopal Church
would meet success, as in the case of the Methodist
Church of Negroes set up by the Southern White
Methodists, but that the success of Negro Episcopa¬
lians would be greater as secessions would be made to
them by many Methodist bodies as soon as they
possessed a valid and independent Episcopate.
The first colored Episcopal congregation in Phila¬
delphia grew out of the same causes from which the
schismatic Methodists originated, and about the same
time. St. Thomas' Church in that city was accepted
as a congregation in the Diocese of Pennsylvania under
the supervision of Bishop White, but with the express
understanding that it should never seek representation
in the Diocesan Convention. In 1795 Absalom Jones
was ordained by the same Bishop for the congregation.
He was the first Negro to become a Clergyman in the
Church. St. Thomas' was a self-supporting congrega¬
tion from the start. It built its Church, and then
sought connection with the Episcopal Church.
If, instead of the anomalous position which this
Parish and its Rector occupied from the start, an inde¬
pendent Church had been organized and Absalom
Jones, whose education was far superior to that of
Allen or Varick, had been consecrated a Bishop for his
people, can it be doubted that such autonomy would
have brought about more success in the Church's work
among these people? St. Thomas' Parish, Philadel¬
phia, was organized over a century ago, about the
same time that the Autonomous Methodist Churches
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line
179
were organized. What has this Church of ours to show
in all the United States for this whole century of effort?
One hundred and twenty Clergymen, and about 200
congregations with not 10,000 communicants. We
may point to about three or four schools or colleges
for them. This only, with all the influence, Catholicity,
and wealth of the American Church. What has been
done by these two African autonomous Churches?
The Bethel Connection of the A. M. E. Church has
now about 500,000 members, 5,000 churches, a large
number of colleges, and $7,000,000 of Church property.
The Zion Connection of the A. M. E. Church has
400,000 members, 1,750 Churches, several colleges, and
property worth $3,500,000.
Other independent Negro Churches which have
seceded from these two older bodies, have in the aggre¬
gate about 10,000 members, 100 churches and $250,000
worth of Church property.
The autonomous Negro Churches of the South
which have been organized with the mutual consent of
white and colored members of the denominations con¬
cerned have grown in proportion. Indeed, some have
done better than those which were schismatic.
The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church might be
called the Negro wing of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South. In i860, there were 207,000 colored
members in the Southern Conferences of Methodism.
In 1866, at the close of the War, the two autonomous
Negro Churches of the North entered the South and
there was such a flocking of colored members of the
white Methodist Church to the Negro Autonomous
180 The Crucial Eace Question
Churches that the 207,000 were reduced to 78,000 in a
single year. To what was this depletion due? The
white Methodists knew the cause, and immediately
organized the remnant into separate congregations and
annual conferences. But no Bishop was appointed
from the Negro Race. In 1870,—four years after,—it
became evident to the white Methodists that nothing
short of an autonomous Church would check the
secession of their colored remnant, and the general
conference of that year appointed two Bishops of that
race to organize the colored conferences into a sepa¬
rate and independent Church. Thus in December,
1870, the new body started as the "Colored Methodist
Episcopal Church." It has the same articles of
religion, the same form of government, and the same
discipline as the parent body. For many years the
schismatic Negro Bodies of Methodists strongly
opposed these members of the Colored Methodist Epis¬
copal Church because of their relation to the Methodist
Church, South, but this prejudice has disappeared, and
the two bodies now willingly admit that the progress
numerically and financially of the Colored Methodist
Church has been due to the friendliness and substantial
aid given by the white Methodists in every community
where this branch of colored Methodists erected its
Churches. Though only one-third the age of the two
schismatic Negro Methodist Churches, the Colored
Methodist Episcopal Church has now five Bishops,
150,000 members, 1,850 Churches, many colleges and
$2,000,000 worth of property. This is wonderful con¬
sidering that nearly three-fourths of their members
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line 181
had seceded just before organization, and that opposi¬
tion from their Negro schismatic brethren continued
for about twenty-five years or more.
Take another colored independent Church. In 1869,
in Tennessee, the General Assembly of the Cumber¬
land Presbyterian Church organized its colored min¬
isters and members into the "Cumberland Presbyte¬
rian Church (Colored)." The first Synod was held in
1874. It has the same doctrinal symbol, the same gov¬
ernment and discipline as the parent body and differs
only in race. Financial aid is given by the parent
body. There are now 25 Presbyteries in about ten
States. There are nearly 200 churches, 15,000 commu¬
nicants, and over $200,000 worth of Church property.
Compare this wing of colored Presbyterianism, in a
small section of the country, with the work of our
Church for a hundred years among Negroes, and even
this independent organization, not of Methodists, but
of Presbyterians, only 38 years old, has one-half more
members than the Episcopal Church can show among
the Colored people of the United States. Is there any¬
thing in autonomous ecclesiastical organizations for
successful efforts among Negroes? Let the above
statistics answer.
I think that an entirely separate and completely
autonomous ecclesiastical organization for colored
Churchmen is an ultimate and unavoidable necessity.
I hold to this opinion, among other good and sufficient
reasons, because of the fact that the Colored people of
the South will not in any great numbers come into the
Episcopal Church without it. It is a simple matter of
182
The Crucial Eace Question
undisputed fact that the several independent, auton¬
omous Methodist and Baptist bodies are the only
organizations of Christians that have any considerable
hold upon the Negro, North or South. Statistics
clearly show this to be the case.
The autonomous or independent, self-governing
Negro Churches have the following percentage of the
whole strength of organized Afro-American Chris¬
tianity :
Congregations or organizations 82 per cent.
Church edifices 83 per cent.
Halls used for religious purposes 70 per cent.
Communicants or members 87 per cent.
Value of Church property 77 per cent.
No doubt the revival system of these independent
Methodist and Baptist Churches, and the emotional
nature of the Negro, account in some measure for their
comparatively great success, but unquestionably the
major cause of it is the fact that they are autonomous
Churches. They are governed by the Negro for the
Negro and hence their popularity with the Negro.
You may get up all the revivals that you please in the
colored Churches which are simply attachments to
white Churches, and the colored people will not come
into or remain in them. They want and will have their
own Churches. I know of no stronger argument in
favor of giving our colored brethren their own Bishops
and Jurisdictions than the wonderful success, so far
as numbers are concerned, of their self-governing
Churches and the hopeless outlook of all others.
CHAPTER XII
The Failure of the White Ministry Among Colored
People
I
It is stoutly maintained by the able Bishops of
Georgia and Alabama that it is necessary both for the
safety of the Church and the good of the colored
people, that our work among them should be done
chiefly if not wholly by a white Ministry or at least
that it must be supervised by white Bishops. And this
is the view taken also by the distinguished Bishop of
Maryland and the Bishops of the Dioceses in the State
of Virginia.
The Church has done work among the Negroes
along the "Atlantic Sea Board" ever since they were
brought to this country in 1619. The first Negro child
born in America was baptized in the Episcopal Church
in the year 1624. Thousands of Negroes were mem¬
bers of the Church previous to the Civil War. In the
Diocese of South Carolina our colored outnumbered
our white communicants. But at the 1868 session of
the convention of that Diocese, only three years after
the close of the Civil War, the Rev. Dr. Hanckell,
184
The Crucial Race Question
Chairman of the Committee on the State of the
Church, said in his report: "In many of our Parishes
the falling off in the number of (colored) communi¬
cants is lamentable in the extreme. In some Parishes
where they were numbered by hundreds there are now
none. In others the number of communicants has been
reduced one-half or one-fourth. In i860 the whole
number of colored communicants was 2,960. There
have been reported to us only 291. In one Parish
fourteen chapels built for their use, in another five, in
several two or three, all are deserted."
How shall we account for this falling off of 90 per
cent of the colored communicants of the Diocese of
South Carolina between the years i860 and 1868?
Where did they go? The African Methodist
Churches swallowed them up! The racial feeling was
greater than the love of the Church. The Negro
Churchmen of those times were as a whole in every
way a much higher grade of people than the Negro
Methodists but they preferred to be led by Bishops
and to be ministered to by Pastors of their own race.
True, the colored Methodist Bishops and Ministers
were not always good shepherds, but the people knew
their voice and they followed them rather than the
more exemplary white shepherds, whose voice they no
longer knew, and under the changed conditions never
can or will know again; ever since the War it has
been growing weaker and less distinct to them until
now they pay little or no attention to it.
The general impression has gotten abroad that of
late years a great work has been done by the Church
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line 185
in the Diocese of South Carolina under the excep¬
tionally able leadership of her white Archdeacon,
but in eleven years, from 1892 to 1903, the actual
increase of communicants as the result of all his inde¬
fatigable work and that of his large corps of co-laborers,
all the money expended in its maintenance, 130! In
Arkansas where the Color-Line has been drawn and
where we have a colored Archdeacon the increase, in
less than two years, has been 130. And in order to
appreciate fully the significance of this contrast, it must
be remembered that the white Archdeacon of South
Carolina had a very much larger colored constituency
both of communicants and Clergy, and a great deal
more of both Church property and money back of him
than the colored Archdeacon of Arkansas has had.
We have no reliable ante-bellum statistics regarding
the adherence of Negroes to the Church for several
of the old Southern Dioceses, but the conditions and
history of South Carolina are generally believed to be
quite representative. It is certain that all along the
line there was a great falling off, of from 75 to 90 per
cent in our colored constituency.
Georgia now computes her Negro Church member¬
ship to be about 1,000, and when anyone speaks of the
failure of the work of the Church among Afro-Amer¬
icans under white leadership, these 1,000 communicants
are held up as if it were a sufficient and unanswerable
refutation of a slanderous representation; and to all
appearance the work does seem to have prospered here
more than elsewhere. But though we rejoice in this
oasis of the vast desert and would not for the world
sterilize it yet we feel that the interests of truth
186
The Crucial Race Question
require that we should call attention to the fact that it
really does not, on account of its supposed great fruit-
fulness, afford a secure basis for the conclusion that
there is no necessity for the drawing of the Color-Line
through the Episcopal Church. For as a matter of
fact the Church in Georgia long has had a good deal of
that line and she has more of it now than she had two
or three years ago. She always has had separate
Churches for her colored and her white people, and
lately she has drawn a compromise Color-Line around
her Diocesan Convention in the creation of "The
Georgia Council of Colored Churchmen," which prac¬
tically is a Negro Convocation. Over it has been
placed a colored Archdeacon.
Moreover it should not be forgotten by those who
are inclined to think that everything that glitters is
gold, that the colored part of the Church in Georgia,
has greatly profited, in common with all her sister
Border States, especially Florida, by emigration of
Negro Churchmen from the West Indies, and yet an
investigation would show that Georgia has not much
more than held her own. She, too, probably, has fewer
communicants than she had before the War. Of her
estimated 1,000 communicants of the colored race,
about 600 are members of three congregations which
have been in existence for many years.
What has been the percentage of growth in the
Colored Work in Georgia during the entire 15 years of
the present Episcopate, I cannot now tell, but I have
statistics at hand for the year 1897 and am able to form
an estimate of the growth of that work during the last
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line 187
nine or ten years of the current Episcopate, presum¬
ably the most successful portion of it. At the begin¬
ning of the period referred to there were 764 Negro
communicants in Georgia, at the end of it, 941, showing
an increase of 18 per cent, in ten years! Only one
new Church has been organized in this period, that at
Macon. It is true that in Frederica two missionary
efforts are being made by the white Rector in that
town, but as yet no communicants have been reported.
One Church in Marietta reported no communicants
ten years ago. It reports one now! And the largest
of the Parishes in Georgia, that in Burroughs, shows
in the "Annual" today exactly what it did ten years
ago,—the number of communicants as 196. Granting
that there may be errors in these statistics, yet it may
fairly be admitted that under one of the strongest of
our white Bishops the Negro work in Georgia has not
been such a wonderful success as is popularly supposed.
Much money has been given to Georgia. There is a
strong staff of Negro Clergymen in that Diocese. In
Arkansas we have but one Clergyman and a staff of
Catechists. We have no money at present to employ
other Clergymen, yet in the short time of 18 months,
our communicant membership has grown in this Dio¬
cese from about 40 to 165, an increase of 125. The
old and half dead Parish of St. Philip's, Little Rock,
which had become almost barren, has doubled its
membership and at date of writing has 80 communi¬
cants, although for 15 years it reported an estimated
membership of 40, year after year. Not only has
the old Parish suddenly doubled its membership, but
188 The Ceucial Eace Question
five new Missions have come into birth, and are rival¬
ing- the old mother in increase, for about 53 per cent
of the communicant membership is to be found in these
new Missions, only two of which are yet a year old.
And all this comparatively wonderful, and I sometimes
say, this phenomenal change, has been made possible by
the separation of the work from the white work, and
the placing of it under Negro management and leader¬
ship as far as possible.
And I firmly believe that if instead of an Archdea¬
conry, we had full autonomy for the Negroes of
Arkansas, with a Church and Bishop of their own
apart from, but in communion with, the Mother Amer¬
ican Church, the success of the work here would have
been multiplied ten-fold.
II
It is a simple matter of fact that the records, so far
as they are known or so far as they can be judged of
by reasonable probabilities everywhere show that no
white Bishop of the Episcopal Church, has been a great
success in his work among the colored people. The
most successful among them have simply held what
was left them and reaped a small natural increase. If
immediately after the War, Negro leadership had been
given to the 2,960 communicants of South Carolina it
cannot be supposed that they would have been reduced
to 291. And even after the falling off had taken place, if
only the Church had been wise enough to place a few
colored Bishops among the remnant here and there
throughout the Southeland, we,in all probability, should
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line
189
have at least two or three times as many communi¬
cants of the Church as we now have. Indeed the mul¬
tiple might easily have been much greater, for it is an
open secret that many very prominent Methodist min¬
isters, some Bishops among them, were dissatisfied with
the colored Methodist Episcopate, and would have been
strongly disposed to come to the Church, had there
been an Autonomous Negro Episcopate.
Let us not, however, shed useless tears over spilled
milk, but see that we have no further cause for weep-
ing by making a favorable response to the appeal of
our Afro-American brethren for Bishops and Mission¬
ary Jurisdictions of their own. For is there not reason
enough to believe that if the Church refuses to grant
this request our 9,000 communicants will be further
decimated? As we have shown above, in our new
Missionary effort for Negroes in Arkansas, where as
much as it is possible the work has been separated
from the white work and administered by a colored
leader, in less than two years the communicant
membership has increased from 40 to 165 and in
the next year the present number in all likelihood
will be very nearly doubled. Compare the results
of this entirely new movement, along the right and
natural lines, with the showing made, for example,
by the Diocese of North Carolina where they have
a colored Archdeacon, too, but no rigid Color-Line
in their Diocesan Council, where there are fifteen
congregations, many of them established before the
War, where much money has been spent all these
years by the Board of Missions, and where at present
there are but 600 communicants, not quite four times
190
The Crucial Eace Question
the number of communicants in the Diocese of
Arkansas. If these comparisons do not show the
desirability and necessity of drawing the Color-Line,
a revelation from heaven would not do so.
After the War there was also a tremendous falling
off in the colored membership of the Methodist Epis¬
copal Church, South, from 270,000 to 78,000, but that
Church wisely determined to organize the small rem¬
nant of its colored constituency into the independent
and autonomous "Colored Methodist Episcopal
Church." That Church is regarded as the child of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and there is a
helpful communion without any organic relationship
between them. The Child Church under the helpful
guidance, sympathy and co-operation of the Mother
Church has been fruitful and multiplied, until now it
has over two hundred and fifty thousand members.
The good citizenship of this Church's membership is
a matter of common observation on the part of white
people throughout the Southland. Altogether it is a
glorious record, and something relatively corresponding
to it will be made by Afro-American Churchmen, if only
we are as wise as our Southern Methodist brethren
were, when they were called upon to deal with an
appeal for a racial episcopate from the Negro members
of their household of faith; otherwise we certainly have
no mission to the Afro-American. This people is call¬
ing across the gulf for us to come over into Macedonia
and help them. The command of the Saviour to us is
to go, but instead of heeding the call and obeying the
command in the only way that is possible to do so, by
throwing the line of the episcopate across and making
The Ecclesiastical Color-Line 191
it the beginning of a suspension bridge for intercom¬
munion between two independent Churches, we are
bidding them to leap across to us, across the Color-
Line gulf that runs through our Parishes, across the
Color-Line gulf that runs more or less completely
around our Diocesan and General Conventions. The
commission is to go to all nations, more literally, all
races; we in the pride of a false Catholicity have been
standing off, and saying, "Come!" God grant that at
Richmond this Church may at last say: "Arise! Let
us go!" In this as in so many other matters it is better
late than never.
In the early days of Christianity, we find that
wherever the Church took root a native Episcopate
was established at a very early date . If the Christian
ministry had to be confined to Jews our Holy religion
could have no future and the fact that the ministry
was happily not so confined points out to us our duty
in the case of the appeal of Afro-American Church¬
men. We have done the preliminary work in the case
of this race, now let us go on in the way of obedience
to the great commission by answering their Mace¬
donian cry for the help of a native Episcopate.
But some one will say, we must manage in some
way to keep the oversight of the Episcopate that we
may give to Afro-American Churchmen. Because it
will never do to entrust such a sacred office to such a
people. But, I ask, i-s that office any more sacred than
the Gospel itself or than the other orders of the min¬
istry? The Jewish Christians had a pretty low estima¬
tion of the Gentiles, but they nevertheless gave them
an Episcopate.
192
The Crucial Eace Question
Again it will be objected, the Gentiles were the
equals of the Jews in many respects, though not in
religious aspects, while the American Negro is of infer¬
ior race. But Christ came to save the world, the
inferior as well as the superior parts of it, and the
command to the Episcopate is: "Go ye into all the
world and preach the Gospel to every creature and
every race." No one who gives due consideration to the
emphasis which our Saviour put upon the fact that the
poor were to have the Gospel preached unto them will
contend that the inferior races are not to have the
Church in its entirety.
A great deal is said about the inferiority of the
Negro as a reason why the Episcopate should not be
given to him; and, as compared with the Caucasian,
there is no doubt in my mind that his race is among
the inferior ones. But when, for the worthy purpose
of showing the necessity of protecting our race by
drawing the Color-Line about our social, political and
religious institutions, we call attention to the infer¬
iority of the Negro, it is no more than fair to him
that we should make acknowledgment of the palpable
fact that he is by no means the scum of humanity, for
as a race he is almost as superior to some other races
as ours is to his. By the common consent of travelers
and ethnologists the Negroes are far above many
other peoples.
The Crucial Race Question
LECTURE IV
Objections to the Arkansas Plan
CHAPTER XIII. Why This Negro Went From the Sunny South to
the Windy City, or the Need of an Afro-American
Moses.
CHAPTER XIV. The Catholic's Objection to the Arkansas Plan.
CHAPTER XV. The Idealist's Objection to the Arkansas Plan.
CHAPTER XVI, The Southerner's Objection to the Arkansas Plan.
CHAPTER XVII. The Archdeacon's Looking Glass, or the Con¬
clusion of the Whole Matter.
PREFATORY
In view of the showing of the preceding chapters of this
book, the continuation of an argument for the purpose of prov¬
ing the necessity and possibility of some favorable response to
the reiterated, natural and reasonable appeal of Afro-American
Churchmen for Bishops and Jurisdictions of their own, would
appear, in ordinary discussions, to be a work of supererogation.
But the Episcopalian advocate of ecclesiastical Color-Line draw¬
ing finds it necessary to pile "precept upon precept, line upon
line; here a little and there a little," because, in addition to
the ordinary prejudices and misconceptions to be overcome, he
runs directly counter to a deep-rooted, widely spread erroneous
idealistic doctrine respecting the Catholicity and Unity of the
Church.
In order, therefore, that the whole field of objections to the
action recommended to the General Convention by the Diocese
of Arkansas might be covered adequately, a large part of this
Lecture (Chapters XIII and XIV) has been devoted to the
consideration of the question of whether or not an independent
Afro-American Episcopate and Church can be created without
incurring a heavy responsibility for the deadly sin of schism
in the Body of Christ.
These chapters, XIII and XIV, are intended to answer the
great objections of Anglo-American Catholics both North and
South, black and white. In Chapter XIII an effort is made to
show from historical considerations that there is no reason
why there should not be Caucasian and Negro Bishops within
the same geographical limits, having spiritual jurisdiction over
the people of their respective races. In Chapter XIV this ques¬
tion of overlapping Episcopal jurisdictions is treated from the
stand-point of expediency.
It is hoped that Chapter XVI will contribute something
towards the removal of one of the most prevalent and serious
among the objections to a Negro Episcopate that are peculiar
to the South. In it we undertake to show, that contrary to the
opinion of many, we have good and sufficient reason for believ¬
ing that Afro-American Bishops would succeed with their people
where Anglo-American Bishops have failed among them.
CHAPTER XIII
Why This Negro Went from the Sunny South to the
Windy City, or the Need of an Afro-American
Moses.
It seems that the idea has spread among the Negroes
of the South that, if they go North, they will be able
to so far pass the Color-Line as to materialize the
philosophy of Wendell Phillips and Professor DuBois
by the marrying of white women. One of my Clergy
told me of an experience of his in Chicago which
shows this to be the case. A few years ago, when they
still had colored waiters in the great hotels of that
city, he ate his dinner at one of them. He was taken
to a table where a Northern man was seated. The
Northern man complained that the waiter was pro-
vokingly slow and unaccommodating. The man was
pressed for time in which to meet an important
appointment and had told the waiter so, and yet fully
ten minutes had elapsed and he was just appearing
away at the other end of the spacious dining-hall with
a glass of water, and his pace was exasperatingly
slow. The Clergyman made up his mind that he
would try to do his nervous and commuhicative
companion a favor and at the same time save himself
the annoyance of a similar experience. So he said,
"Look here, Sam, what is the matter with you?
196
The Crucial Race Question
This gentleman tells me that he gave a 'rush' order
and that he has been waiting ten minutes; and now
you have come moping along with nothing but a glass
of water! You get a move on you or there will be
something doing around here." The negro was
startled, as if by a clap of thunder out of the clear sky,
and replying, "Yes, massa," he did get a move on,
which was as astonishing as it was gratifying to the
hungry, hurried Northerner.
It was the first time that the Arkansas Clergyman
had been North and so as he put it "that nigger was
interesting to me." After his companion had "bolted"
his dinner, in true Northern fashion, and left with a
cordial expression of gratitude, some questions were
asked. "What is your name?" "Robert, sir." "Where
did you come from?" "Miss'ippi, sir." "What did you
come up here for?" There was a pause and evident
embarrassment. "I don't likes to tell, sir." "But you
must tell. I want to know why you left dear old
sunny Miss'ippi to come up to this windy, cold,
gloomy country?" "Well, sir, I done come to gets a
white woman." "You black scoundrel! Have you suc¬
ceeded?" "No sir; but I is tryin' and I reckon I finds
one that will hab me some time, cause two or three
odder niggers got 'em."
It is my firm conviction, that this kind of thing is
encouraged by every person who, upon any condition
whatsoever, holds out the hope of either political or
ecclesiastical equality to the American Negro. I am
not acquainted with any white people, North or
South, who are in sympathy with Professor DuBois;
for his almost undisguised frankness in giving
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 197
expression to the hope of intermarriage and absorption
nauseates every sane Anglo-Saxon or Aryan. But,
even among Southerners there are many who
are inclined to look upon the so-called Booker
Washington's scheme, with approval, and Northerners
generally simply rave over it. This Southern sym¬
pathy and Northern enthusiasm, I am convinced, are
due in part to failure to appreciate the fact that the
conditional political equality which Doctor Washing¬
ton holds up as a prize to his people, is inevitably
linked with miscegenation, and the consequent efface-
ment of the black race and the degradation of the
white.
The true Afro-American Moses, when he comes, will
set up a standard of righteousness and industry rather
than that of education and financial achievements
with a view of securing political suffrage, and he will
draw the Color-Line around his domestic hearth and
religious shrine. A Clergyman of Philadelphia told
me that he once knew an unusually highly educated,
wealthy and influential colored man who told him that
he would be willing to be "flayed alive" if he could be
sure that his "skin would come back white." In any,
attempt to improve the condition of a race, many of
whose representatives undoubtedly have feelings
resembling those of that poor man, the first thing to
be undertaken is the creation of race pride and ideals.
I know of nothing that the Episcopal Church could do
to this important, indispensable end that would count,
for as much as the adoption of the Arkansas Plan in the
creation of an autonomous Afro-American Church.
198 The Crucial Race Question
In the Southern Negro, we have the curious and
perplexing anomaly of a maximum of religious fervor
and a minimum of moral practice. This being the case,
there is no organization of Christians in the country
which can do so much for the Negro as the Episcopal
Church. The emotional, noisy type of religion, is, no
doubt, what the average Negro more naturally takes
to, but what he really needs is the sober, ethical, ele¬
vating influence of the services and teachings of this
Church.
The fact that the Southern Negro needs the whole¬
some medicine of the moral doctrine delivered by the
Episcopal Church above all other religious medicines,
and the fact that he needs it so badly and in such
large doses, places a tremendous and most solemn
responsibility upon us. It is one of the main purposes
of this book to show that in order to discharge her
responsibility to Afro-Americans the Episcopal Church
must organize her Negro Clergy and Laity into an
entirely separate, self-governing Church by giving
them independent Bishops of their own.
The only hope I see for the Afro-American is in
religion and righteousness and work. All the other
stars are fading from his sky; only these remain. The
white man has been the Negro's god, and competition
with the white man has been his ruin. Let him now
turn at last through an autonomous Episcopate and
Church to the God of Heaven and of righteousness
who worked six days and rested only one, and he
shall be saved, otherwise he must be lost.
CHAPTER XIV
The Catholic's Objection to the Arkansas Plan.
The great objection of our Catholic brethren to the
Arkansas Plan and Memorial is known as the "Over¬
lapping Objection."
I
i. In answer to this objection let me say first of
all that Episcopal Jurisdictions covering the same
geographical area are by no means as uncommon or as
unjustifiable as our Catholic idealists would have us
believe. Such overlappings are now very common in
heathen Asiatic and African Mission Fields. This is
also the case even in Christian Europe. According
to our theory all the Roman Bishoprics in this country
are overlappings. The Anglican communion is respon¬
sible for several among such overlappings in Roman
Catholic countries. What are our American Churches
in France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, but so
many geographical overlappings? We are also respon¬
sible, I think justly so, for something that looks very
much like geographical overlapping in Mexico, Cuba,
Hayti, Porto Rico, the Panama Canal Zone, Brazil,
Honolulu and the Philippine Islands. If we feel free
to overlap so much upon the ground of other Catholic
200
The Crucial Race Question
Churches in more or less far away countries why may
we not without the violation of Catholic principle do a
little of it on our ground at home? In view of this
showing, refusal to grant the appeal of Afro-American
Churchmen would open the door to the serious charges
of inconsistency and insincerity and if they are entered
I should like to be present when the chosen Champion
of the Catholics tries to put them out.
2. The creation of a racial branch of the Catholic
Episcopate for the purpose of meeting the perplex¬
ing exigency which now confronts Anglo-American
Churchmen in the Appeal of their Afro-American
Brethren would certainly receive considerable, if not
indeed, complete justification in the action taken by
the Apostles under much less serious but essentially
analogous circumstances. In response to an appeal,
which, like this one, was the outgrowth of irritating
conditions resulting from the incompatibilities of a
differentiated Church membership, the Apostles went
to the extreme length of appointing a wholly new
order in the Christian Ministry, the seven original
members of which, in their ministrations, were to have
reference to the limitations of differentiated peoples
who though they, at least for the time being, occupied
the same geographical area could not or, what is much
the same thing, would not get along together under
the ministrations of the same spiritual Pastors.
All the Pentecostal converts to Christianity were
Caucasians and moreover they were either Jews or
Proselytes to Judaism. Above all the Christian
religion with its attractive doctrines of the universal
Fatherhood of God, and Brotherhood of Man, was a
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 201
new thing- with them and relying upon the profound
philosophy which underlies the homely proverb, "a
new broom sweeps clean," the Apostles might reason¬
ably have expected that the Disciples would sink their
comparatively slight differences sufficiently to enable
all parties to be satisfied with the same Christian
Ministry. To my mind there is no doubt that there
were idealists among the Apostles, and that they made
every effort to prevent the necessity of the creation
of factional ministries; but fortunately for the welfare
of the Infant Church, they were more sensible than
some modern idealists, and so, when they found that
their idealism "wouldn't work" they created a new
Ministry, seven Deacons, two or three for each faction.
Now if the Catholic Apostles thought it necessary,
or at least desirable, to add a new order to the Chris¬
tian Ministry in response to the appeal of the differen¬
tiated Jewish converts to Christianity, which appeal
grew out of a comparatively mild form of human anti¬
pathy, why may not the Catholic Bishops of the Amer¬
ican Church regard the appeal of our Afro-American
Churchmen by granting them a complete Apostolic
Ministry. Almost every principle involved in the
making and granting of this appeal is or could be
justified by the analogy of what was done in the
Apostolic Church, and that too while it was yet being
baptized by the Holy Ghost. Certainly there is very
much more cause for the complaint of Afro-American
Churchmen than there was for that of the Grecian
Jews, and the completion of the racial ministry which
they already have by the addition of racial Bishops
would not be as radical a measure as the creation of g,
202 The Crucial Race Question
new order of the ministry to meet a much less virulent
case of differentiation among Christians.
If I am reminded that the Apostles did not give
their memorialists a special Apostolate, I insist that
what they did covered the principle that would be
involved in the making of a favorable response to our
memoralists, for they did create a Special Ministry
to meet a Special Case, and that is all that we would
be doing. In the ordination of Negro Deacons and
Priests we in fact have done this already. It is true
that Deacons and Priests are not equal to Bishops in
dignity and authority of office but they are Ministers
and they have authority and the point of issue is
the overlapping geographically of Ministerial authority
and work.
But to avoid the possibility of it being urged,
with any show of reason, that we have begged the
question, I will admit that the contention based
upon the comparative inferiority of the Ministry
created by the Apostles and of that asked for
by Afro-American Churchmen should be taken
into consideration. This is a generous concession,
but there is a remarkable fact which invalidates
any objection to our argument that Catholics can
base upon it, and this is that fact: the Deacons
created by the Apostles in response to the petition for
a special Ministry were no ordinary Deacons such as
present themselves to our minds when we think of the
Diaconate. In reality that Diaconate was unique in
that it occupied very much the same footing as that of
the Apostolate. The truth is those Deacons for a
long time put the Apostles in the shade. During a
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 203
considerable period they were much more aggressive
and prominent and this accounts for the fact that their
order of the Ministry secured the imperishable honor
of having furnished the first Christian Martyr.
3. In the Ministry of St. Paul and St. Peter we have
something that looks perhaps even more like Apostolic
and Scriptural authority for such overlappings in Epis¬
copal Jurisdictions as are necessary for the meeting of
special racial conditions. This case is stated so briefly
and forcibly by the Bishop of Western Texas that I
give it in his words. Speaking in justification of the
proposal to create an Afro-American Episcopate he
says:
"I think but one argument has been advanced in
opposition to the adoption of this proposed plan; that
is, that it would be in violation of Catholic usage. But
is it not in agreement with the most primitive practice?
And surely that which is most primitive, according to
the Vincentian rule, is most Catholic. When this
same question of race prejudice sprang up in the early
Church, how did the Apostles, under the direct guid¬
ance of the Holy Spirit, settle it? We all know the
answer, for it is written plain in the records, where St.
Paul, in a letter to the Gentiles in Galatia, in which
St. Peter was Apostle to the Jews, recounting what
was done at the first Council, says: When they saw
that I had been entrusted with the gospel of the uncir-
cumcision even as Peter with the gospel of the cir¬
cumcision (for He that wrought for Peter unto the
Apostleship of the circumcision wrought for me also
unto the Gentiles) they gave to me and Barnabas the
right hand of fellowship.' Now the result of this
204 The Crucial Eace Question
decision was unquestionably to create overlapping
jurisdiction in Asia Minor, and possibly in Rome, as is
proven by Peter and Paul each writing Epistles to the
Christians in Galatia. We know very well what a
rumpus this would raise if any such thing should be
done now, that is, if one Diocesan Bishop should pre-
sumje to address a pastoral epistle to any Christians
dwelling in the Diocese of another Bishop. I know
whereof I speak, for on one occasion, when I sug¬
gested by letter to a Bishop what I thought was an
excellent plan for dealing with this very question at
my old home, where the Negroes outnumber the
whites ten to one, and where numbers of them in their
childhood had received Baptism and were confirmed in
this Church, I got a rebuke which I will not soon
forget. The fact has to be confessed that Diocesan
Episcopacy, as we have it, was not known in the
earliest days of the Church. If we would frankly
admit this, and not blindly stick to our indefensible
position, we might reach a reasonable basis for Chris¬
tian unity. Claiming, as we do, to stand for the most
primitive usages, should we hesitate to adopt the
same measures that the Apostles did to tide over a
difficult problem, trusting to time to furnish a more
complete and satisfactory solution than is now
possible?"
II.
There is no doubt among ecclesiastical histo¬
rians that, in the age succeeding the sub-Apostolic
times, it became the general rule of the Church to per¬
mit only one Bishop in a See City or Diocese, and that
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 20-5
this prevailing regulation was for the purpose of pre¬
venting the overlapping of Episcopal Jurisdictions; but
the authorities also quite generally agree that there
were exceptions to this rule which were allowed in
order to meet temporary exigencies.
Perhaps in the rapid rise of the Diaconate,
to overshadowing importance, we have the explan¬
ation of the fact that the successors of the Apos¬
tles did not ordain Deacons or Priests to meet
the emergency cases with which they had to deal, but
consecrated Country Bishops instead. This, I have
no doubt is how it came about that in the course of
time the Bishop of every great center of population
surrounded himself with a staff of Assistant Bishops.
These auxiliary Country Bishops, as they were called,
occupied much the same relation to the City Bishops
that the first Deacons or Priests did to the Apostles.
They had the oversight of related groups of differen¬
tiated congregations. If this primitive arrangement
were to be restored to New York, as to some degree
it should be, the Bishop of that Metropolis would not
have one Coadjutor to assist him in his stupendous
work but perhaps a dozen Auxiliary Bishops, say, one
for the Negroes, another for the Italians, another for
the Greeks, another for the Jews, another for the
Russians, one or two for the Tenement Districts,
two or three for the Suburbs, and several for the
smaller cities, towns and villages round about.
In some of the greater cities there seems to have
been two principal Bishops, one Bishop for the Jews
and the other for the Gentiles. This is the conclusion
206
The Crucial Eace Question
reached by some among the most learned of our histo¬
rians. They contend that unless the Apostles and
their immediate successors were responsible for the
overlapping of Episcopal jurisdictions it is difficult, if
not indeed impossible, to explain satisfactorily the per¬
sistent tradition that the Church of Rome had both
St. Peter and St. Paul as founders of it, or the testi¬
mony to the effect that they left successors behind
them, and that Alexandria never had two Bishops as
had most other metropolitan Churches.
It is true that these representations rest in part
upon the authority of Epiphanius and that the learned
editor of the Churchman in his criticism of the argu¬
ments by which the Arkansas Plan is supported is
inclined to take what this Father says with a grain of
salt; but he has neglected to explain how it was possi¬
ble for Epiphanius to make the mistake that is attrib¬
uted to himi. Until this explanation is forthcoming
we submit that on behalf of a favorable reply to the
Appeal of Afro-American Churchmen, we have scored
a great point against the Catholics which in itself is
almost if not quite conclusive.
Among the authorities who are inclined to the
opinion that the earliest Episcopate of the great cities
was dual, are both Bingham and Milman. Indeed
Dean Milman commits himself to the hypothesis that
in some places there were Jewish and Gentile Bishops
with overlapping geographical jurisdictions. He
thinks that in this assumption of duality we have the
only rational solution of the perplexing historical
problem connected with the association of Linus and
Clement as contemporary Bishops of the City of Rome.
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 207
One was probably the successor of St. Peter who had
jurisdiction over the Jews. As the Dean in his History
of Christianity observes, "All difficulties in the arrange¬
ment of the succession to the Episcopal See of Rome
vanish if we suppose two contemporary lines," and, he
might have gone on to observe that, if this is not the
solution of the historical problem, its difficulties are
inexplicable.
It seems almost impossible to avoid the conclu¬
sion that there was a great deal of overlapping in the
case of the Apostles. No doubt St. James was the
Bishop of Jerusalem; but, for some years, all the
Apostles made that metropolis of Christianity their
headquarters and it is unreasonable to suppose that
they did not feel free to exercise their ministry as they
had opportunity without much if any reference to him.
Jerusalem was the See City of the Twelve Apostles
long before there were any Dioceses or geographical
jurisdictions.
Moreover when Samaria, as the result of St. Philip's
preaching, received the Gospel, the Apostles, not
St. James, sent two of their number, St. Peter and St.
John, to that city for the purpose of confirming the
converts. Will our Catholic brethren who contend
that a modern Diocese can only have one successor of
an Apostle note that, as a result of a conference of
the Apostolic College, two Apostles were sent with
joint or overlapping jurisdictions to Samaria?
It certainly is a great misfortune for Catholic
Idealism in the Anglican and Roman Churches that
one Apostle did not do the sending to Samaria and
208 The Crucial Eace Question
that two were sent. Why did they not do things differ¬
ently? Upon the supposition that St. James had
exclusive jurisdiction in Jerusalem we must suppose
that the other Apostles were his Coadjutors and conse¬
quently that when there was any sending to be done he
was the one to do it, but St. Peter and St. John were
sent by the Apostles. And upon the hypothesis that
there can be no overlapping of Episcopal jurisdiction
the sending of two Apostles to Samaria to confirm the
converts of the one Deacon that had been sent or
driven there is inexplicable. It is true that there were
many converts, but it is also true that in a few days
of leisurely ministrations one Bishop could have con¬
firmed the whole population, and administered the
Holy Communion to it.
St. Peter and St. John were sent to Samaria, or
elected to go there, by the Apostles, and, in all proba¬
bility, they organized and jointly governed a Church
in that section of the Holy Land. However, two
Apostles could not go to a place to perform joint Epis¬
copal functions without more or less of overlapping.
The relationship to and the authority over his breth¬
ren maintained by St. James were doubtless similar to
those of an Archbishop, not of a Diocesan. It is diffi¬
cult, if not indeed impossible, to imagine that the other
Apostles regarded Jerusalem, or any part of the Holy
Land, or even of the world as given over exclusively to
the jurisdiction of St. James or to any one else so that
if one of them wanted to preach or baptize, confirm, or
administer the Holy Communion he must first secure
his permission. Think, if you can, of St. Peter or any
other of the Eleven feeling any restraint as to the
Objections to the Arkansas Plan
209
exercise of their ministry on account of the overlord-
ship of St. James.
It is indeed true that after the development
of the Diocesan system in the Fourth and Fifth
Centuries the Church tried to prevent the set¬
ting up of rival Bishops; but let me remind you
that in order to heal schism, Bishops with overlapping
jurisdictions often entered into communion with each
other. At the Council of Carthage in A. D. 411 there
were present 286 Catholic and 279 Donatist Bishops.
Before entering upon the proceedings, the Catholics
pledged themselves, if defeated to give up their sees,
while in the other event they promised to recognize
the Donatist, as Bishops on their simply declaring
their adherence to the Catholic Church. Imagine the
New York Churchman making a similar proposition
to American Denominationalism ! But some among us
think something of the kind should be done by either
the Churchman or the Living Church, or better yet,
the General Convention.
Ill
But it will be said: What you need by way of a
precedent for the support of your contention is an
instance of two or more Bishops legitimately exercis¬
ing different spiritual jurisdictions within the same
geographical area. Are there any such overlappings
in the history of the Church which would serve as a
justification of the Anglo-American Church in creating
an independent Afro-American Church? I believe
that there are. In fact it seems to me that all the
210 The Crucial Race Question
instances of the missions of the Church of one country
to unevangelized people of another country in which
Christianity was established will serve our purpose
and there are many such. We Anglo-Catholic Chris¬
tians need not look outside of our own history for a
notable example. The British Church and the Roman
Mission to the Saxons is such. The animosity between
the native Christians and their heathen conquerors in
this and other similar cases was so bitter that the
former could not if they would and would not if they
could preach the Gospel to the latter. If the invaders,
and the whole of the christianized part of Western
Europe which was over-run by them, were evangelized
at all it therefore would have to be done through the
preaching of outside missionaries and fortunately this
was done systematically, everywhere.
It is indeed true that, in the case of our illustrative
example, the British Bishops and Augustine did not
get on very well together, but their difficulty was not
because of a claim on the part of the British Bishops
that their jurisdiction extended over the invaders; it
was due to essentially the same causes that prevent
harmonious relationships in the case of a New England
"School Marm" who comes South for the purpose of
teaching the Negroes the classic languages, higher
mathematics, and incidentally, social equality. Augus¬
tine acted in obedience to Christ's command, and in
accordance with the Catholic custom, so that though
his coming and works were not approved by the
British Bishop, they nevertheless no doubt met the
approval of the hierarchy of heaven and we have no
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 211
record of any objection to what he did by the Church
at large.
As the learned ex-President of Trinity College, Dr.
George Williamson Smith, so well says: "From Ire¬
land and Scotland Missionaries went into France,
Holland, and the Rhine Country to convert the
heathen tribes which had come into Christendom
where Bishops were neglecting the work of convert¬
ing theml Sometimes a Bishop headed from the first
the body of voluntary adventurers, but more often, as
soon as any considerable success had been achieved
one of the energetic pioneers was advanced to the
Episcopal rank. Many among such Missions began
with monasteries in which were men of the Episcopal
order. 'They forced the careless, Frankish Churchmen
for very shame to rouse themselves to the duties of
Missionary work' among new races. The work of
Wilfrith, Willibrord, the Hewalds and Boniface was in
its main features like that of the proposed Episcopate
to the Negroes, overlapping Episcopates evangelizing
and shepherding two races of people living in the
same country."
The greater part of the Missionary history of Chris¬
tianity in Western Europe during the Middle Ages may
be cited in justification of the Arkansas Plan and in
support of our Memorial to the General Convention.
If the Catholic Church of the middle ages had held to
and been governed by the opinion that the limits of a
Bishop's jurisdiction are geographical rather than
spiritual Europe would be a heathen country to-day.
In New York City the Orthodox Greek Church
now has two Bishops, one ministering to the Syrians
212
The Crucial Eace Question
and the other to the Russians. Some of our Churches
there give the hospitality of their buildings to these
racial congregations.
There is a curious recognition of the principle for
which we are contending by the police adminstra-
tion of that metropolis. It seems that experience has
taught the necessity of racial officers to look after cer¬
tain classes of criminals. Now, if racial police are
required in New York City to compel some people
to be good how much more are racial Ministers neces¬
sary to persuade the same people to be good.
The Ruthenians are a Slavonic people, Poles, who
adhere to the Greek type of Catholic Christianity, but
acknowledge the supremac}^ of the Pope. In a sense
they are a Church within a Church, and all over the
world wherever they have congregations they owe and
acknowledge ecclesiastical allegiance, not to the
Bishop of the Diocese in which they may be, but to
their Metropolitan, the Lord Archbishop of the Prov¬
ince of Limburg, Austria. They have Parishes in
several American Dioceses; one of them in Chicago is
said to number 40,000 souls and to be the largest
Parish in the World. There is a congregation of them
at Shamokin, Pennsylvania, that has built a fine
Church which was consecrated not by the Bishop of
the Diocese but by their own Metropolitan, Arch¬
bishop Webber.
The principle that I am contending for in this book
is clearly involved and conceded in this interesting
instance of the overlapping of Episcopal Jurisdictions
on the part of the representatives of the two great
branches of the Catholic Church. Rome has been trying
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 213
to care for the American Polish constituency by her
Diocesan Bishops with about the same results that
have attended our efforts to minister to Afro-American
Churchmen through a white Episcopate. Her Poles,
like our Negroes, naturally enough, have been appeal¬
ing for Bishops of their own. The persistent appeal
of the Poles to the Vatican has been heard. Shall the
General Convention be deaf to the importunity of the
Negro? If so, has not the time come for us to abandon
our representation that the Church of Rome is a
Mediaeval, unprogressive, inflexible institution, while
ours is a living Church capable of meeting the special
needs of all nations and races as they arise in the
course of the ages ?
The system of auxiliary, coadjutor or assistant
Bishops which has obtained in varying degrees in all
ages throughout the Church is against the contention
that overlappings in Episcopal jurisdictions are upon
Catholic principles inadmissible. So also is the Arch-
Episcopal System which arose so early and has pre¬
vailed so universally.
Besides there are now, and from the most ancient
times there were from one to five Bishops in
the Oriental cities, ministering to as many races
or sects, no one of which can make good a claim
to exclusive jurisdiction. And, for that matter,
throughout Western Christendom there are but few if
any great cities in which there are not two or more
Bishops with overlapping Episcopal jurisdictions.
Such overlappings are almost universal throughout both
the English Empire and the United States.
214 The Crucial Eace Question
Indeed the Catholic Episcopate has in all places and
in every age manifested an universal and irresistible
tendency to overlap. It would seem therefore that there
must be something wrong about the claim that, upon
Catholic principles, there properly can be only one
Bishop in a city; there is, in short, no escape from the
conclusion that it is based upon an idealistic fiction.
It cannot endure the light of the historical facts and of
the realistic conditions which confront it. Both the
English and American branches of the Anglican Com¬
munion are responsible for overlappings in the
jurisdictions of Catholic Bishops which would be
wholly unjustifiable or at least highly embarrassing,
if the objections urged against the duplication of our
Episcopate in order to render it possible to embrace
within its jurisdiction all the people as well as all the
territory of this country will stand.
IV
I once heard a converted Jew say that in his judg¬
ment the great difficulty about the propagation of the
Gospel among his people arose from the fact that when
one of them became a Christian is was generally sup¬
posed that he ceased to be an Israelite. "Both Christ-
tians and Jews" he said, "seem tenaciously to hold to
this view and it is a great misfortune that such is the
case. No one thinks or speaks of a Gentile when he
becomes a Christian as ceasing to be a Gentile. Well,
then," he continued, "if we have Gentile Christians,
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 215
do let us also have Jewish Christians, Japanese Chris¬
tians, Chinese Christians, Indian Christians, and
Negro Christians."
It had not, apparently, occurred to the speaker, but,
while I was listening to him, it did occur to me, that
the egregious failure of our mission to the Jews is due
largely to the same cause as the notorious failure of
our Mission to the Negroes, that is, the lack of wis¬
dom in not creating a special Episcopate. I verily
believe, and I am by no means alone in the belief, that
our missions to the Japanese and Chinese ultimately
will fail if we withhold from them native Episcopates.
An attentive and reflective study of the history
of Catholic Christianity will convince anyone, I think,
that there is deep philosophy in a statement which
among the primitive Christians was regarded as axi¬
omatic, "No Bishop, no Church." I contend that
races having no Episcopates of their own, really are
without Bishops, for, in the very nature of things, a
representative of one race cannot really be the
religious pastor to the representatives of another race.
There is something inherent in the differentiating
features of human nature which prevents the possi¬
bility of such a thing.
In view of this fundamental fact and in the light of
history, I maintain that the primitive, Catholic axiom,
"No Bishop, no Church," may quite legitimately be
paraphased thus: Unless we create permanent racial
Bishops and temporary sectarian Bishops the Amer¬
ican Branch of the Anglican Communion has no really
great Catholic, permanent mission to the people of
these United States.
216 The Ckucial Race Question
The conviction is growing upon me that the great
blunder of the whole Anglican Communion since the
Reformation has been its failure to recognize the
fundamental truth of Catholic Christianity, "No
Bishop, no Church," and to magnify the Episcopate
in the right way, that is, by its multiplication and
duplication. We indeed quite generally have exalted
the Episcopate as a regal, lordly institution, but, we
should have done so by such an increase of it as would
extend its ministrations to all races and orthodox
branches of Christians.
We have improved somewhat upon the idea of our
fathers for they intended that Dioceses in the United
States should be conterminous with the States. For¬
tunately we now have two Sees in many states and
more in several of them. But Bishop Coxe's famous
recommendation that there should be a Bishop in
almost every city of twenty-five or fifty thousand
inhabitants is, I have long thought, worthy of much
more consideration than it so far has received. We
have cramped our Episcopate by confining it to a small
college. Thus, to use a classic, commercial term, we
have "cornered" it, and given the world to understand
that those who want its benefits must become mem¬
bers of our little "syndicate," the Protestant Episcopal
Church in the United States of America.
I would not, of course, advise a disregard of the
precept about the care of pearls, but I think we
have been altogether too careful of our Episcopal pearl
and that our General Convention could not do better
than to make the forthcoming Three Hundredth Anni¬
versary of the Anglo-Saxon colonization and Christ
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 217
tianization of this country the occasion of an official
proclamation to the effect that we stand ready to share
our Episcopate with all the distinct races and with all
the sects of orthodox Christians in this country.
While we are remembering the precept concerning
the care of pearls, do let us not forget altogether the
proverb about that form of withholding which "tend-
eth unto poverty," the truth of which is so strikingly
illustrated by the results of our lamentable parsimony
in the matter of creating a timjely and adequate Epis¬
copate. So far as the giving of the Episcopate is
concerned, let the motto of the next General Conven¬
tion be "Cast thy bread upon the waters" for "after
many days it will return to thee again."
As Bishop Johnston of Texas well says : "There are
many things we might learn from our Methodist off¬
spring. By their sagacity and gumption, which
Bishop Wilmer called consecrated common sense, they
have well nigh captured America, which by right
ought to have belonged to the Mother Church, because
of the undisputed prominence she possessed in many
of the colonies and which we might have maintained
but for our lack of adapting ourselves to conditions
and wasting our time in discussing theories. The
Methodists are now dealing successfully with both the
German and Mexican problem in Texas in the same
way it is proposed to to deal with the Negro problem
in all the Southern States. They have separate Dis¬
trict Conferences for each of these races, which legis¬
late freely for their own peculiar work under the
sympathetic interest and practical financial assistance
of their English-speaking American co-religionists, in
218 The Cbucial Race Question
the midst of whom they dwell. Of course, in a genera¬
tion or two, when they all have become English-
speaking Americans, the present organizations will
lapse, having served the purpose for which they were
created."
The ringing words of Bishop Mann find an echo
in my mind and I must reverberate them: "I was
glad when the Bishop of Minnesota invited an evangel¬
ist to preach in this church some months ago. I was
glad again when the Bishop of Albany invited a dis¬
tinguished minister of the Presbyterian Church of
Scotland to preach in All Saints' Cathedral." No doubt
if the Bishop of North Dakota had happened to know
about it, he would have gone on to say, "I was glad
when Bishop Brent of the Philippines opened his
Cathedral to Doctor Cutherbert Hall for his lectures
on the Religions of the East, and I was glad when
Bishop Funsten, of the Missionary District of Boise,
invited the Reverend Doctor Paddock, a local Congre¬
gational Minister, to be the orator on the occasion of
the laying of the corner stone of the Bishop Tuttle
Church House in his See City."
Such acts and such talk about them will do the
Church good. I for one pray God that we may have very
much more of both of them. We should give the
Negroes a Racial Episcopate and Church in com¬
munion with our Racial Episcopate and Church, we
should create a Suffragan Episcopate for the care of
the differentiated peoples of the Caucasian Race
which are gathered in our great cities and Northern
states, we should open our General Convention to our
Reformed Episcopalian Brethren; we should offer,
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 219
upon reasonable termls, our Anglo-Catholic Episcopate
to our Anglo-American Brethren of the various
denominations of orthodox Christians who have gone
out from us, and we should remove that "stumbling
block" to Church reunion, the closed pulpit. What if
all these necessary things should be done at the Rich¬
mond General Convention? It would be the dawning
of the day of Catholicity for the Church and Christian
Unity for the Nation of which our young men have
dreamed dreams and our old men have seen visions!
And indeed if we were to give the Episcopate to the
Great Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian and Baptist
bodies, it would at once establish a communion
between us and them resembling that which now
exists between the various branches of the Anglo-
Catholic Comimunion, and such an Anglo-American
Commiunion would be an inestimable gain to Chris¬
tianity in the United States. And I venture to say it
would not be many generations until we should have
as the result of such a statesmanlike announcement
some kind of an organic unity which would give this
country a more representative and real national
Church than it now possesses, or ever can possess, in
our historic but small branch of the Catholic Church
of the Anglo Saxon race.
V
The world is to be saved by giving, not by keeping.
This Church has not been giving as much through its
Episcopate as it should have given towards the salva¬
tion of the people of these United States. Let us reform
220 The Crucial Race Question
by making- the Three Hundredth Anniversary meeting
of the General Convention an epoch in the history of
American Christianity by adequately giving our Apos¬
tolic, Catholic Episcopate to the Negroes who so
urgently are asking for it, and by offering it to the
several orthodox bodies, among others the Congrega-
tionalists Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, Bap¬
tists, Christians and in short to all who accept the
Lord Jesus as the Divine Savior of the world. The
offer may create the desire. In any case no harm can
result from the doing of a great duty.
It will be objected to the recommendation of
this Essay that the Anglo-Catholic Episcopate is to us
a sacred trust and that consequently it cannot be dealt
with * in accordance with miy suggestion without
unfaithfulness in our stewardship.
I admit that the Episcopate is a trust, but contend
that it is only so in the sense that the Gospel is such.
Now as we are made partakers of the Gospel not only
that we ourselves may be saved through it, but also
that we may offer it to others for their salvation, and
as, according to Catholic Doctrine, the Gospel and the
Apostolic Ministry are almost, if not quite, inseparably
connected, it follows that we are under about as great
obligation to offer our Episcopate to others as our
Gospel. We are commanded to go into all the world
with the Gospel and, if our doctrine concerning the
Episcopate be correct, we discharge scarcely more
than half of the Missionary duty imposed by this
command when we offer our version of the Gospel
without our line of the Episcopate.
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 221
Let us then give our Jewish and Colored Brethren
Bishops of their own; and by all means, let us pro¬
claim that under some proper but liberal, concordat,
we stand ready to consecrate three autonomous
Bishops for any and every orthodox Christian body,
leaving them free to multiply themselves as rapidly as
they may desire.
And last but not least let us create a Pan-American
Conference of Apostolic Bishops to which we shall
invite the Bishops of the Reformed Episcopal Church
and of the old Catholic Church and of the Polish
Church, and of the great Greek and Roman Churches
who shall be entitled to seats on entirely equal terms.
By pursuing such a course the next General Conven¬
tion would create an epoch in the religious history of
the United States, and, indeed, of the whole of Chris¬
tendom and it would be following the precedent estab¬
lished by the Apostolic and Primitive Church. For
there can be no doubt that the ancients recognized the
necessity of racial Episcopates and created them and
that their plan for the healing of schisms was recogni¬
tion and even the creation of overlapping Episcopates.
But to return to the Appeal of our Afro-American
Brethren for Missionary Jurisdictions and Bishops of
their own, I desire to give expression to the belief that
logically the possibility, if not even duty, of making a
favorable reply was conceded in the ordination of their
first representative to our Ministry. If I were a
logician, I think that I could make it appear that, unless
we have the right to create an autonomous Afro-
American Episcopate and Church, the admittance of
colored men to Holy Orders cannot be justified. For
222 The Crucial Eace Question
when a candidate is made a Deacon we pray that he
may be found worthy of advancement to the higher
orders of the Ministry. Is that prayer meaningless in
the case of a Colored man? The words of the Prayer
Book would seem to potentially open the door to both
the Priesthood and the Episcopate for every Deacon.
The original Episcopate was Jewish. If the various
branches of the Gentile race have a right to an auton¬
omous Episcopate and Church, why has not the Amer¬
ican branch of the African race the same right?
If the Jewish Episcopate had the right to give an
autonomous Episcopate and Church to the Gentiles,
why has not the Anglo-American Episcopate a right
to confer them upon Afro-Americans?
Finally, if the Jewish and Gentile, Greek and Roman,
the European and Asiatic Churches always have over¬
lapped, and in all probability always will overlap, why
may not the Anglo-American and Afro-American
Churches overlap in the United States?
I feel confident that the objectors to autonomy can¬
not give a satisfactory answer to these questions.
VI
The letter to the Bishop of Washington from the
ex-President of Trinity College, Dr. George William¬
son Smith whicl] forms an interesting and valuable
part of the Appendices of this book and the following
letter from the learned Bishop Whittingham to Bishop
Howe show that I am by no means the only person
who believes that the Jurisdiction of Bishops is Spir¬
itual rather than geographical. Bishop Whittingham's
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 223
letter is found in his biography by William Francis
Brand and is as follows:
"Baltimore, May 30, 1873.
"To the Rt. Rev. W. B. W. Howe, D. D., Bishop of
South Carolina.
"My Dear Bishop:
"The plan of an Episcopate for our Colored popula¬
tion is by no means new to me. Long before the Civil
War I had been driven to meditate on it, by conviction
that the Blacks in my own Diocese could not be effi¬
ciently provided for by our present scheme, and that
there did seem to be ground for anticipating good suc¬
cess for work among them well organized and dili¬
gently prosecuted on the plan of a 'race' or 'tongue'
episcopate, jurisdiction, ministry, and pastoral supply.
"The double, mutually compensatory and comple-
tory, kinds of jurisdiction, topical and lingual; or dis¬
tributed by metes and bounds, for a certain portion of
the population, and by race or language (distributed
over or scattered through the same metes and bounds,
with or without recognition of them) to a certain other
portion (or several other portions) of a colimited popu¬
lation, I believe to have been existent, and more or less
extensively employed as called for, throughout the
church in all ages.
"I see no reason why the Church should not resort
to its use in our Country, so wonderfully peopled and
still peopling by myriads of incomers from many and
very diverse races and tongues.
"On that plan we might have an episcopate for the
Scandanavian tongues, another for the German,
another for the Chinese, and above all for the millions
of our native blacks.
224 The Crucial Race Question
"Of course, in the outset, each of these must, of
necessity, have a Missionary Character; and with the
exception of the last—and possibly also of the third—
be constituted with distinct recognition of a steady
process of evanishment, in proportion as the several
races or tongues should become merged in the general
mass of the community.
"But to institute such a work, I suppose we should
have to add new Canonical provisions—just as was
proposed (and, I think, by mistake, not done) in the
last General Convention, for our foreign congregations
in Europe and elsewhere. A canon in a few sections,
might provide when and where such work should be
done—by whom election, etc., should be effected—and
what the relations of the new organizations should be
with existing diocesan and missionary schemes.
"I, for one, am ready to enter upon endeavors to
devise and execute such a plan of Church extension
(to which Providence seems to be calling us in more
than one direction) whenever my brethren shall have
faith and zeal to set about it. Our new Indian episco¬
pate is a long and noble step toward the enterprise.
"Heartily thanking you for the opportunity of
exchanging opinions upon the subject, and wishing that
you and our brethren of the adjoining dioceses would
bestow the study and labor which the due preparation
of a well-devised scheme would doubtless require, but
would certainly thoroughly deserve,
"I am faithfully and truly your loving friend and
brother,
"W. R. W.
"Bishop of Maryland."
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 225
President Smith to whom I am indebted for calling
my attention to this letter and for many valuable
criticisms and suggestions points out "that Bishop
Whittingham's idea evidently was that the Episcopate
to the Negroes (and perhaps Chinese) should be
permanent" and then goes on to make the important
observation which strongly supports so miuch of our
contention in this essay:
"Afro-Am(ericans are entitled to the Gospel in the
circumstances and conditions in which Providence has
placed them. They cannot change the facts. It is not
their doing that they are black. Shall they be deprived
of the fullness of the Church's Ministry because of it?
I do not think it would be schismatic to give them an
Autonomous Episcopate. But will it not be a serious
thing to offer them less than we have received, less
than we offer to Africa or China? The real difficulty
is in assuming that Episcopal authority is geographical
instead of spiritual. The geography is not necessary
to the authority. It is merely a means of defining
what souls are under a particular jurisdiction. But if
the white were in one part of a Diocese and the black
in another we could have a black and a white Bishop
and no one would say, 'Schism.'"
The whole conception upon which the "Catholic"
objection to the proposed Afro-American Episcopate
is built is utterly irreconcilable with what we see in
the acts of the Apostles and the history of sub-Apos¬
tolic times of the workings of the Episcopate. The
Diocesan system to which that conception belongs
was not in existence for the first three hundred years
and it was a long time after that before it reduced the
226 The Crucial Race Question
Episcopate to its present comparatively insignificant
number, one for a large city and in many cases thous¬
ands of square miles round about. In my Diocese
there are fifty-three thousand square miles with
1,500,000 souls and with three widely differentiated
people, (1) the ordinary white population about 450,-
000, (2) the mountain population about 450,000, and
(3) the Black Belt population about 450,000.
How perfectly absurd is the idealism which would
restrict the number of Bishops for such a territory to
one. Fortunately there are two, the Bishop of the
Roman Catholics and the Bishop of the Anglo-Cath¬
olics. If I had my way there would also be a Bishop
for the Methodist Catholics, a Bishop for the Presby¬
terian Catholics, a Bishop for Baptist Catholics, and
in short a Bishop for each one of the other Catholic
denominations whose membership accept the ecumen¬
ical creed and are baptized in the name of the Divine
Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Even our own
Anglo-American "Catholics," who are the most ultra
Catholics in the world, admit that Methodists, Pres¬
byterians, Baptists and "such like" are members of the
Catholic Church of Christ. Then they magnify the
indispensableness of confirmation and especially of the
Lord's Supper to the Spiritual life and the invalidity
of the Sacrament unless administered by Bishops and
Priests in the Apostolic succession!
There is something radically wrong with this Anglo
and Roman Catholic idealism which gives the Catholic
population of Arkansas only two Bishops. A dozen
would be none too many.
CHAPTER XV
The Idealist's Objection to the Arkansas Plan.
In answering what is popularly known as the over¬
lapping objection to the drawing of the ecclesiastical
Color-Line according to the Arkansas Plan I shall begin
with the important observation that a Parish or a Dio¬
cese which is without representation in a lawmaking
ecclesiastical body is not necessarily severed from the
Catholic Church. If its Worship, Doctrine, Discipline
and Orders are approved by any branch of the Catholic
Church there is the "communion of Saints," and such
communion is a true and sufficient bond of Catholic
unity, the only bond, in fact, that the ecumenical creed
requires, or that, in the nature of things, can exist be¬
tween many Churches even though they may be com¬
posed of people of the same race and lineage.
The right of representation in General Councils
would appear to be the only official relationship to any
organization that can affect the catholicity of the
Church of a State, Nation, Tribe or Race. Now the
proposed Afro-American Church would be in com¬
munion with the Anglo-American Church, and no
doubt also with the English Church and its Colonial
Churches. Her Bishops would be invited to the All-
American and Pan-Anglican Conferences and an
228 The Crucial Eace Question
annual Conference between them and an equal
number of our Bishops might, and probably would, be
arranged.
Representation in our legislative assemblies, Gen¬
eral or Diocesan, is not at all essential to Catholic
unity. If the Negroes were set apart into a separate
general organization, the standards of the Church
would be binding upon them, and there would be
unity in the best, or at least the only necessary and
possible sense of the word, that is, sympathetic and
co-operative communion. There would be no schism,
but merely the division of authority and spheres of
influence so far as races are concerned.
If Canada were to become a possession of the United
States through conquest, and the Anglo-Canadian
Church declined to become a part of the Anglo-Amer¬
ican Church, but kept up her own organization, would
there be schism? No, not as long as the relationship
of communion which we now maintain continued, and
it is quite probable that it would be miaintained even
though the Canadian Church might have some congre¬
gations and clergy in our dioceses and vice versa.
So far as the whole important subject of Christian
unity is concerned there is great need of a general
return to the simple, reasonable, practicable doctrine
of the Catholic Creed. The Christian Unity upon
which Episcopal Church especially has set her heart
is too idealistic. Idealism is all right in its place and,
fortunately, it occupies a very large place in the little
world of the individuals and in the great world of the
races of mankind. No person or people can amount
to much without ideals and an effort to attain them.
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 229
Many think that one of the most discouraging features
about the Negro is his lack of a racial ideal. Ideals are
the voices from the celestial world luring us up toward
the mountain tops of civilization and to the gates of the
New Jerusalem. They are the prize of the mark of our
high calling. Blessed is the man, the family, the nation,
the race that is dominated by idealism. But, then, a
person or a people cannot be wholly given over to
idealism in this world. The next world is the place
where the idealist will be unfettered by the necessity
of living with reference to practicalism. Too much
idealism in the present life tends to keep down instead
of to help onward and upward. We all have known
men and women who were too idealistic for any use,
and it is so with some peoples, the Hindoos for
example. They have too much idealism and too little
practicalism for this mundane existence, hence they
have lost out and fallen back in the onward march.
They will be perfectly at home in heaven, but, for the
lack of practicalism, they are out of place on earth,
even as some practicalists for the lack of idealism will
be like fish out of water in heaven. By all means let
us have ideals, but let us on no account forget that we
are living in a practical world.
Anglo-American Churchmen in considering the
Appeal of Afro-American Churchmen for Bishops and
Missionary Jurisdictions of their own should keep
before them the great truth of the famous aphorism of
President Cleveland: "We are confronted by a situa¬
tion, not an idea." In the Episcopal Church the
"situation" is the failure of our work among Negroes.
This situation has come into conflict with the "idea"
230 The Crucial Race Question
that the jurisdiction of Bishops is geographical rather
than spiritual; and, this being the case, we must modify
our idealism with a little practicalism. The command
of our Lord is to feed his sheep. We, as a Church to
which this command has been givem, have found out
that we cannot feed our Lord's Black Sheep with
White Shepherds. We have had our "idea" about "one
fold and one shepherd," but we have discovered that,
whatever it may mean, it does not mean the Episcopal
Church and a Diocesan Bishop with exclusive jurisdic¬
tion over a large expanse of country populated by
widely diversified peoples. The "situation" proves
the untenableness of the "idea."
What shall we do? We are hedged in by tradition¬
alism. We must break through. Ideas are like other
things when they are found to be useless they are
abandoned for new and useful ideas. We examine this
hedge of Episcopal Church traditionalism which is pre¬
venting us from obeying our Lord's command to feed
his Black Sheep and to our surprise we find that Dio¬
cesan Episcopacy is not what we thought it was, an
ideal something the pattern for which was given to the
Apostles between the Resurrection and Ascension, or
pn the Day of Pentecost, but a practical institution, a
growth which took place long after their time. It
^probably never entered into the heart of an Apostle
to conceive of Diocesan Episcopacy. They knew a
great deal about Episcopacy, but they did not know
anything about Diocesan Episcopacy. They knew that
•Bishops as the official representatives of Christ and
the Church had been commanded to feed the sheep
and to go into all the world and preach the gospel to
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 231
every nation or race; but they had no idea this com¬
mand required them to divide up the world into twelve
or more Dioceses and to set an Apostle or Bishop over
each with exclusive jurisdiction. The only dividing they
did, of which we have any knowledge, was the dividing
of peoples between the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul,
so that St. Peter became the recognized Apostle to the
Jews and St. Paul to the Gentiles.
The way out of our difficulty, then, is to abandon the
idea that Diocesan Episcopacy is a Divine institution,
and that Episcopal jurisdiction is territorial rather than
spiritual. We are confronted by a situation that
demands that we should do this and ideas must always
give way before situations which cannot be squared
with them. Situations are facts, and facts are of Divine
authority. Ideas are safe guides and may be regarded
as being of Divine authority until they bring us face to
face with an insurmountable difficulty, but when that
is the case we must abandon the guidance of the idea
and be governed by the situation. Now that we are
confronted by a situation, by the fact of the
failure of White Shepherds to feed Black Sheep, we
see in the light of that situation or fact, that the
great commission of our Lord in no way determines
whether or not there should be a Diocesan Episcopate;
nor is there any passage in the New Testament which
teaches that there can be but one Bishop in any given
territory.
We still believe that when our Lord, after His resur¬
rection spoke to the Apostles "of the things pertaining to
the Kingdom of God," He gave them instructions as to
the organization of the church. We still think that what
232
The Crucial Kace Question
He told them, can be learned by what they did, and they
organized Churches with a local ministry and sacra¬
ments and with the Episcopal supervision of the Apos¬
tles. In that sense all our people and Catholic Christians
generally, believe that the Episcopate is Divine, and that
it can never in this world be abolished. While we value
Church unity and should be glad to make concessions
to our Brethren of the various denominations in order
to secure such unity, we cannot concede the historic
Episcopacy. This is a sacred trust which we have
received, and we, as faithful stewards, must guard it.
But while we maintain that the Episcopacy is a Divine
institution and therefore cannot be abrogated, we do
not hold, and it cannot be supported, that Dio¬
cesan Episcopacy is of perpetual obligation. In
the Preface to the Ordinal we read, "It is evident unto
all men, diligently reading Holy Scripture and Ancient
Authors, that from the Apostles' time there have been
these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church—Bishops,
Priests and Deacons." The three-fold Order of the
Ministry is, then, of Apostolic origin and authority;
but that the surface of the earth should be divided
up into Dioceses and that each Diocese should have but
one Bishop with jurisdiction, is not an arrangement of
perpetual obligation.
Diocesan Episcopacy with the exclusive jurisdic¬
tion of the Bishop, was a development and was
adopted as the most expedient plan. In fact the
Church solved its administrative problems on the
principle of expediency; and now the question comes—
do not present conditions call for a departure from the
theory of the exclusive jurisdiction of one Bishop in a
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 233
given territory? As a fact we have departed from it.
We send a Bishop to Mexico which has Bishops of
Apostolic succession, and Anglican Episcopal Orders
have been given to a Portuguese or Spaniard.
The point is that the form of the Diocesan Episco¬
pacy is determined by expediency, and this means that
it is determined by the leading of Providence, as that
leading is seen in the circumstances of the Church in
any given period. The time was when it was expedient
to have such Bishops with exclusive jurisdiction; but
it does not follow that such a plan is binding
for all time. I maintain upon utilitarian prin¬
ciples that it is now expedient to have racial
Bishops for peoples living within the same geogra¬
phical area. To my mind expediency is often the
indication of the will of Providence. In the case of the
Church and the Negro it seems to me that Providence
has shown us plainly that we should abandon the tra¬
ditional practice of the exclusive Episcopal jurisdiction
over large geographical areas. So far as our Colored
work is concerned, the traditional plan has been a mor¬
tifying failure; and we must either abandon our colored
work or adopt other measures which will produce
better results.
When, then, upon utilitarian principles, I insist on
independent Bishops for the Negroes, I am only saying
that we should follow the leading of Providence. Oun
present method has failed; and to any man who really
believes that God is still in the world, and that Christ
is yet in His Church, or that we are living in the
Dispensation of the Holy Ghost, that means that He
does not intend that the Negroes shall have the benefit
234
The Crucial Race Question
of our Church training through the Ministry of White
Bishops. "The dismal failure of our Colored work is
the Divine condemnation of our methods."
A certain Bishop has said that he is opposed to the
consecration of Colored Bishops, because he considers
it to be his inherent right and obligation to be the
Bishop of all the people in his jurisdiction. A most
condemnable ambition! But does not the good man
see that he is not the Bishop of all the people in his
jurisdiction? He is not the Bishop of the Roman
Catholics, or of the Methodists, and if the statistics in
the Church Almanacs are correct, he is not the Bishop
of very many of the Negroes in his Diocese. So far as
that Bishop's influence over these and other peoples
is concerned, he might as well be the Bishop of
Kamtchatka.
II
Now I am not recommending less of idealism for
Amierican Christianity but more of practicalism, or if
you please, more of opportunism. Idealism is a
good thing. Neither State nor Church can get along
without it. But let us as American Christians learn
from ourselves as American citizens. As citizens we
should fall away from our civil idealism very rapidly
if we found that it did not "materialize," "produce
results," "work," "do things." How familiar these
words and phrases sound to us in our civil and com¬
mercial realms. I say let us have more of them in our
religious realm ; not less of idealism but more of oppor¬
tunism.
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 235
Republican idealism touching the State sought to
make a political citizen of the Afro-American, placing
him upon the same footing with the Anglo-American.
It put a great army in the field to support this ideal
but it couldn't stand because it wouldn't work,
and so the army was withdrawn and today the
Republican Party, couldn't get a Corporal's guard
from its own ranks to fight for that ideal. It's a dead
issue and everybody realizes that, notwithstand¬
ing the Fifteenth Amendment and all the talk of a
few Rip Van Winkle Republican and Negro idealists
the Afro-American is not really politically a citizen
of these United States on the same footing with the
Anglo-American and that there is not even the remot¬
est possibility of his ever taking such a position.
Why cannot our Catholic idealists see in the
Church what the Republican idealists have seen in
the State? If they were as wise as Children of the
Light as they are as Children of the World, they would
see that the Afro-American Churchman has no more
place in an Anglo-American Diocesan Council, or Gen¬
eral Convention, than an Afro-American citizen has in
a State Legislature or in the United States Congress.
Will our Catholic idealists suffer me to explain to
them once more that the Colored congregations of
Arkansas are not now represented by delegates in the
Diocesan Council and never again will be. They have
been excluded because their presence wouldn't work.
But the members of those congregations are no less
members of the Catholic Church now than they were
while their representatives were sitting in the Diocesan
Council.
230 The Crucial Eace Question
Catholics are generally great historians, but they
are human and so they conveniently forget some¬
things which are out of line with their idealism. They
have forgotten that nearly all of the colored congrega¬
tions of the North in the earliest days were admitted
into communion with their Dioceses, but not into
membership in the Conventions. Before they finally
gained admission into Diocesan Conventions were
they, or were they not, within the Catholic Church?
There are two or three Colored congregations in South
Carolina which have never been represented in their
Diocesan Convention; are they without the pale of the
Catholic Church ? Do not Catholics consider them to
be congregations of the American Church ? When did
membership in the Church of Christ become limited
to people who are members of a particular Parish
or represented in some Diocesan Council or even
National Convention?
Afro-American Churchmen have never been so very
conspicuous in either our Diocesan Councils or Gen¬
eral Convention save for their "out-of-placedness" in
the one and their "absentness" in the other. Catholic
idealism accords them rights in both bodies, but the
Catholics have never been and they never will be
able to "deliver the goods," except in very sm)all part.
One Negro Clergyman, elected an alternate deputy
from Texas, was by chance a member of one General
Convention. Since the Negroes are without practical
membership in the General Convention, but are, never¬
theless members of the Catholic Church of Christ and
are by a communion relationship a part of the Church
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 23"/
in America, why could they not be given their own
General Convention, and still be members of the
Catholic Church and in communion with the Amer¬
ican Church, observing no difference or separation
except that of race, a difference and separation which
no Catholic, or philanthropic, or Republican or any
kind of idealism can do away with or ignore in this
present, material, prosaic life, however it may be in the
future, spiritual, ideal life?
If we create a Colored Episcopate it could go out
from us without cutting itself off from. Christ and His
Apostolic Church. All that would be involved in the
forming of an independent Church by our Colored
Brethren in the Lord would be the putting forth of a
new branch from the great vine or tree of the Catholic
Church of which Christ, and not the General Conven¬
tion or even a General Council is the root. The Afro-
American, as well as the Anglo-American branch of
the Catholic Church would adhere to that root and
derive its Divine life from it. The Divine life which
comes from Christ through connection with the Cath¬
olic Church is the important thing and so far as I
know that life has never been inseparably connected
with, much less derived from any Diocesan, National
or even General Council.
Surely no Catholic objector to an autonomous Afro-
American Episcopate will seriously maintain that the
General Convention is the source of ecclesiastical life
or that connection with it is a requisite of Catholic
Christianity. Well, then, in the light of all the history
bearing upon the subject and in the name of common
238
The Crucial Race Question
sense, what is to be gained by the creation of an Afro-
American "Missionary" Episcopate with "representa¬
tion" in the General Convention? The "Missionary"
part of this idealistic scheme which is coming before
the Richmond General Convention is all right. Mis¬
sions "work;" they "do things." But how about the
"representation" in our legislative assemblies? That
"won't work," and therefore if we as Children of the
Light are as wise as the Children of the World it will
be "cut out." The Diocese of Arkansas has cut out
Negro representation and in her Memorial she begs
the General Convention to "cut it out."
CHAPTER XVI
The Southerner's Objection to the Arkansas Plan
Against the proposition to create an Afro-American
Episcopate it is urged in some quarters that experience
teaches that Negro Bishops are not a success. This is
what a distinguished advocate of the "let-well-enough-
alone" policy says: "We have Niegro Bishops in
Africa and Hayti. If it can be shown that the Epis¬
copal leadership and work in Cape Palmas are sucess-
ful, the same cannot be averred of Hayti, where the
Church seems to be steadily declining. But the condi¬
tions and modes of meeting them there and here are
widely different. Experience has not, it seems, sup¬
plied an efficient independent Negro Bishop. We
doubt the ability to find one. The standard of leader¬
ship so far developed is not of the sort which we are
accustomed to find in our Bishops."
Now in reply to this we desire to say that it is a
simple matter of fact that Bishop Ferguson had white
predecessors who failed where he has succeeded.
Bishop Ferguson was not chosen until after three
white Bishops had died in the field or resigned from it,
and it became evident that for climatic or racial
reasons, a Negro Bishop was necessary. Now that the
experiment of a colored Bishop for Cape Palmas has
been made, will any one pretend that it has so far
failed that when, in the Providence of God the time
comes, a White Bishop will be elected to succeed
240
The Crucial Race Question
Bishop Ferguson? Will a white Bishop be chosen to
succeed Bishop Holly of Hayti? If no must be the
answer to both of these questions as it undoubtedly
must be, how can any one represent that the results of
our experiments in the line of Colored Bishops have
not been such as to encourage us to add to them. If
Negroes have not the ability for Episcopal leadership,
where can we hope to find successors for Bishops
Ferguson and Holly? Certainly their white prede¬
cessors did not make anything like as good records as
they have made. Without any previous experience
our House of Bishops elected these two men for dis¬
tant fields and judging by their work, their personality,
and the respect shown them in all parts of the Anglican
Church, they have measured up to the full expectation
of all reasonable people.
If we do not make a favorable response to the
natural appeal of our Afro-American brethren for
Bishops and Jurisdictions of their own it will not be
because Bishops Ferguson and Holly have been
failures; for the real truth of the matter is that, all
things considered, they have been conspicuous
sucesses.
But this objection is an important one not only
because of its bearing upon the appeal but also because
it is virtually a reflection upon the ability and worth of
two Bishops who in the Providence of God have been
called to do a work which none of their white brethren
would care to undertake and which they have been
doing much longer and much better than any of their
white predecessors did. Let us, therefore, go more
into particulars.
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 241
1. That the Missionary Jurisdiction of Cape
Palmas and parts adjacent has made more rapid pro¬
gress under the administration of Bishop Ferguson than
under any of his predecessors or all of them together,
the statistics will amply sustain. A recent picture in
the Spirit of Missions of the Bishop and his Clergy,
many of the latter converts from heathenism, will
impress any observer favorably. The fact that the
Diocese of Mississippi is willing to try the experiment
of a Negro Bishop, but recommends that it shall be
made in the person of Bishop Ferguson, is further
evidence that the Church regards his administration
as a success.
2. It is however in regard to Hayti that most
objectors base their assertions that our experience
should caution us against the making of a favorable
response to the appeal for an Afro-American Episco¬
pate. By many the work of Bishop Holly has not
been considered a success. Now let us be fair and ask
what are the conditions that have to be met in that
island? The population of Hayti is 1,250,000, of which
nine-tenths are pure Negroes, and nearly all the rest
are Mulattoes, there being very few whites. The gov¬
ernment is Republican, the President being a Negro.
The State religion is Roman Catholic, and Protestant¬
ism is simply tolerated. The people are mostly igno¬
rant and are entirely under the domination of the
Roman Priests. It is a fact that not one Protestant
Church, not excepting the Wesleyan Methodist
Church, under white control, has been able to make
any considerable headway in Hayti. Moreover the
242
The Crucial Eace Question
people speak a patois and not pure French. The
English-speaking Missionary has not only to learn
true French, which is the official language, but to
preach to the people, he must learn their vernacular.
To these Negroes in a tropical country, always at war
among themselves politically, and concerned mostly
with revolutions, satisfied with the easy-going mem¬
bership they possessed in the Roman Church, were
sent our first Negro Missionaries. The Church never
has sent a white Missionary to Hayti. From time to
time she has sent white Bishops on visitations, one of
whom died on board ship in the harbor of Port-au-
Prince. It was a long time before the Rev. Mr. Holly
could convince the Church in America that the work
in Hayti needed the financial support of the mother, as
well as resident Episcopal supervision. For some
reason the American Church did not erect a Missionary
Jurisdiction in the Republic of Hayti, as it has done
in China, Japan, or even Africa where the first Bishops
were white men. It went no further than to enter
into a Concordat with the handful of Haytien Church¬
men, and establish them into an independent Church
under the charge of a Commission of the House of
Bishops. While the other mission work of the Church
is entirely supported by the Domestic and Foreign
Missionary Society, the Church in Hayti receives
"Assistance;" not any too much, either! The Church
never has squandered any money on the Negroes
abroad or at home. Bishop Holly receives his stipend
in full from the Board of Missions, while the other
Clergy receive about one-third. As the people of Hayti
are very poor and are crushed beneath the burdens of
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 243
taxation, our Clergy are compelled to work, many of
them at trades and agriculture for six days in the
week, to support themselves, while the state aids the
Clergy of the Roman Catholic Church.
When it is considered that so little help goes to
Bishop Holly, and that his work is not supported
financially as that of Bishop Ferguson, it must be
acknowledged that fie has done well, and further¬
more when it is considered that the island is Roman
Catholic, and that the task of the Bishop is entirely
that of proselyting, the results are gratifying. Begun
in weakness, distressed with fire, epidemics, and
death, disheartened from lack of support, with no resi¬
dent Bishop in the first twenty years of its existence,
promoted by foreign Negro Missionaries among an
African people but a step removed from savagery,
opposed by the mighty power of the state Church,
separated by land and water and by racial and political
differences from the membership of the Mother
Church, the poor little Haytien Church has neverthe¬
less been able to present the following statistics to
the world in 1906:
One Negro Bishop trained on the field, twelve
Negro Clergy, not one of whom has gone from the
United States, fifty lay-assistants and teachers, nine¬
teen Parishes and Missions, 719 communicants, 247
day scholars, 353 Sunday scholars with 23 teachers,
and the sum of $2,030' contributions collected within
a year.
Does any one believe that with all the hardships and
peculiarities of the Church of Hayti, and under
such conditions and isolation, a White Bishop would
244 The Crucial Eace Question
have done as well there as Bishop Holly? I cannot
admit it.
Had Hayti been a Negro state in the United States
of America and had Bishop Holly been consecrated
and given jurisdiction over it, receiving the support
that is given to our Missionary Bishops, is there not
reason to believe that this pious and well learned man
would have accomplished wonders such as no White
Bishop in the United States has done? I believe he
would have built up a self-supporting Afro-American
Diocese in Georgia or even in Arkansas.
If the progress of the work among these Negroes of
'former Latin relations, politically, religiously, and
socially be compared with the progress of the work
done among a higher type of people of the same con¬
nections such as Cubans, Mexicans and Brazilians,
and if it be further remembered that we have sent to
the latter some of our best white Missionaries with
the support of influential Missionary organizations, as
the former American Church Missionary Society, the
results of the work done by our Negro Churchmen
who went to Hayti as Missionaries will not
suffer by the comparison. I submit that all things
considered, Bishop Holly has been a great success. He
was the original Missionary to Hayti. When a Bishop
•\yas to be .consecrated for that field, as the pioneer
Missionary he alone was the candidate. There were
not 120 Colored Clergy from which to choose as in the
United States at present. Upon him therefore fell the
mantle and that he has done excellent work with the
material and facilities at hand no unprejudiced person
will deny.
CHAPTER XVII
The Archdeacon's Looking Glass, or the Conclusion of
the Whole Matter
I will close this appeal for an Afro-American Epis¬
copate with the narration of what I regard as a most
interesting and significant occurrence which took place
at the 1906 Session of the Council of the Diocese of
Arkansas. The 1905 Session of that Council had
excluded colored Churchmen from representation in
it; but at the 1906 session in compliance with my
request, an hour was set for the presentation of a
report and for comments upon the Appeal of our Afro-
American brethren for Missionary Jurisdictions and
Bishops of their own by my colored Archdeacon, the
Venerable George Alexander McGuire, M. A. The
hour fixed was eleven o'clock on the second day of
the Council, Thursday, May 10th, and the place was
St. Paul's Church, Newport. I am) specific, because
that turned out to be a memorable event in the history
of the Diocese of Arkansas, and, if I mistake not, its
influence is destined to be felt throughout the Amer¬
ican Church.
It was not desired that there should be much, if
any, of a congregation, beyond a full attendance of the
Council, but the Woman's Auxiliary got wind of
246 The Crucial Race Question
what was going on, and adjourned their Annual Dio¬
cesan Meeting to come in a body. Others heard of it
and put in an appearance, until the Church was well
filled with intensely interested auditors. As it was
the first appearance in the Council of "the Bishop's
Colored Archdeacon" and as his reputation as a
preacher and worker of unusual merit had gone
abroad, the people were especially anxious to see and
hear him. I made the introductory address, which
constitutes one of the Appendices of this Essay.
While I was speaking the Archdeacon sat at my right,
and when he arose to make his report and address, the
silence was almost oppressive. The dropping of a
pin could have been heard at any time while he was
on the floor.
When the Archdeacon had finished, I immediately
bid the congregation to the noon-day prayers for
Missions, one of which of course was, "O God, who
hast made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell
on the face of the whole earth, and didst send Thy
Blessed Son to preach peace to them that are far off
and to them that are nigh; grant that all men, every¬
where, may seek after Thee and find Thee." The
phrases "made of one blood all nations of men" and
"to them that are nigh" had a thrilling effect upon us.
When we arose from our knees, it was felt by every¬
body that so far as the work of the Church among
the 400,000 poor, degraded colored people of Arkansas
was concerned, a new era had commenced.. The scene
that ensued was most interesting to me and it was
exceedingly gratifying to Archdeacon McGuire. He
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 247
was the only colored person in the Church. The con¬
gregation was composed very largely of the most
prominent people of the State who, by reason of their
antecedents, culture and social standing, would take
high rank in any state of the Union.
The creation of a colored Archdeacon for Arkansas
and the introduction of him to the Council were bold
steps, which, but for the drawing of the Color-Line,
would nearly have wrecked the Diocese. And anyhow,
if my choice unhappily had fallen upon a different type
of man these steps might easily have caused me much
unpopularity, might indeed have ruined all my plans for
colored work and given the white church a set back
from which it would not have recovered for a genera¬
tion. You may therefore imagine better than I can tell
you what deep anxiety I felt about the impression the
Archdeacon would make and the reception that would
be accorded him, and how overjoyed I was when I saw
the people crowding around him, introducing them¬
selves, shaking hands, and inviting him to the town
or rural community in which they respectively resided.
I doubt whether, all things considered, any Afro-Amer¬
ican minister of any religious body ever received such
an ovation in any part of the South, or North.
I have been at the pains of relating at some length
this most unusual and altogether remarkable reception
of my colored Archdeacon, because I am convinced
that like the doll-baby incident, there is a deep and
important truth lying at the basis of it, which must be
more generally understood and appreciated, before the
Church is likely to take any action upon the Appeal
248
The Crucial Eace Question
for Afro-American Bishops or to act wisely when it
does move in this supremely important matter.
Archdeacon McGuire's ovation was, of course, partly
due to the fact that he is a very unusual Negro, to
the attractiveness of his personality, the thoroughness
of his education, the philosophical depth of his thought
and the power to express himself in logical, persuasive,
choice language. His address both as a literary and
oratorical effort would have done any Clergyman or
Layman of the Diocese of Arkansas great credit.
Archdeacon McGuire is of the Booker Washington or
Professor DuBois type of Negro. But he is a Negro!
This being the case, all the personal graces and elo¬
quence of an Apollo would not have secured him
that ovation from that people, if he had been entitled
to a seat and vote in the Council of the Diocese of
Arkansas.
It was therefore the drawing of the "Color-Line"
in our new Constitution and Canons which were
enacted at the preceding Diocesan Council, and the
Archdeacon's expressed recognition of the creation of
such a line, that made the unique reception with which
he was honored a possibility. Ladies as well as gen¬
tlemen hung upon his words, greeted him enthusias¬
tically and offered their services to assist him in his
work.
To me the whole scene was thrillingly dramatic, one
that I shall never forget and for which I shall ever
thank God. Archdeacon McGuire felt the same as I
did about it. He afterwards told me that the rapt,
respectful attention which was given him while speak¬
ing and the reception afterwards were such a surprise
Objections to the Arkansas Plan 249
to him that, upon returning to his room, he had to go
straight to the looking-glass to make sure that he was
colored instead of white. He agrees with me that the
truly wonderful change which has taken place in
Arkansas towards the work of the Church among
colored people and the prospects of that work, is all
due to the fact that it has been separated wholly and
completely and permanently from the white work.
Yes, it is the complete drawing of the Color-Line
about our Church work that accounts for the tremend¬
ous difference, all the difference in the world, in the
attitude of the white Churchmen of Arkansas towards
their colored brethren, and; believe me, such a drawing
of the Color-Line would make a difference as wide as
the East is from the West in every Diocese. More¬
over, what is true of Dioceses would be at least propor¬
tionately true of the American Church as a whole.*
*1 have concluded to add to this work an Appendix containing
chiefly an address delivered by me and one by my colored Arch¬
deacon, the Ven. George Alexander McGuire, M. A., at the 1906
Session of the Council of the Diocese of Arkansas and also extracts
from three notable letters, one each from the Rt. Rev. Dr. Penick,
sometime Bishop of Cape Talmas, Africa, the Rev. Dr. George
Williamson Smith, ex-President of Trinity College, and a prominent
Methodist Episcopal Minister whose identity I am not at liberty to
reveal. I regard these appendices as constituting one of the most
important parts of the book. A prominent Clergyman who read the
proof thinks that it is invaluable and should be published separately
for wide circulation as a tract on the subject of the Afro-American
Appeal for racial Bishops.
"We have our racial peculiarities, we have our
separate social life with its sacred court where the
white mail enters not and where no welcome awaits
him. No such barrier impedes the progress and path
of the Negro Missionary leader. He has access at
all times to our homes, our hearts and our social
circles. We question not his sincerity, and we
never regard him as acting towards us in a
patronizing manner. We accept all his labors at
their full value and believe him to have but one
motive behind his efforts, viz: The salvation of
his race and therefore of himself."—Archdeacon
McGuire's address to the 1906 Conference of Church
Workers Among Colored People.
The Crucial Race Question
APPENDICES
APPENDIX I. Concerning the Petition of the Conference of Church
Workers among colored people for Afro-Amcrican
Missionary Bishops and Jurisdictions. From the
Author's Episcopal Address to the 1906 Session of
the Annual Council of the Diocese of Arkansas.
APPENDIX II. The First Annual Missionary Report to the Bishop
and Council of the Diocese of Arkansas by the Ven.
George Alexander McGuire, M. A., Archdeacon of
the Convocation of Arkansas, to which was added
by the Bishop's request, remarks upon the Appeal of
the Conference of Church Workers among Afro-
Americans for Missionary Bishops and Jurisdictions.
APPENDIX III. Extracts from a letter of the Rt. Rev. Dr. Penick,
sometime Bishop of Cape Palmas, Africa.
APPENDIX IV. Extracts from a letter of a Minister of the Methodist
Church, South.
APPENDIX V. A letter from the Rev. George Williamson Smith,
D. D., ex-President of Trinity College, to the Rt.
Dr. Satterlee, Bishop of Washington, a copy of
which President Smith kindly sent to the Author
and upon his request gave consent to this publication
of it.
APPENDIX I
Concerning the Petition of the Conference of Church
Workers Among Colored People for Afro-American
Missionary Bishops and Jurisdictions—From the
Author's Address to the 1906 Session of the
Annual Council of the Diocese of Arkansas.
At the last General Convention, a joint committee
of five Bishops, five Priests and five Laymen was
appointed to consider the memorial of the Conference
of Church Workers among Colored People in which
they asked that provision be made for Afro-American
Missionary Jurisdictions and Bishops. This Com¬
mittee was charged with the duty of gathering
information concerning the mind of the Church upon
the subject of the memorial, and to report the result
of their inquiries and conferences at the next General
Convention.
The chairman of the committee, the Bishop of
Louisiana, has requested from all the Southern
Bishops an expression of views respecting the action
that should be taken in response to the memorial.
I received the letter in which he asked for my opinion
some months ago, but have delayed compliance with
his request until the meeting of this Council in order
254 The Crucial Eace Question
that my reply might be made a part of this official
address and draw out an expression from our Clergy
and representative Laity.
I shall be glad to send to the committee, as an
appendix to my answer, any resolution that you pass.
I shall not be at all hurt if you do not see things as I
do. What the committee wants to know is the mind
of the Church touching this exceedingly important
matter which has become one of the crucial questions
of the Church and I could think of no better way of
making them aware of that mind, so far as it is repre¬
sented by the Bishop, Clergy and Laity of our
Diocese, than by pursuing the course which I have
taken the liberty to adopt. I trust that you will not
object to my effort to draw you out and I am sure that
the Committee will be grateful to you for your help
in enabling it to discharge its duty. Moreover our
discussion will contribute to prepare our delegates to
take a helpful part in the great discussion that is
destined to be one of the memorable features of the
General Convention which is to be held in Richmond
next year.
Our Colored Brethren in the Lord have asked for
the Missionary Episcopate, but, in what I have to say
about the response that should be made by the Gen¬
eral Convention to their petition, I shall assume that,
if they cannot have what they want, they will take
what they can get, rather than have things go on as
at present. It seems to me that the General Conven¬
tion could make any one of the following four replies:
(i) We are unable to grant your request. (2) We
will give you that for which you ask, Missionary
Appendix I
255
Bishops and Jurisdictions. (3) We cannot give you
the Missionary Episcopate but we are glad to offer
you Suffragan Bishops. (4) We cannot give you the
Missionary or Suffragan Episcopate, but if you desire
it, by consecrating three independent Colored Bishops,
we will make it possible for you to have an auton¬
omous Afro-American branch of the Catholic Church.
I propose to discuss each of these possible replies,
and to try to make it appear that the last is the one
that should be made, for I have reached the conviction,
which is constantly deepening, that we ought to create
an autonomous Afro-American Church.
I
We are Unable to Grant Your Request.
There is no doubt in my mind that many in both
Houses of the General Convention will be unalterably
in favor of this reply. Indeed, I feel quite sure that if
the General Convention were to meet in October, 1906,
instead of 1907, this would be true of the majority.
But though I am not in favor of granting the request
of our Colored Brethren for Missionary Bishops and
Jurisdictions, I think it would be a great mistake not
to offer them some form of the Episcopate, and I am
glad to be able to entertain a hope that before the
meeting of the Convention the change of opinion will
be such as to put the majority in the ranks of those
who feel as I do about this perplexing matter. I
found this hope upon some remarkable changes of
opinion in high places that to my personal knowledge
256 The Crucial Eace Question
have taken place since the last meeting of the
General Convention. These changes, it seems to me,
clearly indicate that public sentiment in the Church
is setting in the right direction, and that it is likely
to continue so until it accumulates force enough to
carry the day by a small majority.
The arguments which those who are against a favor¬
able reply of any kind are using at this stage of the
discussion are: (i) They have no man to fill the
position which they desire us to create, and (2) If
we comply with their request it will be only a very
short time before they will create a schism by going
out from us.
1. With respect to the first of these reasons why
the General Convention should not make a favorable
reply to its Afro-American memorialists, those who
take my view of our duty are admitting that, if we
create a Colored Episcopate, its personnel can not, in
the nature of things, be of as high an average as that
of our Episcopate, but we say, the Colored Bishops
would bear the same relation to their Clergy and
Laity as the White Bishops do to theirs.
We white people are far from having perfection in
our Bishops. This being the case, upon what ground
can we reasonably expect perfection in Colored
Bishops? In all the National Churches of the world
there is not a single College of Bishops which would
not collapse today, if perfection were a pre-requisite
of its existence. I know of at least one Colore!
Priest that I should have no hesitancy in nominating
for the Episcopate and I know of other Bishops whs
feel the same way about Colored Clergymen within
Appendix I
257
their respective circles of acquaintance. This being
the case, we think the first of these two objections to
the creation of a Colored Episcopate will not stand.
2. The other objection to the giving of the Epis¬
copate to our Colored Brethren is based upon the
fear of a schism. This objection will naturally come
up for careful consideration when we come to discuss
the advisability of creating an independent Afro-
American Church, but in passing let me say that I
am hoping to show that it rests upon a misconception
respecting the Catholicity and unity of the Church.
II.
We Will Give You that for Which You Ask—Missionary
Bishops and Jurisdictions.
Among those who are disposed to grant the petition
of Colored Churchmen for the Episcopate, probably
a majority are in favor of giving them what they ask
for: Missionary Bishops. But this is not the case
with myself. I believe that the creation of a Colored
Episcopate would be such an uplift to the work of
the Church among Afro-Americans and that the wide
dissemination of our Prayer Book religion would be
so great a blessing to them that sometimes I almost
bring myself to the point of willingness to vote in
favor of giving them our Missionary Episcopate rather
than have them fail in getting Bishops of any kind.
But I am fully persuaded in my own mind (and as
time goes on, many among the colored as well as
white people, who are not now in accord with me, will
258
The Crucial Race Question
come to see) that the Missionary Episcopate would
not be the best thing for either of the races concerned.
In fact, the conviction grows upon me, that the giving
of Missionary Bishops and Jurisdictions to our
Colored Brethren would defeat the end they have in
view, so much so, that while seemingly it would be a
granting of their petition, it would in reality be a
practical denial of it.
What Afro-American Churchmen really want, or
at least what they need are two things: (i) They
want or need to be in a position which will make it
possible for them ultimately to have a Bishop for
every Southern State and three or four Bishops for
the Northern States, and (2) they want or need to be
in a position ultimately to develop a national church
for themselves along racial lines.
1. If the statement that these are needs of Afro-
American Churchmen is challenged, and I am well
aware it will be both in white and colored quarters, I
reply: Afro-Americans already number ten millions
and it is quite within the range of probabilities that
before the close of the present century they will reach
twenty millions. But even if there should not be such a
rapid increase of population, no reflecting person who
knows anything about the stupendous work to be
accomplished will seriously argue that a college of
fifteen or twenty Bishops will be any too large; on
the contrary, everybody with any experience in
Missionary undertakings must admit that it would
be far too small.
2. And in defense of the claim that Afro-Americans
need freedom for the ultimate development of a
Appendix I
259
national church for themselves along racial lines, let
me say, that it is now freely admitted on every hand
that we must ultimately give a native Episcopate to
the Japanese and Chinese and allow them to develop
national Churches. Many among us are contending
that the sooner we do so the better it will be for
Christianity in Japan and China.
Well, then, if we ought to give China and Japan a
native Episcopate in order that they may have racial
churches, why should we not do the same for the
Afro-Americans who are at our door? I think that
this question can never be satisfactorily answered by
those who object to the granting of the petition to the
General Convention made by the Conference of Church
Workers among colored people.
But, however all this may be, it is an indisputable
fact that our Colored Brethren want Bishops enough
and freedom enough to enable them through the
Church to do for themselves very much more than
has so far been accomplished or is now being done.
No one, I think, black or white, will call this statement
in question. Here we are certainly upon solid ground.
We take our stand upon this secure position and say
that the Missionary Episcopate would not give Afro-
American Churchmen what they need in respect either
to number of Bishops or degree of freedom. The argu¬
ments which I offer against the granting of the
petition presented by the Conference of Church
Workers among colored people are the following:
i. The first objection against the creation of a
Colored Missionary Episcopate is based upon the fact
that it would involve the overlapping of jurisdictions
260 The Crucial Eace Question
and therefore it could not be extended to Dioceses
of Bishops who do not want it. Now, there are
several among the Southern Bishops who are known
to be strongly opposed to the giving of any form of
the Episcopate to Negroes and this is also true of not
a few border line and Northern Bishops. It appears
therefore that the Missionary Episcopate would be
shut out of a number of Dioceses because their Bishops
would not consent to their entrance. The introduc¬
tion of Colored Bishops into some Dioceses and their
exclusion from others certainly would be a great dis¬
advantage to the Afro-American Episcopate and such
unevenness of treatment would inevitably give rise
to criticism, friction and heart burnings. The over¬
lapping of jurisdictions and its unhappy consequences
constitute an almost, if not quite, insuperable difficulty
in the way of the creation of Colored Missionary
Bishops and Jurisdictions.
2. Another, to my mind, even greater objection to
creating such an Episcopate arises from the fact that
its representatives would have seats and votes in the
House of Bishops and that their Clergy and People
would send delegates to the House of Deputies.
If the proposed Missionary Episcopate is to cover
the field to any efficient purpose, there must be from
the beginning at least four or five Bishops and as time
goes on this number must be increased until there are
twenty or more of them. I do not know of anybody
who very seriously objects to the presence of our one
Foreign Negro Bishop in the Upper House whose
jurisdiction is not represented in the Lower House,
but I think that I know of a good many who would
Appendix I
261
squirm a little if half a dozen American Negro Bishops
with delegations were to have seats and votes in the
General Convention; and I am morally certain that the
presence of as many as twenty of them would be intol¬
erable to the majority in both the House of Bishops
and the House of Deputies, and would work great
harm to the Church.
The expectation of complications arising from an
increasing Negro representation in their legislative
bodies is keeping Northern and Southern Presby¬
terians from coming together. The Southerners are
insisting upon the elimination of the Negro from local
and general assemblies, and they have a very respect¬
able minority of Northern sympathizers.
It may be well for us to note also that the Northern
Methodist Episcopal Church has not been able to
adjust the question of Negro Bishops. In three or
four of its General Conferences this matter has been
of paramount importance. There is a disposition to
grant Negro Bishops for Negro Conferences, of
which there are seventeen, but the Negroes want
Bishops of their race to preside over Conferences of
white people also, as the white Bishops preside over
Negroes as well as over their own race. A majority
has always been against the granting of this demand
and it is likely to continue so.
3. Another serious, and I think conclusive objection
against granting to the Conference of Church Workers
among Colored People what they ask for, Missionary
Jurisdictions and Bishops, is based upon the fact, that,
for reasons which have just appeared, it would pre¬
vent the realization of their hope. For the granting
262 The Crucial Eace Question
of their request would in all probability give them
only one Bishop to begin with, as an experiment, and
as under tlie conditions that would confront him,
failure would be inevitable, there would be little or no
increase to the Afro-American Episcopate, and so the
whole movement in which so much hope is centered
by our Colored Brethren would come to a disappoint¬
ing end, and harm rather than good to all the interests
concerned would be the net result.
It seems to me that the creation of an Afro-American
Missionary Episcopate would be a great mistake,
because, as I have shown, it involves the overlapping
of Jurisdictions, representation in our General Con¬
vention, and the consecration of an inadequate number
of Bishops who will be handicapped to such an extent
that they will not be able to accomplish the good that
is hoped for.
III.
We Cannot Give You the Missionary Episcopate, but
We are Glad to be Able to Offer You Suffragan
Bishops.
Some among the leading men of both the South and
North have been inclined to prefer the Suffragan to the
Missionary Episcopate for Afro-American Churchmen,
because they would not necessarily have a seat and
they could not have a vote in the House of Bishops;
nor could colored Priests and Laymen be represented
in the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies.
Others prefer the Suffragan form of the Episcopate
because they think that in the course of time the con-
Appendix I
263
ditions which now make separate race Bishops neces¬
sary will pass away and that then the practice of
electing them can be discontinued.
But while I would very much prefer the Suffragan
to the Missionary Episcopate, if compelled to choose
between them, yet I am convinced that the conditions
which make colored Bishops a necessity at this time
are here to stay, and that the Suffragan Episcopate
would not meet the requirements of the situation
because the colored Bishops would be tied to the
apron strings of the white Bishops. This objection
to the creation of a Suffragan Episcopate obtains also
to some degree against the Missionary Episcopate.
If our branch of the Catholic Church is ever to take
root among Afro-Americans and be one of the great
means of their salvation, we must, in my humble judg¬
ment, give them an Episcopate which will have a
much freer hand than it would have if either the
Suffragan or even the Missionary type of it were
given it.
A Suffragan Bishop would practically be only an
Archdeacon and I really believe that all things con¬
sidered an independent convocational system, such
as we have in Arkansas, headed by a Priest-archdea¬
con, works with less friction and as good practical
results as it would with a Bishop-archdeacon. But,
though our system is altogether the best solution of
the race problem that has so far been reached in any
Diocese of the American Church, yet even it is con¬
fessedly of an incomplete character. Unless our Afro-
American Convocation develops into an Afro-Amer¬
ican Diocese with an Afro-American Bishop at its
264 The Crucial Bace Question
head, there is no great future before it. It will bring
no fruit to perfection. Under the warm, sunny influ¬
ence of the hope of better things, there will be for a
time much promising budding; but if that hope is
long deferred and ultimately disappointed the blos¬
soming will diminish and issue in dust.
IV.
We Cannot Give You the Missionary or Suffragan
Episcopate, but if You Desire It, by Consecrating
Three Independent Colored Bishops, We Will Make
it Possible for You to Have an Autonomous
Afro-American Church.
So far as I know, I am the only Bishop who feels
that what the Afro-American needs and what we
should give to him is an independent Episcopate such
as the Mother Church of England gave to us about one
hundred years later than it should have been given.
I say that I know of no Bishop who takes the view
of this matter that I do and I may add that there
seem to be very few Clergymen and Laymen, colored
or white, who look at it from my point of view. The
obstacle in the way of their doing so is the supposition
that such an Episcopate would involve the creation
of a schism.
Let me lead up to my argument in favor of an
Autonomous rather than a Missionary or Suffragan
Colored Episcopate by the confession that I am
wholly given over to the somewhat unpopular idea
that if Afro-Americans are ever to develop into a great
Appendix I
265
people they must ultimately return to Africa or go
to some place where they will be able to set up their
own national institutions and govern themselves,
making use, in their more favorable environments, of
what they have learned in America.
The American Negro can never do anything great
until, so to speak, he gets through school and strikes
out for himself. While he remains with us, and this
probably will be, and for his own good ought to be,
two or three hundred years longer, he will always be
overshadowed by the white man and he will be kept
down and depressed by the hardships and persecutions
which through all history have been the lot of every
people which has been situated as he is. At present
one of his great defects is his lack of race pride. This
defect must be corrected before there can be any out¬
look and hope for the race. But this can not be accom¬
plished without self-government.
Now, inasmuch as political self-government for a
race situated as is the American Negro, always has
been, is now and ever will be impossible and out of
the question, the only field in which he can get off
by himself and try his hand at self-government, is
the ecclesiastical field.
With the Negro, religious self-government must
necessarily come first; and, for that matter, it generally
has come first in the case of the other races. It was
certainly so with the Jews, and it has been more or
less so with ourselves. The Jews never would have
gone out of Egypt but for their religion. Their leaders
were ecclesiastical princes. The Heptarchy of our
266 The Crucial Eace Question
English ancestors was fused into one nation and slowly
developed into the Empire of Great Britain, through
the influence of our historic Church of the English
speaking race. Even the Government of these United
States, as Bishop Randall has shown, was largely
shaped according to ecclesiastical lines.
Therefore, I say, that one of the best and most far-
reaching things that the American Church could do
at her next General Convention, would be to make
provision for the consecration of four colored Priests
to the Episcopate, and "turn them loose" to organize a
separate Autonomous Afro-American Branch of the
Catholic Church. I feel that anything short of this
is sure to be only a half-way, temporary, unsatisfactory
measure.
But, it will be asked, do you believe in the Catho¬
licity of the Church, and, if so, how do you reconcile
the idea of racial churches with that belief?
I answer, yes; I do believe in the Catholicity of the
Church. It is Christ's Church, and, therefore, it must
be Catholic. He founded His Church to save the
world, the whole world. He founded only one Church,
and He founded it to save the Black world, and the
Yellow world, and the White world, the whole world.
Yes, indeed; I do believe in the One Holy Catholic
and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ.
But, nevertheless, I think that it was the Lord's
intention to save each of these three worlds by its own
Episcopate. He said, to a white Jewish Episcopate,
"Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel,"
that is, make provision for the preaching of it to every
creature. That He did not intend to save every part
Appendix I
267
of the whole world by the Jewish Episcopate is
evident from the simple, palpable fact that as soon as
Christianity spread to the Gentile part of the white
world, a Gentile Episcopate developed. The Gentile
Episcopate came into existence so early, and it has
been so widespread, continuous, overshadowing and
fruitful, as to conclusively prove from every point of
view its right to existence by Divine appointment.
Moreover, the fact that the Gentile Episcopate
exists also proves, by a necessary logical inference,
that the Lord did not intend the black, yellow and
white worlds to be saved by one Episcopate, for if
the Gentile part of the white world could not be saved
by the Episcopate of the Jewish part of that world,
what ground is there in reason upon which to rest
the supposition that the black and yellow worlds can
be saved by the Episcopate of the white world? We
answer, None whatsoever; and we are ready to
prove that no other answer can be supported by either
logical arguments or historical facts.
While I was settling down to the conviction that it
is our duty to give an autonomous Episcopate to our
Colored Brethren in the Lord, I had a conversation
with the learned Dr. Williamson Smith, who was at
that time the President of Trinity College. After
some discussion he said, as nearly as I can remember
his encouraging words, "I believe you are on solid
ground, for in traveling through Eastern countries
where different races are found together much more
than in Western lands, I observed that in some places
there were as many as three or four Bishops
each ministering to his own people; and upon
268 The Crucial Eace Question
inquiry, I found this to have been the case from time
immemorial."
I therefore believe in the Catholicity of the Church
as a whole, not in the Catholicity of individual con¬
gregations or Dioceses or even of National or Racial
Churches. There never has been and never will be
any such Catholicity in this world.
As matters now stand, no one but an unobserving,
impractical theorist would maintain seriously that
any congregation, in a Southern community, can be
Catholic enough to include both the black and the
white people and what is true in this respect of our
congregations, is true, or rapidly becoming so, of our
Diocesan Councils, and would become so of our
General Convention in proportion to the increase of
colored Bishops and delegates.
But did not St. Paul say, "There is neither Jew nor
Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither
male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus?"
In replying to the objection to my views based upon
this text, I will say that I am willing to add what the
Apostle for some inexplicable reason left out, namely,
"In Christ Jesus there is neither black nor white."
Nevertheless, I contend that this and other texts of
the same import can not legitimately be so interpreted
as to condemn such distinctions and separations
among Christians as would be effected by the drawing
of the ecclesiastical Color-Line, because such an inter¬
pretation would make nonsense of them.
Take the text under consideration, which is the
chief and consequently the most frequently quoted of
all such texts; if it be interpreted in accordance with
Appendix I
269
the views of those who consider that the true doctrine
of the Church's Catholicity involves the necessity
of ignoring the Color-Line, it would plainly teach that
Christian men and women are obliged to ignore all
other distinctions, such for instance as "male and
female."
Therefore, all that such texts can legitimately be
made to mean, is that Christians should not draw dis¬
tinguishing lines which God has not drawn. But the
Color-Line, like the sex line, was drawn by God, and
this being the case, it is evidently the duty of all
concerned to recognize its existence in the social insti¬
tutions of the Family, State and Church, and to
govern ourselves accordingly.
The Anglican Communion "is divided into national
churches, such as the Church of England, the Church
of the United States, the Church of Canada, and the
rest. These national, autonomous divisions in the
Church are largely due to the geographical lines
which God has drawn.
Now, as we have said, God has also drawn the Color-
Line between the white and black races. This line is
as distinct and as insurmountable a barrier to eccle¬
siastical unity as any geographical line. Why then
may not Catholic black and white Bishops occupy
overlapping Afro-American and Anglican Catholic
Dioceses in the United States without dividing the
body of Christ?
Thus the question as to whether or not we should
allow the Catholic Church in the United States to be
divided by the Color-Line, resolves itself into a question
270 The Crucial Eace Question
of expediency pure and simple. Is it wise or is it not
wise to create the division? The whole matter hinges
upon the wisdom of the proposal and not at all upon
any Catholic principle involved in it.
It will be contended that an autonomous Church even
more than a Missionary Episcopate would deprive
colored Churchmen of our financial support and moral
guidance. But, if the now generally accepted theory
respecting the necessity of drawing the Color-Line, in
order that the unfortunate gulf between the whites
and blacks of the South may be bridged, be correct, the
effect of autonomy would be highly beneficial in draw¬
ing out the sympathy and help of the stronger race
towards the weaker. And that such would be the
case is demonstrated (on a small scale, to be sure, but
straws show "which way the wind is blowing) by our
experience in Arkansas.
We have effected an entire and complete separation
of the work of the Church among our colored and
white people, so much so that we practically have
two Dioceses in Arkansas but with only one Bishop
over both. The first steps in the rugged way of such
a separation were taken in 1903 and the goal was
reached at our last Council in 1905. Before this was
done the outlook for the work of the Church among
the colored people of Arkansas was very unsatis¬
factory, in fact it was absolutely hopeless. But in
one short year the whole prospect has become bright
and encouraging to a high degree.
Until we set our colored work off as a practically
wholly separate and distinct department of the Church
in Arkansas we had only one Afro-American
Appendix I
271
Congregation, St. Philip's, Little Rock. And
there was no substantial hope for another anywhere
in the Diocese. But though that was all we had to
show as the result of twenty years of work along the
old unnatural lines, its property was out of the way,
cramped, insignificant and dilapidated, so that it had
to be abandoned. As soon as the separation was
resolved upon, we sold that property, and have bought
a lot 100 by 150 feet in the very center of that portion
of the Negro population to which the Church most
strongly appeals. This lot alone with two small, but
useful dwellings cost $4,500.
We have built a combination Sunday School and
Industrial School costing $1,500. We have bought
another large lot in South Little Rock and are
building a combination Church and School House
upon it. That property will be worth $2,500. We
have opened up a very promising work at Hot Springs
and are planning to go to Pine Bluff and Newport in
the near future. At least two new Churches are to be
built and two additional workers to be put in the field
every year from this on for ten years. Such accom¬
plishments and plans would have been altogether out
of question under the old conditions.
We believe that an Autonomous Colored Episco¬
pate would capture the flower of the Negro population
of Arkansas for the Afro-American Catholic Church
which we recommend the 1907 General Convention to
establish.
"I can conceive no more pitiable paradox than
that of the young white Christian in the South
to-day who really believes in the ethics of Jesus
Christ. What can he think when he hangs upon his
church doors the sign that I have often seen, 'All
are welcome.' He knows that half the population
of his city would not dare to go inside that church.
Or if there was any fellowship between Christians,
white and black, it would be after the manner
explained by a white Mississippi clergyman in all
seriousness: 'The whites and Negroes understand
each other here perfectly, sir, perfectly; if they
come to my church they take a seat in the gallery.
If I go to theirs, they invite me to the front pew
or the platform.' "—"The Negro in the South," by
Prof. DuBois, page 176.
APPENDIX II
The Firgt Annual Missionary Report to the Bishop and
Council of the Diocese of Arkansas by the Ven.
George Alexander McGuire, M. A., Archdeacon of
the Convocation of Arkansas, to which was added,
by the Bishop's request, remarks upon the appeal of
the Conference of Church Workers among Afro-
Americans for Missionary Bishops an d Jurisdictions
To the Rt. Rev. Wm. Montgomery Brown, D. D.,
Bishop of Arkansas, and to the Members of the
1906 Diocesan Council:
Rt. Rev. Father in God and Brethren: Acting
under authority of Canon VII, of this Diocese, the
Bishop, deeming it needful for the development of
our Church work among the people of African descent
in this State, established the Convocation of Arkansas
and appointed me on November 1, 1905, its first Arch¬
deacon. It is with much satisfaction that I submit
this report covering my six months' service in this
field of labor.
********** *****
Having given this report of half a year s work in a
new and difficult field, I ask permission to make some
statements of a more general nature.
274
The Crucial Eace Question
When the Council took Canonical measures provid¬
ing for the separation of the Afro-American work
from its general work, much unfavorable criticism
was heard in many quarters. From my experience in
the field, I am of the opinion that such separation was
wise and timely, and will prove to be of advantage to
the growth of the Church in this Diocese among both
races. If, as is evident, Abraham and his herdsmen,
and Lot and his herdsmen, cannot dwell together in
perfect peace and prosperity, then let them divide the
land between them, the one party dwelling on the
right hand and the other on the left.
There need be no strife between us, for we be
brethren. Like the two rails of the track, we may
parallel each other throughout the journey, support¬
ing the same train, without meeting at any point, each
rail preserving its identity and independence of the
other, yet each being necessary to the onward move¬
ment. The Canon creating this Convocation also
directs that _ when there shall be six parishes or
missions in its membership, a Constitution and
Canons, not conflicting with those of this Diocese or
of the General Church, shall be adopted, and that said
Convocation may provide for its independence of this
Council. The legislation here referred to is fair, far-
reaching, and statesmanlike, and the leading Negro
clergy and laity are asking that the Church at large
shall take steps to have all its work in the South
among colored people arranged after this plan, with
added Episcopal oversight by Bishops of the same
race. The Church should meet this issue as squarely
as this Diocese has done.
Appendix II
275
The most vexed problem of the American people
is that which concerns the Afro-American. He is the
storm-center around which rages our greatest contro¬
versies, whether in politics, religion, society or edu¬
cation. The American Church is being irresistibly
drawn into the whirlpool. Other religious bodies,
which include in their membership a Negro following,
and are concerned about their responsibility for the
extension of their work among Afro-Americans, have
been grappling bravely with the situation, recognizing
meanwhile the traditions and peculiarities of our
Southland. It cannot be said that the Episcopal
Church has been indifferent to her responsibility as
well as her adaptability to the Negro race. She has
accomplished much good. But that she has been
lethargic, penurious, lacking in enthusiastic and united
action, and in the thorough arousing of her conscience
in this matter, cannot be gainsaid.
It became necessary, therefore, for the Twentieth
Annual Conference of Colored Church Workers to
send a Memorial to the last General Convention ask¬
ing the adoption of a Canon providing for the arrange¬
ment of the Southern Negro work into Missionary
Jurisdictions, under Special Missionary Bishops of the
Negro race, who shall have all the rights and privil¬
eges of Missionary Bishops, and who shall be advised
by the Diocesan Bishops in whose Dioceses their
Jurisdictions may be located. Knocking at the door
of the Church, our voice has been heard, and we now
await the answer of the next General Convention.
We have asked for bread, shall we receive a stone?
For fish, shall we receive a serpent? We have asked
276 The Crucial Eace Question
for the- adoption of this Canon only after deliberate
judgment and mature thought on the part of our lead¬
ing Negro churchmen, believing it to be the best
means of correlating the Negro work of the Church
to her other efforts without unnecessary friction and
along the lines of least resistance. Loyal as church¬
men, second to no other race in love for, and loyalty
to the standards of the Church, and eager that the
advantages which we have derived from membership
in her shall be extended to our fellow Afro-Americans,
we petition the "powers that be" to so equip us that
we may be able to do self-respecting work among our
brethren. Will the Church deal with this question
impartially, or will she further befog the problem?
Will she simply introduce and apply to our needs the
Suffragan Episcopate, which, while a long step in the
right direction, would be labor spent upon the scaf¬
folding rather than upon laying a solid foundation for
the future superstructure? Or, will she decide that it
is expedient, at this time, to grant that which we ask?
The question is passing through the refining pot.
The crucial hour is upon us. Ten million Afro-
Americans await anxiously the result of the test. The
Church cannot afford to treat with us in beautiful
generalizations any longer. She must be definite, deci¬
sive and clear. An entire race, comprising over one-
ninth of the total population of the land and containing
over ten times as many souls as communicants in our
Church, appeals to the fair-minded, liberty-loving,
Catholic Church of the Anglo-Saxon, as a court of last
resort. Will she rise supremely to the opportunity
Appendix II
277
and the duty of the hour, and considering racial dif¬
ferences, prejudices and peculiarities, relieve her
Negro clergy and people of much embarrassment and
supply them with the entire machinery for doing
successful work among their own race without
becoming schismatics, or asking for an autonomous
"ecclesiola in ecclesia?"
Two great objections have been raised against
special Missionary Jurisdictions. One of these can be
very readily answered and dismissed. It is feared by
some that Negro Bishops, as members of the House of
Bishops, would add difficulties in the matter of pro¬
viding them with hospitality and entertainment. I do
not think so. Were I a member of this Council, as I
have been in all other Dioceses in which I have
labored, North and South, I should not seek hospi¬
tality from any other source but among my own race,
even as I have done here in Newport , to the people of
which town I am a perfect stranger. I should not
expect or accept invitations to functions that might
be embarrassing to me or any other person or persons.
And just as the only Negro member of the House of
Bishops was entertained by the Negroes of Boston in
1904, so could several such have been entertained.
The Church need give herself no uneasiness on this
phase of the question. Negro churchmen are
possessed of common sense. They respect their own
feelings, as well as the customs and traditions of the
land. At the last Quadrennial Conference of the
great Methodist Episcopal Church, there were eighty-
three Negro delegates in attendance out of a total of
750, or one in nine, and their entertainment afforded
278
The Crucial Eace Question
no problem, as Negroes prefer to be entertained by
Negroes, even as Whites by Whites. The colored
churchmen of Richmond are even now looking
forward to the entertainment of any of their brethren
who may visit the next General Convention.
The strong objection made is that violence would be
done to the well-established principle of ecclesiastical
and diocesan territorial rights, and that a dangerous
and radical precedent would be established if Mission¬
ary and Diocesan Bishops were permitted to operate
in the same territory. Is it forgotten that in Apostolic
times, St Peter was sent to the Circumcision and St.
Paul to the Uncircumcision by the Mother Church
in Jerusalem, each to minister in the same wide field,
and each given jurisdiction, not over so many square
miles, but over people differing racially, socially and
otherwise? It should also be borne in mind that
the American Church has already departed from the
ancient ecclesiastical law of geographical limitations,
justifying her action on the ground of expediency and
the needs of the times. She is not concerned so much
with theories as with conditions. What has become
of the old law of parochial authority and jurisdiction?
Has it not been rendered obsolete by the frequent
erection of Negro parishes with Negro Rectors in
towns, or portions of towns, in which there is already
in existence a white parish with its rector? And in a
larger way, are there not two Archdeacons in this
very Diocese, appointed by the same Diocesan, whose
fields are geographically identical, but each one con¬
fining his labors to the people of his own race? What
the Negroes ask is that the General Convention shall
Appendix II
279
simply exercise on a scale larger than the parish or
the archdeaconry, the privilege which the Diocese or
its Ecclesiastical Authority is exercising within its
limits. If we have Negro parishes operating within
white parishes, and Negro convocations overlapping
white convocations or Dioceses, does it seem a hard
and radical thing to erect a Missionary Jurisdiction
out of a Negro convocation, or several Negro convo¬
cations, and to place over such a Negro Bishop? If it
is expedient to make some adaptation of the parish
idea and to ordain Negro Priests for Negro congre¬
gations—if it be further expedient to make some
adaptation of the archdeaconry idea, and to appoint
Negro Archdeacons for Negro Convocations (as now
obtains in four Southern dioceses)—is it any the less
expedient or logical to so adapt the Episcopate idea
by consecrating Negro Missionary Bishops for Mis¬
sionary Jurisdictions made up of Negro Parishes or
Convocations? May not the General Convention do
for the Negroes in the Church at large what the
Bishops do, as far as possible, in their Dioceses?
The cry is being sent up, by Afro-Americans all
through this Southland, for Bishops of their own
race. Negro Methodists and Baptists point con¬
temptuously at us as "a black body with a white
head." We dare not hope to bring into our member¬
ship any large number of self-respecting, intelligent
Negroes of the South, who are now in other religious
bodies, until we can supply them with Bishops of their
own race who will fully sympathize with their condi¬
tion, who will fully share all their weals and their
280 The Crucial Eace Question
woes, who can enter their homes, enjoy their hospi¬
tality, ride with them in their separate railway
coaches, and who can be loved and not simply
respected by them. The white Bishop cannot meet
these demands. When duty calls him to our churches,
if he gives us a shake of the hand, as many do, this is
all we can expect. Besides, Negro clergy need loving,
fraternal, and social intercourse with their Bishop.
The good Bishop of this Diocese may come to your
homes and receive your hospitality; you may be
permitted to visit him and sit at the Episcopal board.
I neither desire nor expect the same. Receiving many
considerations of kindness, official and personal, from
my present Bishop, nevertheless, my manly dignity,
my self-respect, my whole nature—intellectual, social
and spiritual—yearns for a Bishop of my own race,
who, besides giving me godly admonitions, will enter
into my life as he alone can, and who is not prohibited
from intermingling in every way, with me and the
congregation committed to our charge. And this
feeling I share with all my Negro brethren, within
and without the Church.
Personally I do not think the Church is ready and
desirous to grant all that Colored Churchmen are
asking for. On the Conference floor I have expressed
this conviction, and advocated that we pray the Church
to authorize the appointing of Suffragan Bishops, thus
permitting those Southern Bishops who are kindly
disposed and conscientiously concerned in doing all
in their power to extend the blessings of this Church
to their Negro people, to make convenient arrange¬
ment for special Episcopal oversight for them. Not
Appendix II
281
that I do not feel with my brethren that the Mission¬
ary Jurisdiction is the desired goal, but rather that I
believe the chances are far greater for getting Negro
Suffragan Bishops than Missionary Bishops. Diocesan
.Bishops are human after all and they will not readily
acquiesce in the setting up of Jurisdictions in their
Dioceses in the care of Missionary Bishops over whom
they may have little or no control. Meanwhile, with
the Suffragan arrangement, we could be marching on
in the good work, awaiting the riper judgment of the
Church to do right, as she has always done, even if
slow in her changes. All this I showed to my brethren
but I was argued down and told by those older than I
in point of service, "We know what we want. Let
us ask for that and nothing less, leaving it to the
Church to give what she will."
The General Convention has placed our Memorial
in the hands of a Joint Commission, which is now at
work securing data upon the subject of the Negro
work and especially the mind of the Southern Bishops,
in order that an exhaustive report may be made at
Richmond in 1907. It is believed that several of our
Councils and Conventions in the South will express
themselves upon the question, as to whether Mission¬
ary Jurisdictions, Suffragan Bishops, or some other
adjustment should be tried.
I am heartily in accord with the conservative belief
that the most feasible, as well as the least radical plan,
and that least likely to arouse antagonism, is the Suf¬
fragan idea. I do not know the mind of this Council,
but I can assure you gentlemen, that born in the
Church of England, receiving Orders in the American
282 The Crucial Race Question
Church—loyal and devoted to her standards, no legis¬
lation, nor lack of it, shall drive me from the Anglican
Communion. Desirous, however, with my Negro
brethren of the clergy and 20,000 of the laity, to make
churchmen of a larger number of the millions of Afro-
Americans who hold aloof from the Church because
of the handicap placed upon us, I join in the prayer
for better equipment along the line designated. We
have race pride; and it is that which prompts us to
ask for Negro Bishops. We care naught about social
equality. But we do want the full development of our
inherent capacity for constructive leadership, in
secular as well as ecclesiastical matters where our own
race is concerned. Whatever the outcome may be,
Negro Episcopalians will pray, hope and labor on,
believing that "The Lord Reigneth," and that
"Honor and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part,—there all the honor lies."
GEORGE ALEXANDER McGUIRE,
Archdeacon of the Convocation of Arkansas.
APPENDIX III.
Extracts from a Letter of the Rt. Rev. Dr. Penick,
Sometime Bishop of Cape Palmas, Africa.
"Our mutual friend, I think, rather overstates the
case. It is true that I have given the best years of my
life to the study of the Negro problem. It is truly 'A
RACE PROBLEM' with all that the word 'RACE'
carries. This, Americans persist in ignoring. To treat
it otherwise than a race problem, is to get confusion
worse confounded every time it is attempted.
"My dear Bishop, after fifty years studying the
Negro, I have come to some very decided conclusions;
and the more I study and watch, the surer I feel that
my conclusions are right; yet they are so far from
what many people expect, that I have not made them
public.
"This, I say, is a 'Race' problem. It holds all that
the word race means, and that is a lot more than
people stop to think. It is far deeper than a 'color'
matter. God made races and made them as different
as ducks from chickens. To treat two races alike,
produces confusion, as real and radical, as to treat
dogs and cats alike, or apples and watermelons alike.
In each race are wrapped forces leading it on, and
284
The Crucial Eace Question
fitting it for the work that God has cut out for that
race, and no other. Study Israel in Egypt. It was
not neglect or impotency on God's part, that this race
gradually gravitated from the court to the 'brick kiln.'
Israel in Egypt's throne would have been an Israel-
itish failure. Israel with the handicrafts of Egypt
was not a failure and left the Egyptian ideal of civil¬
ization unmarred. God in the fullness of time sends
to each race, the vision of its civilization; and no
other race can see, understand, know and work it out.
Stop and ponder this statement, for in it lies the
secret to all this confusion and confounding, in which
we are floundering, here and now. This alone can
explain the vivid, intense, seemingly cruel resentment
that flashes out everywhere, when the white man sees
the Negro about to mar his ideal of Church, State or
Society. And mar, he does, and will whenever allowed
to approach and work on either, unguided. Don't you
remember 'that the pillar of cloud and fire' was light
to Israel, and darkness to the Egyptians? Even so
and ever, must one race's ideal of civilization be fool¬
ishness to another race. Therefore, to allow an alien
race to come up, and go to work on your ideal would
produce about the same effect as if you allowed the
man with his whitewash brush, to come up behind a
gifted artist, intensely bending over his canvas, to
fling upon it the vision thrilling his soul; and to
begin with his whitewash brush to help out the oil
painting. Bishop, that is just what people of this
country have ignorantly been clamoring that the Negro
should be permitted to do. And the racial instinct,
that will die for the preservation of its race ideal, has
Appendix III
285
flamed and flashed with relentless fury every time it
felt the whitewash brush reaching the canvas.
"This accounts for many of the cruel strikings down,
of many innocent and good Negroes, from place in
government, or social circles. This, and this alone,
can account for many seeming deeds of violence,
done by men, who otherwise, were good law-abiding
citizens. Now mark you, that it is not Egypt's ideal
that is in danger from Israel's blind, bungling, but
Israel's ideal, so long as he stays, and craves and
reaches to help Egypt with its ideal. Moses as a
Pharaoh, would have been a stupendous failure; as an
Israelite, and leader for his people he was a great
success. Israel's ideal unfolded 'on the mount.' 'Make
all things according to the pattern shown thee in the
mount.' Yes, use the skill and handicraft you learned
in Egypt, but use your God-given patterns. As with
Israel, even so with 'Ham.' If the Negro is ever to
find the fullness and glory of his manhood and Negro-
hood, it must be by finding his own pattern where God
hands it to him; and then using all the skill God has
given him and all the truth that the white race may
teach him—he must work out his own ideal. So long
as he persists in trying to work on the white man's
canvas he is going to have and give trouble, and make
a failure. Do I make you see with me? Booker
Washington, as Booker Washington, is a grand fellow
—but Booker Washington, as George Washington
would be an awful misfit and sad failure for both
Booker and George. Why cannot we make people
see this? It is certainly due to the Negro, to show
him the peril of Pharaoh's palace, and also to turn his
286
The Crucial Eace Question
face towards that mount where God waits to give him
his ideal, even if it does seem to lie through a shipless,
bridgeless sea; and a great and terrible trackless wild¬
erness, waterless, and serpent-haunted, out there
beyond the brick kiln.
"Is there an ideal for him ? Can he reach and work
it out? Great, deep questions of life and death and
glory. I believe there is. I say I believe, I dc
know failure waits his continued meddling with the
white man's ideal. I believe when God made him, He
also made his ideal. God never makes a purposeless
thing. I ever sought signs of his ideal; and I think
they are very many. I have in my possession, some
eighty fables, or specimens of folk-lore, I got directly
from the heathen Africa; and there are startling marks
of ideals on many of them, ideals high and grand. God
has reached the black man's mind, and flashed into it,
blazes of immortality, and divinity. He lacks the spirit
of God to brood over these and bring order, 'cosmos'
out. You may catch traces of this in 'Uncle Remus' if
you study deep enough. So I do believe in the Negro's
future, because I believe in God's designs.
"It is going to be hard with the theorists, when you
begin to pluck their idols and long cherished hopes.
But plucked they must be, or we go on deeper and
deeper into the dense darkness; and woful waste, and
wrong to both races. You can't make a white man of
a Negro; he will be a miserable white man if you did,
and a ruined Negro. We owe it to the Negroes to get
this noble realization into them, and send them on to
be their own great selves. One race can go to school
to another; but the scholar must not try to turn the
Appendix III
287
teacher out, or run the school to suit himself. After
school he must strike out homeward, and be a race.
The other races need his racehood. 'One star differeth
from another star in glory' but all the same, each star
sends to every other star, a flood of light, all its own,
and.which the heavens cannot afford to lose. Other
sheep I have which are not of this fold; them I must
also bring,' and that will be a greater and gladder fold,
when he has the bringing, and the sheep feel that each
is richer, because the others are there.
"Now, Bishop, I do not know how all of this will
strike you, nor what good it may do you in your
present dilemma—which dilemma, we are all sharing.
My own conclusions are very clear, and firm, and I
presume final for this life, i. e. Give the Negro all we
can give him of truth, and skill, and encouragement
and hope, and point him to God's use for him. But as
we love him, and are entrusted by God with the white
man's ideal; keep his hand off that ideal, and send him
on to his own Horeb. I have written in haste, but I
hope that I have made myself clear."
"I hare seen the Negroes in all their religious
moods, in their most death-like trances, and in their
wildest outbreaks of excitement. I have preached
to them in town and city and on the plantations.
I have been their pastor, have led their class and
prayer meetings, conducted their love feasts, taught
them the Catechism. I have married them, baptized
their children, and buried their dead. In the real¬
ity of religion among them, I have the most entire
confidence, nor can I ever doubt it while religion is a
reality to me. Their notions may be in some things
crude, their conceptions of truth realistic, sometimes
to a painful, sometimes to a grotesque, degree.
They may be more emotional than ethical. They
may show many imperfections in their religious
development; nevertheless their religion is their
most striking and important, their strongest and
most formative characteristic. They are more
remarkable here than anywhere else; their religion
has had more to do in shaping their better character
in this country than any other influence; it will
most determine what they are to become in their
future development."—The Rev. Attic-us G. Hay-
good.
APPENDIX IV.
Extracts from a Letter of a Minister of the Methodist
Church, South.
"At the close of the Civil War the Methodist Epis¬
copal Church, South, had a colored membership of
about 300,000 when we were owners and they were
slaves; we had no trouble in adjusting ourselves to
them or managing them. When they became free the
Negro race churches, African Methodist Episcopal
Church Bethel, and African Methodist Episcopal
Church Zion, from the North rushed into the South
and began to absorb our colored members. There
was, however, a contingent of about 100,000 to 125,000
who remained loyal to us; but they became restless
and were ill at ease in the new relation of freedom.
Many questions began to arise which were hard to
answer. The same questions are now coming up for
consideration in the Episcopal Church, and I believe
that ultimately you will answer them much as we did.
The greatest and strongest minds of the Church took
up the study of these questions to find solutions that
would be in accord with God's Word and the best
interests of both races.
290 The Crucial Eace Question
1. "It was then as it is now, impossible to find com¬
petent white pastors for colored congregations. If
they could have been found the Negroes would have
thought that it would have been an invasion of their
rights to place white men over them. It was impos¬
sible, is now, and ever will be to force them to worship
together.
2. "By the authority of our General Conference a
convention of Negro preachers was called by our
Bishops and they were organized into a separate and
independent Church. They elected two Bishops, who
were ordained by Bishops McLegion and Pierce. The
'Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America' thus
took its place among the Churches. We deeded to
them Church buildings and school houses, which had
been built for them. The Methodist Episcopal
Church, South, also established a school, the Paine
Institute, in Augusta, Georgia, for the Church thus set
forth, and appointed white teachers from our own
ranks to run it. We still support and practically
control it.
"The Church thus set forth is absolutely independ¬
ent. We have no legal authority over them, any more
than we have over the Protestant Episcopal, Presby¬
terian, or other Churches. They feel kindly towards
us and look to us for help and advice; this we cheer¬
fully give.
"You might with great interest and perhaps much
light study the relation of the Negro contingent in the
Methodist Episcopal Church, North. They have
about 200,000 colored members and separate congrega¬
tions and conferences. This is not satisfactory to any
Appendix IY
291
part of their communion. I happen to know some of
their secrets, (a) The Negroes are asking, demanding
a Bishop of their race, who shall be allowed to preside
with equal rights in white Conferences, (b) The
whites are divided into three factions; (i) a faction
saying, yes, this is right, (2) another saying, elect a
Negro Bishop but confine him to his own race, (3) a
third saying, no, no Negro for Bishop. Their difficul¬
ties will increase."
"I am free to say that unless this Church is pre¬
pared to treat its Negro members with exactly the
same consideration that other members receive, with
the same brotherhood and fellowship, the same
encouragement to aspiration, the same privileges,
similarly trained priests and similar preferment for
them, then I should a great deal rather see them
set aside than to see a continuation of present
injustice. All I ask is that when you do this you
do it with an open and honest statement of the real
reasons and not with statements veiled by any
hypocritical excuse."—"The Negro In the South,"
by Prof. DuBois, page 189-190.
APPENDIX V.
A Letter from the Rev. George Williamson Smith, D. D.,
Ex-President of Trinity College, to the Rt. Rev. Dr.
Satterlee, Bishop of ^^ashington, a copy of which
President Smith kindly sent the Author and upon
request gave his consent to this publication of it
THE WYOMING,
Washington, D. C., May 22, 1907.
My Dear Bishop:
In compliance with your request made in the brief
conversation we had last Wednesday morning, I
venture to write more fully than I at first intended,
what seems to me to be practicable in the way of a
tentative effort to meet the situation in regard to
work among the Negroes. Pardon me for prefacing
the proposition with some considerations which seem
to me worthy of attention in deciding the matter.
As a Historic Church we may profitably study the
manner in which most questions which arise today
have been treated in the past. In some form or
another most all of them have been discussed and acted
upon. The race question was the first which troubled
the Church. The antipathy between Jew ("adversum
294
The Cbucial Race Question
omnes alios hostile odium") and Gentile was pro¬
nounced, and the effort to reconcile in one Church,
or Ecclesia, two races which were antipathetic in
every point, was the occasion of the first Church
Council in Jerusalem. How transitory the effect was
is apparent when we find that six years afterwards St.
Peter and St. Barnabas withdrew from the Gentile
Christians in Antioch and consorted with the Jewish
Christians only. (Gal. n, 12, 13.) On this point we
have a curious statement in Bingham, that "many
learned persons" think that "in the apostolic age"
there were two Bishops in many cities, one of the
Jews and another of the Gentiles. Thus they think it
was at Antioch, where Euodius and Ignatius are
said to be Bishops ordained by the Apostles; as also
Linus and Clemens at Rome, the one ordained by St.
Peter, Bishop of the Jews, and the other by St. Paul,
Bishop of the Gentiles. Epiphanius seems to have
been of this opinion." I think this may enable us to
reconcile the discrepancy between Tertullian who
names Clemens as the immediate successor of the
Apostles, and Eusebius, who names Linus and Anec-
letus before Gemens. By the early withdrawal of
the Jews on their renunciation of Christianity the order
of Jewish Bishops lapsed, and their brief existence as
a separate congregation, or a part of the Church, was
ignored by Tertullian.
The different sorts of Bishops in the early ages of
the Church testify to the great flexibility of the organi¬
zation which enabled it to meet every exigency. In
reconciling an organized heretical Church we some¬
times find the orthodox recognizing and continuing
Appendix V
295
the Bishops of the reconciled Church and thus per¬
mitting two Bishops for a time in one city. When¬
ever a new work was to be done they seem to have
at once appointed a Bishop, or Bishops, to do it. We
meet a wondrous variety, and many sorts of Bishops ;
Patriarchs, Metropolitans, Archbishops, several kinds
of Autokephalae, Coadjutors and Chorepiscopi.
These last, as additional hands to the Metropolitan, or
pther Bishop, whose assistants they were, seem to have
been very numerous. There were seventy or more under
the Bishop of Rome. The ease with which Bishops
were created appears from the statements of the Don-
atist Bishops that new Bishops were created by the
Orthodox to oppose them in their own seats, which
were in Orthodox Dioceses already existing. And as
pertinent to the matter before us Cyril of Scythopolis
takes notice of "a plantation of Saracens under the
Roman Government in Palestine, over whom Peter,
a converted Saracen, who had been before their cap¬
tain, was made the first Bishop by Juvenal, Bishop
of Jerusalem." Now, we are to observe, that these
Saracens were divided into little nations and each had
their regulus, or petty prince; so they each seem to
have had their proper Bishop, one to a nation, and no
more. Juvenal, then, finding this race in his juris¬
diction, appointed one of their own number to be
their Bishop. "Nation" in the Levant means, "Race."
I have not my books by me and therefore cannot
cite more than the above specific example of a Suffra¬
gan, or coadjutor, appointed for a particular race or
language; but we constantly meet general statements
about Bishops appointed for the races, such as the
296 The Crucial Eace Question
Goths, who had come into the Empire. Bishops were
so freely appointed that such appointments would fall
naturally into the current of the Church's activity.
Of the eighteen hundred Bishops who administered
the religious affairs of, probably, one-fifteenth, or one-
twentieth of the population of the Empire, in 312 A.
D., in which there were many antagonistic races, it
seems not impossible that others besides that one
specified above, were Bishops of particular races. The
national Churches, English, Gallican, Spanish, etc., are
Race Churches which grew strong as the various racial
elements coalesced and formed one new race.
It is the ideal, that God having "made of one blood
all nations," separated by characteristics often, should
unite them in his Church; but it has been done only
partially, according to our own way of regarding it.
We are aiming at a tactual or physical rather than
a spiritual union. Much has been done by war, com¬
merce, emigration, etc., to modify race differences, or
merge the races into one. Now, that the Gospel may
be extended to people it must be sent to them and
presented in such form as will meet their needs. Then
through organized Churches of their own the different
races become incorporated into the one Great Body
of Christ, which includes, but does not destroy the
races, nor abolish their characteristics. St. Paul's
figure of the body and its many members may, I
think, apply here. The Greeks and Latins organized
race Churches at the beginning. Each was the expres¬
sion of the difference as well as the likeness. In Con-
stantine's day the division was marked. Of the eigh
teen hundred Bishops, one thousand were reckoned
Appendix V
297
Greeks and eight hundred Latins. St. Paul declared
that Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, etc., were not distinc¬
tions in the Church. But outside of the Church the
distinction continued. The Church could embrace
them all as Christians, but could not change their
color nor their characteristics by which they were fit¬
ted for their special purposes by their Creator. It
is by and through these that the "bounds of their habi¬
tation"—which are not simply geographical boundaries
—are "appointed" as the sphere of their life and activ¬
ity. No inhabitants of God's earth should be excluded
from His Grace because of mutually repellant or inhar¬
monious endowments. In the Great Whole of God's
purpose there is a place and need for every endowment
and for the natural effect of every characteristic. No
man has chosen who or what he shall be physically,
nor can he change his race. Men may be in the same
Church without being in the same congregation. There
is a natural line of demarcation between our race and
others, as there exists a line of demarcation between
them. Perhaps the time will come when tactual asso¬
ciation in our Churches will not be objected to by
either Negroes or Whites; but it is not so now in the
Southern States, nor in the Northern, where Negroes
have Churches of their own—generally by their own
choice. If our Church is what we claim it to be it must
be able to extend its beneficent work in circumstances
actually existing, to the ten millions of Negroes whom
God's providence has placed, or permitted to be placed
in the United States.
The problem, then, is not altogether new. The early
disciples preached the Gospel freely to all, irrespective
298 The Crucial Eace Question
of national or natural differences. At once race feel¬
ing, or prejudice, or instinct, as well as other influences
barred the way to a practical realization of the ideal
Church, as we read in the sixth Chapter of Acts, where
special officers were appointed for Race Service. Ever
since then the Church has been struggling with human
nature to realize its ideal of one Harmonious Body—
in which God's will shall be done on earth as it is in
Heaven—and has always failed; and it must perforce
be content to spread the Gospel and do God's work in
the degree and manner in which it is feasible. It
cannot realize its ideal more than partially. The Race
differences have persisted, especially in the East, and
there they have worked out so that each race, as a
rule, has its own organized Church with its own
Bishops, Ritual and Canons. Often these Churches
differ in their Theology, although having the common
creeds, and are not in Communion with each other,
just as the Protestant Churches are not, in this coun¬
try. Then certain Churches such as Armenian, Syrian,
Abyssinian and Koptic are in Communion with each
other and yet continue their separate organizations in
the same city. If some deprecate the division as con¬
trary to the ideal the race instinct, tradition and other
influences perpetuate it. No individual Christian can
do more than approximate to the measure of Christ,
and shall we demand that the ideal of the Church be
realized, or refuse to act at all? The Roman Cath¬
olic Church does not hesitate to give the Greek or
Uniat Church what meets the race need of the Greeks,
and what she would not allow the Gallican. Our
papers tell us that the Poles in America are to be given
Appendix V
299
Bishops of their own, by the Pope, to satisfy the
demands of their religious life—as Poles.
In the above statement about Race Churches in
the far East I speak from information given me on
the spot, and I think it is correct. It is stated because
it seems to throw light on a vexed question and to
indicate what can be done in the direction already
taken by the Church in the past. We are in the
position of the Primitive Church, free to do whatever
the exigency of the case calls for. The rigidity of
organization and administration which was imposed
by union with the State is no longer necessary. Per¬
haps some of our limitations were not originally self-
imposed but State-imposed for political reasons. We
have inherited them but they may be no necessary part
of Church organization or administration. If they are
in the way of our doing the work for which the Church
was founded it might be well to modify or remove
them.
We have recognized the propriety of consecrating
Negro Bishops for Missionary work in Liberia and
Hayti. Once for a brief period we had a Bishop for the
Indian race. We look forward to the formation of
"Native Churches" in China and Japan. If our Negroes
occupied a separate territory we would look forward
to the establishment of a Negro Church in that terri¬
tory. But Episcopal Jurisdiction is primarily spiritual
and not geographical, and territorial limits are not
essential to the exercise of the Episcopal office. The
Negro is practically as much separated from the white
Churches as if he were in a different geographical
300
The Crucial Eace Question
area, and this for reasons which neither he nor white
people can ignore or overcome.
Any movement towards a separate church organiza¬
tion for Negroes is resisted on the ground that "it will
divide the Church." The objection does not seem
to me conclusive, since an ineradicable "division"
already exists between the races themselves and I
know of no movement which aims to unite them in
one association. Still it is best to respect opinions and
try to work together for the one end we all have
in view
Faithfully yours,
GEORGE WILLIAMSON SMITH
The Bishop of Washington.
The Crucial Race Question
INDEX
INDEX
ABOLITIONISTS, their view on
miscegenation, 99.
Absurdity of consecrating only
one Negro Bishop, 162.
Address, Episcopal, to Arkansas
Diocesan Council of 1906, 253.
Adultery, inter-racial, an exag¬
gerated crime, 134.
Adverse Criticism of Anglo-Amer¬
ican Priest stated and answer¬
ed, 55; Criticisms of statisti¬
cians stated and answered, 15,
of Church Papers stated and
answered, 67.
Africa, Bishop of, difficulty ex¬
perienced in providing hospital¬
ity for, 101; Negro should
ultimately return to. 265;
specimens of folklore showing
ideals of, 286.
African Methodist Episcopal
Church. Bethel, its origin, 177,
first Bishop, Allen, 177. statis¬
tics, 179 : Zion, its origin, 177,
first Bishop, Yarick, 177, sta¬
tistics, 179.
African Methodist Churches drew
away Negro communicants
from white Churches after the
war, 184, 289.
African proverb concerning mon¬
grels, 110.
Afro-American. The. can be saved
only by the bridging of the
gulf, xii; is degenerating, xii;
salvation of, dependent upon
the complete drawing of the
Color-Line, xxv : besetting sins
of, 34; not homogeneous with
the Anglo-American. 70: is be¬
ing gradually eliminated from
politics. Ill ; nothing in politics
for. but a snare and a delusion,
112 ; cannot claim the Fifteenth
Amendment as a Magna Charta.
113: is not the equal of the
Anglo-American in artificial
acquisitions. 123: an exodus
necessary for. that he may
work out his destiny, 151, 265 :
is not excluded from the
Church even though the Color-
Line is drawn in her legislative
assemblies, 154; will never
govern himself politically in
this country, 158 ; has begun at
the wrong end of self-govern¬
ment, 158 ; is not on the same
political footing with the
Anglo-American, 235; has no
place in our political or eccle¬
siastical assemblies, 235 ; would
be benefited by racial Episco¬
pate and the Prayer Book,
257 ; will need fifteen or.twen¬
ty bishops before the close of
the century, 258: a native
Episcopate should be given to,
259.
Afro-American Churchmen, will
not have self-government with
Missionary Bishops, 158;
should give up the idea of Mis¬
sionary or Suffragan Bishops,
160; will benefit only by an
autonomous episcopate, 160;
have Just cause to complain,
201 : never have been con¬
spicuous in Diocesan or General
Conventions, 236.
Afro-American Episcopal Church,
Negroes in autonomous
Churches are rejoiced to know
that the author advocates an,
177; would receive accessions
from Negro Methodists. 178 ;
would be in communion with
the whole Anglican Commu¬
nion, 237.
Afro-American Episcopate, the
Bishop Coadjutor of New York
alone could raise the funds
for the support of the. 160:
could _ be easily supported by
the richest Church on earth,
162 : the Bishop of West Texas
speaks in justification of an.
203: would be represented in
the Pan-Anglican Conference of
Bishops, 227.
Afro-American Moses, An, is
needed, 119.
Alabama. The Bishop of. contends
that Negroes should not be ad¬
mitted to the ministry until
their race is further developed.
81. and maintains that a white
ministry is necessary for Col¬
ored People.
304 The Crucial Race Question
Allen; the first Bishop of the A.
M. E. Church, Bethel, 177.
Amalgamation, of races thwarts
God's plan, 12; of white and
black a sin of blackest dye,
135.
American Christianity needs more
of practicalism and less of
idealism, 234.
American Church, The, what it
has accomplished among the
Negroes, 179; has departed
from the law of geographical
limitations, 278.
American Episcopate, The, has
been cramped and "cornered,"
216 ; General Convention should
share it with all races and
sects, 217.
American Race Problem, The, a
sad reality, 20 ; how the Epis¬
copal Church can best aid in
the solution of, 20.
Anglican Communion, The, has
failed to expand its Episcopate,
216; is divided into National
Churches along geographical
lines, 269.
Anglo-American, The, must draw
the Social Color-Line for his
own safety, 11; and the Afro-
American are without racial
affinity, 70; will not aid the
Afro-American up to the point
of equality, 124; is not bound
to bring the Afro-American un¬
der the sway of our Episco¬
pate, 156.
Anglo-American Church, true
mission of the, to the Afro-
American, 67 ; the General Con¬
vention is the political arena
of the, 159.
Anglo-American Churchmen,
would not have made an Ap
peal like that of Afro-Amer¬
ican Churchmen, 114; should
create and maintain an autono¬
mous Episcopate for Afro-
Amreicans, 160.
Anglo-American Priest, an, his
adverse criticism stated and an¬
swered, 55 ; bases his objection
to Negro Bishops on Negro
immorality, 55.
Anglo-Saxon. The, is jealous of
his blood, 105 : refused to amal¬
gamate with the Indian, 106.
Antebellum conditions between the
races in the Church undesir¬
able, 79.
Antipathy between Jews and
Gentiles in the early Church,
294.
Apostles, The, created a racial
ministry to adjust differences,
200; were not swayed by ideal¬
ism, 201 ; should be imitated in
the granting of a special min-
isty, 201; how they met the
question of race prejudice, 203.
Apostolic, Church, Negroes would
not be cut off from the, be¬
cause of a Colored Episcopate,
237; Diaconate, its powers,
202.
Appeal of Conference of Church
Workers among Colored People
for racial Bishops, the imme¬
diate occasion for the writing
of this book, xxv; why made,
xxv; grew out of necessity,
275 ; important work on, by the
Pennsylvania Diocesan Conven¬
tion. 74 ; shows Negro's defect
in the spirit of independence;
wherein justifiable, 136 ; where¬
in unjustifiable, xxvi, 136;
must be responded to favorably
to check further decimation,
189 ; if refused on the ground
of overlapping would show in¬
consistency, 200 ; many in Gen¬
eral Convention will decline to
grant the, 254; Archdeacon
McGuire on the, 245, 273.
Archdeacon, Colored, has been
placed over the Negro work in
Georgia, 186; preferable to
Suffragan Bishop, 263.
Archdeacon McGuire, Report of
his work to 1907 Diocesan
Council of Arkansas, 172; to
1906 Diocesan Council, 245;
his reputation and ability, 245 ;
an unusual Negro, 248; re¬
ceives an ovation at the Coun¬
cil of 1906, 248; effect upon
him of this ovation. 248.
Archdeacon's Looking Glass, The,
245.
Archdeacons among Colored Peo¬
ple, the work of white and col¬
ored compared, 185.
Archdeaconry for Negroes not as
successful as a racial Episco¬
pate would be, 188.
Arkansas, school tax in, 48 ; ma¬
terial progress of Negroes in,
131 ; conditions of missionary
work in, when the author be¬
came its Bishop, 171 : Colored
work in, compared with that in
Georgia, 187, and that in North
Index
305
Carolina, 189; Colored work
in. would have been still more
successful with a Negro Bishop,
188,271.
Arkansas Diocesan Council, of
1906, its resolutions with ref¬
erence to an autonomous Afro-
American Church, xi; of 1905,
excluded Colored Churchmen,
245 ; of 1906, a significant oc¬
currence at, 245, and the Epis¬
copal Address to, 253.
Arkansas, Diocese of, has drawn
the religious Color-Line most
completely, 146; could not be
excluded from the General
Convention because of such
action, 147; its action con¬
demned by the Conference of
Church Workers among Col¬
ored People, 148; memorable
event in the history of, 245.
Arkansas Plan, The, a history of
Color-Line drawing, xxii; the
two-fold task of the opponents
of, xxv; founded upon the rock
of everlasting truth, xxvii; chief
objection of Negroes and North¬
ern whites to, 3; objected to,
on the ground that it is irre¬
concilable with the law of
Christian charity, 3; is built
upon the hope of a racial
Episcopate, 81; how influenced
by Cora and her doll, 141;
has been criticised on constitu¬
tional grounds, 146 ; is not un¬
constitutional, 148; change of
feeling among Colored Church¬
men towards, 149 ; designed to
meet the approval of Negro
Christians, 150; is not a denial
of the three fundamental doc¬
trines, 153; acceptable to both
white and colored Churchmen
in that Diocese. 174 ; urged up¬
on Negro Churchmen by auton¬
omous Negro Churches, 177;
objection of the Catholic to,
199; objection of the Idealist
to, 227; overlapping objection
to, 199, 227 ; the argument of
expediency in favor of, 233;
objection of the Southerner to,
239 : limitations of, 263 ; local
results of, 270.
Arguments. The. supporting the
thesis of this book, 16.
Arvan, The, his strong race preju¬
dice, 14; race, Anglo-Saxon
branch of, is jealous of its
blood, 105 ; will not permit the
Negro to share in the govern¬
ment of this country, 157,
Athenian citizenship, 120.
Augustine's jurisdiction in Eng¬
land explained, 210.
Aunt Susanna, the story of, 93.
Author, The, a Southernized
Northerner, xxvii; is free from
race hatred, 23; gathered much
of the material in this book
from observation, 44.
Authorship of "The Church for
Americans," xxvii.
Autonomous, Episcopate, should
be asked for by Afro-American
Churchmen at their next Con¬
ference, 160, will alone bring
good results, 160, and should
be created and maintained by
the Anglo-American Church,
160; Churches for Negroes a
necessity, xii, 181; Church in¬
sures the best development of
the work, xiii, would satisfy
the needs of Colored Church¬
men, 88, because it is the only
kind that has a considerable
hold on the Negro, 182 ; Negro
Churches, secret of their suc¬
cess, 182, statistics showing
their comparative strength,
182, causes of their separation
from the whites, 177, what
they have accomplished, 177,
urge Negro Churchmen to ac¬
cept the Arkansas Plan, 179;
Afro-American Catholic Church
should be organized by the Gen¬
eral Convention of 1907, 266,
would not deprive Colored
Churchmen of support, 270,
would capture the Colored Peo¬
ple of Arkansas, 271.
Autonomy, in practical operation
in Arkansas, 80 ; affords unique
opportunity to the Afro-Amer¬
ican for political self-govern¬
ment, 157.
BAPTIST and Methodists, white,
do more for their Colored
brethren than Churchmen, 80.
Besetting sins of the Negro, 34.
Birthrate of the Negro decreasing,
34.
Bishops, many in the North and
South opposed to a Negro Epis¬
copate, 268 ; two in a city in
early times. 294, variety of,
294 : two Negro, ordained by
the M. E. Church, South, 290.
Black Belt defined by Prof, Wil¬
cox. 39.
306
The Crucial Eace Question
Black Mammy, The story of a,
93.
Blood, Anglo-Saxon jealous of
his, 105 ; white, introduced into
black veins through unchastity,
106; Southern Caucasian, is
absolutely pure, 107; Negro,
has not been introduced into
white veins, 107.
Boston, conditions in, point to
segregation of the races, 100;
not eager to entertain distin¬
guished Negroes, 101; has sur¬
rendered to New York as the
city of human equality, 102.
Bowers. The Hon. E. J., on
Negro criminality, 42.
Brotherhood of Man, not denied
by the Arkansas Plan, 153; a
doctrine held by the true Chris¬
tian, 154.
Brown, Mrs., plans to give Cora
a Christmas doll, 141.
Browne, Professor Hugh M., on
the industrial deterioration of
the Negro, 38.
Bryce, James, quoted on Mis¬
cegenation, 108.
Buoyancy of the Negro is pass¬
ing, 42.
CAESAR of statistics, appeal
made to by Northerners, 27.
Canon, Proposed, by Colored
Church Workers, adopted after
much deliberation and discus¬
sion, 275.
Canonist, a great Northern, de¬
clared that Arkansas could not
be excluded from the General
Convention because of the
drawing of the Color-Line, 148.
Cape Palmas, Missionary Juris¬
diction of, has made great
progress under Bishop Fergu¬
son, 241.
Carthage, Council of, agreement
between Catholic and Donatist
Bishops at, 209.
Caste system in India, not anala-
gous to racial antipathy in the
United States, 69.
Catholic, what is, according to
the Vincentian rule, 203; no
congregation in the South so,
as to include Negroes, 268 ; ob¬
jection of the. to the Arkansas
Plan, 199; his objection ir¬
reconcilable with the Acts of
the Apostles, 207; Christians
believe the Episcopate divine,
232; Idealists should learn
wisdom from the failure of Re¬
publican idealists; idealism ac¬
corded Negro Churchmen rights
which they never have enjoyed,
236; usage would not be vio¬
lated by an Afro-American
Episcopate, 203: Unity, the
Communion of Saints is the
sufficient bond of, 227; Unity
does not require representation
in legislative assemblies, 228.
Catholic, The, Church, non-repre¬
sentation in legislative assem¬
blies not necessarily severance
from, 227, Colored people, mem¬
bers of, even though excluded
from Diocesan Conventions,
236, and can still be while hav¬
ing their own General Conven¬
tion. 236, Christ and not the
General Convention is the root
of, 237 ; Creed, is not more of
a revelation of the unity of
nature than the scientific
creed, xx; Episcopate, its uni¬
versal tendency to overlap,
214.
Catholicity, of the Church not
denied by the Arkansas Plan,
153: and Humanity represent
parallel ideas of illimitability,
154; the only limit which it
allows, 154 : of the Church ex¬
plained, 266: of National
Churches or Diocese does not
exist, 268.
Catholics, need not fear schism
by the creation of an autono¬
mous Negro Episcopate, 88;
sometimes forget history, 236.
Caucasian ministry, a, cannot
permanently save India, 71.
Caucasians, Southern and not a
few Northern, consider eccle¬
siastical Color-Line drawing
right, xix; in the United States
have drawn the social Color-
Line, xxiii; will commit a
great wrong if the Color-Line is
not drawn in the General Con¬
vention, xxiii; and Hindoos are
kindred peoples, 70.
Causes which led to the separa¬
tion of Negro and white Metho¬
dists, 177.
Census Bureau, statistics of, of¬
fered in refutation of the
charge of Negro degeneration,
19; showing the Negro en¬
gaged in civilized employments,
29; Bulletin No. 8 of "the, on
Negroes in the United States,
Index
307
Charge of degeneration brought
aaginst the Negro a serious
one, 17 ; considered unjust, 20.
Chief objection of Negroes and
Northern whites to the Ar¬
kansas Plan, 3.
Chinese, The, must be given their
own Episcopate, 259.
Christ, and not the General Con¬
vention, the root of the Cath¬
olic Church, 237.
Christian, Charity, objectors say
that the Arkansas Plan is op¬
posed to the law of, 3; Wo¬
man's letter conveying her
sense of outrage on the draw¬
ing of the Color-Line in the
Church, 4; Baptism the limit
of catholicity, 154; the true,
holds the doctrines of the Fath¬
erhood of God and the Broth¬
erhood of Man, 154 ; Unity ideal¬
istic form of, advocated by the
Episcopal Church, 228.
Christians, The early, show the
opportunity of the Negro in
the political realm of religion,
158.
Christianity will not take deep
root among the Hindoos with
a Caucasian ministry, 71.
Church for Americans, The,
rumor that Bishop Brown was
not the real author of the work
entitled, xxvii.
Church, the visible, consists of
branches, 154, and is more or
less sectarian, 154 ; the spirit¬
ual porton of the, is Catholic,
154; the Catholic, includes all
baptized persons, 154, and has
humanity for its boundaries,
154; the, is both a spiritual
and political institution, 154;
The, and The Negro, editorials
of the late Dr. Fulton on, 73 ;
Papers, adverse criticisms of
the, stated and answered, 67;
work among Negroes began in
1619 ; 183 ; Reunion, the closed
pulpit the greatest stumbling-
block to, 219; Unity, the his¬
torical Episcopate cannot be
conceded even for the cause of,
232.
Church of England, The, gave us
an independent Episcopate,
264; influence of, upon the
British Empire, 266.
Church Standard, The, Editor of,
is favorable to racial Bishops,
72; is opposed to autonomy,
72; occupies practically the
same ground as the Editor of
the Churchman, 72; his argu¬
ments analyzed, 75.
Churchman, The. a writer in, on
Negro deterioration, 24; the
Editor of, is opposed to racial
bishops, 69; he undervalues
the testimony of Epiphanius,
206.
Churchmen, North and South, de¬
sire to rid their parishes and
conventions of the Colored con¬
stituency, 165.
Circular Letter, The, of Colored
Clergy relative to the Colored
work in Arkansas, 149.
Citizenship, Athenian, 120, Spar¬
tan, 120.
Civil, Affairs, the Negro must be
governed by the white man in,
157 ; why the Negro should be
excluded from, 157.
Civil War, The, thousands of
Negro Churchmen before, 183.
Civilization, a development, xx;
the most distinguished charac¬
teristic of man, xx; its com¬
plexity demands Color-Line
drawing, xxi; its three essen¬
tial and inseparable parts, xxi;
will not permit the Negro to
compete with the white man,
126.
Clement and Linus contemporary
Bishops of Rome, 206.
Cleveland, ex-President, famous
aphorism of, 229.
Closed pulpit, The, is the great¬
est stumbling block to Church
reunion, 219.
Color, The, of Cora's doll an em¬
barrassing one. 142.
Color-Line, The, must be drawn
around all realms, xii, 132;
must be drawn around the Gen¬
eral Convention, xiii; many
disagree with the author on
drawing it civilly, socially, and
ecclesiastically, xviii; right¬
eousness of, xix; rendered nec¬
essary by our complex civiliza¬
tion, xxi; has been drawn so¬
cially by Caucasians in the
United States, xxiii; failure to
recognize it irreligious, xxiv;
drawn by God, xxiv, 269; the
salvation of the Afro-Amer¬
ican dependent upon the com¬
plete drawing of, xxv; is be¬
ing more distinctly drawn in
the North than formerly, 63;
308 The Crucial Eace Question
must be recognized to bridge
the chasm between the races,
95 ; consequences of failure to
recognize, 95; disregard of,
the root of all our race diffi¬
culties, 98; cannot be obliter¬
ated by any agency, 105; is
recognized in every Diocese
having a considerable number
of Colored 'Churchmen, 136;
does not interrupt the Commu¬
nion of Saints, 155; what the
plantation Negro said about,
168; the General Convention
should recognize that it is al¬
ready drawn, 168 ; a barrier to
ecclesiastical unity, 269; in
the Diocese of Georgia, 186;
Drawing of, its philosophy,
xviii, caused a falling away of
the missionary benefactors of
Arkansas, 3, what a Northern
woman wrote about it, 4, does
not exclude from membership
in the Church, 154, beneficial
results of, in Arkansas. 174,
175, 248j would bring great re¬
sults in the Church at large,
249, a question of pure ex¬
pediency, 270; Social, has al¬
ways been drawn, 99 ; Political,
question of drawing it is an¬
swering itself, 111; Religious,
is drawn, 146, most completely
in Arkansas, 146.
Colored Churchmen, reason for
the Appeal of, xxv; mistake in
Appeal of, xxvi; should take
advantage of the political side
of ecclesiastical autonomy,
157; do not desire to thrust
themselves on white Church¬
men, 166; what they think of
the drawing of the ecclesias¬
tical Color-Line. 166; their
manly feelings in their own
Conferences, 166; claim that
they practice the Golden Rule
better than white Churchmen,
167; not opposed to separate
organization in the Church,
167; do not believe that such
separation is schism, 168 ; their
real Episcopal needs, 258; need
freedom in their work, 259; do
not desire to create schism,
178.
Colored, Clergy conscious of their
shortcomings, 59; Episcopal
congregation, origin of the first,
178 ; Sheep no longer know the
voice of white shepherds, 184;
Bishops would have checked
the falling away of Colored
Churchmen after the War, 188 ;
People, no white Bishop has
been a success among, 188;
Membership of the M. E.
Church, South, falling away of,
after the War, 190, 289, ab¬
sorbed by the A. M. E.
Churches of the North, 289, a
contingent of, remained loyal,
289, organized into a separate
Church, 290, relation of these
to the Mother Church, 290;
Membership of the M. E.
Church, North, is agitating
racial Bishops, 290; congrega¬
tions in Arkansas, members of
the Catholic Church though ex¬
cluded from the Diocesan
Council, 235 ; of the Northern
Dioceses were not at first given
membership in Diocesan Con¬
ventions. 236, impossible to find
white Methodist pastors for
them in the South after the
War, 290 ; Archdeacon, appoint¬
ment of, and presentation of
him to the Arkansas Diocesan
Council, a bold step, 247;
Episcopate, would not cut off
Negro Churchmen from the
Apostolic Church, 237 ; People,
object to the drawing of Color-
Line because it denies the law
of Christian charity, 3, of Ar¬
kansas, dawning of a new era
for them, 246; work in Arkan¬
sas before and after the draw¬
ing of the Color-Line, 174, in
Georgia has prospered, 185, in
Arkasas and Georgia compared,
187, in Arkansas and North
Carolina compared. 189, in
Arkansas and South Carolina,
185; Mission in Pine Bluff
makes a liberal pledge, 130;
Priests, three should be con¬
secrated as independent Bish¬
ops in 1907.
Colored Methodist Episcopal
Church, the Negro wing of
Southern Methodisrm 179; or¬
ganization of, 179, 290; Bish¬
ops consecrated for by South¬
ern Methodists, 179; receives
aid and friendship from white
Southern Methodists, 180 ; sta¬
tistics of, 180; opposed by
schismatic Negro Methodists,
180; good citizenship of the
members of the, 190; relation
of the, with the M. E. Church,
South, 190.
Communion of Saints, The, is the
essence of unity, 90; not dis¬
turbed by the Color-Line, 155 ;
in what is exists, 227.
Index
309
Complete drawing of the Color-
Line, salvation of the Afro-
American depends upon the,
xxv.
Complexity, of Man, xx; does not
necessarily imply a lack of
unity, xx; of our civilization
demands Color-Line drawing,
xxi.
Conference of Church Workers
among Colored People, their
change of face concerning sep¬
arate organizations, xvi; their
protest against the action of
the Diocese of Arkansas, 148;
leaders of the, have changed
their mind about the Arkansas
Plan, 149; their Memorial to
the General Convention, 253.
Conquest, a, or an Exodus, a pre¬
requisite for self-government, 77,
Consecration, date of the. of the
Bishop of Arkansas, 25.
Convocation, Colored, of Arkan¬
sas, its creation, 96 ; rights and
privileges of, 146; change of
feeling towards it among Col¬
ored Churchmen, 149; plans
for extension of, 176; may pro¬
vide for its independence, 274;
one exists in Georgia under the
Title of "The Georgia Council
of Colored Churchmen," 186.
Cora and her white doll, 141; the
action to which it led, 143.
Country Bishops, consecrated by
the successors of the Apostles,
205; their relation to City
Bishops, 205 ; how they would
work today, 205.
Coxe, Bishop, recommended a
Bishop for every city of 25,000
inhabitants, 216.
Creed, the ecumenical, requires
only the Communion of Saints
as the bond of unity, 227.
Criminality of Negroes North and
South compared, 32.
Criticisms, adverse, of statisti¬
cians answered, 15, of an An¬
glo-American Priest, 55, of the
Church Papers, 67.
Crowther, Bishop, the first black,
of the English Church meas¬
ured up morally, 60.
Crucial Question of the Church,
the. is the work among the
Colored People, 254.
Cumberland Presbyterian Church,
organizes the Cumberland Pres¬
byterian Church (Colored) for
its Negro Members, 181; Col¬
ored, origin of, 181, statistics
of, 181, comparison of its suc¬
cess with our work for the
Negroes, 181.
Cursed Prejudice, the Southern-
ized Northerner is supposed to
have it against the Negro,
xxvii.
DEATH-RATE of the Negro in¬
creasing, 35.
Declaration of Rights, American,
113, English, 113.
Deception in the Church on the
Color-Line, 136.
Defence of author to statistical
criticisms concerning Negro
degeneration, 30.
Degeneration of the Afro-Amer¬
ican. xii; many disagree with
the author on this subject,
xviii; denied by white North¬
erner, 16; statistical evidence
asked for to sustain the charge
of, 17 ; it is claimed that the
statistics of the Census Bureau
will refute charge of, 19 ; con¬
sidered an unjust charge, 20;
a matter for experimental con¬
viction rather than statistical
tabulation, 23; shown by a
writer in The Churchman, 24 ;
Archdeacon McGuire protests
against the charge of, and sub¬
mits statistics, 27; so also
Professor Tunnell, 29; is moral
and physical, 31; charge of,
maintained, statistics notwith¬
standing, 31; Expert statisti¬
cians support charge of, 31 ; re¬
cent authorities on, 31 ; estab¬
lished by Professor Smith, 32 ;
admitted by Professor Dubois.
Democratic government, a, cannot
be shared by two races, 122.
Democrats, Northern, hold out
political equality to the Negro,
112.
Diaconate, Apostolic, its powers,
202 ; rapid rise of, 205.
Dialogue, an interesting, at a
Northern dinner party, 6.
Diocesan Episcopacy, as we un¬
derstand it .was unknown in
the early Church, 204 ; a post-
Apostolic growth, 230; not
supported by the New Testa¬
ment, 231; not of perpetual
obligation, 232 ; was a develop¬
ment of expediency, 233.
310 The Crucial Race Question
Disadvantage to Negro Mission¬
ary Episcopate if barred out of
somq Dioceses. 260.
Disfranchisement of the Negro,
Northerners not ready for,
xxvi.
Distinctions, between races can¬
not be ignored in the Church,
151; created by God, 151; if
ignored will tend to defeat
God's Plans, 152.
Diversity in unity, the Divine
scheme, 155; a fundamental
fact which the Church is los¬
ing sight of, 155.
Divine condemnation of our meth¬
ods seen in the failure of our
Colored work, 234.
Divisions of government needed
in the ecclesiastical world, 155 ;
do not destroy unity of human¬
ity or the catholicity of the
Church, 155.
Dixie galleries, the author criti¬
cised for playing to, xxviii.
Domestic and Foreign Missionary
Society, aids the work in
Hayti, 242.
Drift towards a Negro Episco-
.pate, remarkable, xiv; among
Colored Churchmen, xv ; among
Southern Bishops, xv ; phenom¬
enal, xvi; how accounted for,
xvi; obstructors of, labor in
vain, xvi.
Dual Episcopate, in early times,
206; explains two contempo¬
rary Bishops in Rome, 206;
maintained by Milman, 207.
DuBois, Professor, admits the De¬
generation of the Negro, 34;
not the ideal Moses of his
people, 119 ; and Dr. Washing¬
ton, a comparison of their
ideals, 119 ; shows the tendency
of the blacks even before the
War to worship apart, 150;
his undisguised frankness on
intermarriage and absorption,
196.
Dudley, the late Bishop, on the
Race Problem, 25.
ECCLESIASTICAL, Color-Line,
drawing of, considered wrong
by Negroes and many Northern
Caucasians, xviii, considered
right by Southern Caucasians,
xix, cannot be maintained ex¬
cept by justifying the social
and civil Color-Lines, xxii;
Self-government, how the Ne¬
gro may have it and yet not
share in his political self-gov¬
ernment, 121; Affairs, why
Negro should govern himself in,
157; World, needs division in
government, 155; legislative
■bodies, '.non-representation in,
not necessarily severance from
the Catholic Church, 237.
Editor, of The Churchman, op¬
posed to Autonomy, 69 ; of The
Church Standard favors racial
Bishops, 72 ; both occupy prac¬
tically the same ground, 72;
of the Church Standard, also
opposes autonomy, 72, his ar¬
guments analyzed, 75.
Editorials of The Church Stand¬
ard on the Negro Question
strong, 73.
Education, some Negroes losing
interest in, 50 ; no cure for the
ills of the Negro, 52.
Eliot. President of Harvard, on
racial lines, 100.
Emancipation, Colored Church¬
men had no official representa¬
tion before the, 76; close rela¬
tionship between the races be¬
fore the, 76; presupposes and
imposes self-government, 77;
civil, of the Negro, carries with
it, religous emancipation, 77.
Epiphanius, as an ecclesiastical
authority, 206.
Episcopacy, Diocesan, as now ex¬
ists, unknown in the early
Church, 204.
Episcopal, Address to Arkansas
Diocesan Council of 1906, 253;
authority spiritual rather than
geographical, 225, 299.
Episcopal Church. The, how she
may aid in solving the race
problem, 20; her Negro prob¬
lem a two-fold one, 70; cannot
assimilate her Negro converts,
70; can do more for the Negro
than any other body of Chris¬
tians, 75, 78 ; must amend her
constitution to forestall draw¬
ing of the Color-Line, 147; is
a white man's Church, 176;
her view of Christian unity is
idealistic. 228; is hedged in
by traditionalism, 230; has
lacked enthusiasm in her Negro
work, 275.
Episcopate, Negro, would be a
dreadful mistake if Color-Line
is not drawn, xiii, should not
be denied on the ground that
Index
311
the Negro is not the equal of
the white man morally and in¬
tellectually, 58, if some form is
not granted, the General Con¬
vention will make a mistake,
254 ; Tribal, is as necessary as
racial. 68 ; the Catholic, Chris¬
tians believe it to be divine,
232; in what sense it is a
trust,' 220; the original was
Jewish, 222; Jewish, was not
intended to save the world,
266; Racial, intended by Our
Lord, 266; Gentile, developed
with the spread of Christian¬
ity, 267.
Equality, social or political,
means destruction for the Ne¬
gro, 118; social and political
inseparable, 120.
Exodus, or Conquest, a prequisite
for self-government, 77; and
would afford the Negro oppor¬
tunity for Self-government, 77 ;
from the United States neces¬
sary for the Negroes if they
are to become a great people,
265.
Expediency, as an argument for
the Arkansas Plan, 233 ; often
the will of Providence, 233;
the principle on which the
Church has solved her admin¬
istrative problems, 233; has
caused departure from the
theory of exclusive Episconal
jurisdiction. 233 ; indicates that
racial Bishops are now neces¬
sary, 233.
Expert Statisticians support
charge of Negro degeneration,
FAILURE, to recognize the Color-
Line is irreligious, xxiv; of
the Anglican Church to multi¬
ply its Episcopate. 216; of
Colored work is Divine condem¬
nation of present methods,
234.
Fatherhood of God. not denied by
the Arkansas Plan, 153; a
doctrine believed in by the
true Christian, 154.
Ferguson, Bishon, has measured
up morally, 60; the preposter¬
ous request of Mississippi con¬
cerning, 163; not adapted for
Missionary work in the South,
164 : has succeeded in Liberia.
23!); his success evidenced by
the Mississippi request 241 ;
the Missionary Jurisdiction
of Cape Palmas has made
rapid progress under, 241.
Fifteenth Amendment, The, is
falsely supposed to be the
Negro Magna Charta, 111; re¬
peal of, would work great good,
111; the Republican Party
cannot fulfill the pledges of,
112 ; is not of the same char¬
acter as the English and Amer¬
ican Declarations of Rights,
113, 115; if not repealed will
ultimately bring a sanguinary
struggle, 118; the Afro-Amer¬
ican errs when he takes ad¬
vantage of the privileges of,
158.
First Lesson, My, in the Amer¬
ican Race Problem, 93.
Fitch, Mr., on the industrial de¬
terioration of the Negro, 38.
Florida, School-tax in, 47; mate¬
rial progress of Negroes in,
131.
Fortune, Mr., on the industrial
deterioration of the Negro,
38.
Freedom, required by Negroes in
doing Church work, 259; to
Negro Bishops would not be
guaranteed by the Suffragan
Episcopate, 263.
Frissell, Dr.. on the Negro grad¬
uates of Hampton and Tuske-
gee, 18 ; on the acquirement of
property by Negroes, 19; on
the deterioration of the Negro,
39.
Fulton, the late Dr. John, his
superb editorials on "The
Church and the Negro," 73.
Fundamental doctrines, the, not
denied by the Arkansas Plan,
153.
GALLOWAY, Bishop, on matters
that are definitely settled in the
South. 168.
General Convention, to be memo¬
rialized by the Arkansas Dio¬
cesan Council, xi; Color-Line
must be drawn around, xiii;
not a necessity to the Church's
existence, xiv : an evil day for
the Church if Negroes should
enter in large numbers the.
xiv; would commit a moral
wrong to grant the Appeal of
Colored Churchmen as it now
stands, xxvi; will be influenced
by the convictions of Southern
men rather than the statistics
312
The Crucial Eace Question
of Northern theorists, 24; the
political arena of the Church,
159 ; has in the Appeal of Col¬
ored Churchmen its opportunity
for a great missionary move¬
ment, 161; could not safely
open its doors to as many as
four Negro Bishops, 163;
should recognize the existence
of the Color-Line, 168; should
share our Episcopate with all
races and sects, 217 ; should be
open to the Reformed Episco¬
pal Church, 218 ; should create
a Pan-American Conference
of Apostolic Bishops, 221;
Negroes can be members of the
Catholic Church without rep¬
resentation in the, 236; Ne¬
groes may have their own, 236 ;
one Negro Clergyman from
Texas was by chance a member
of a, 236; not the source of
ecclesiastical life, 237; Joint
Committee of, on the Memorial
of Colored Church Workers,
253 ; may make one of four re¬
plies to Memorial. 254; many
members of, will' decline the
Appeal, 255 ; representation in,
the great objection to the
Negro Episcopate, 260; of
1907, should organize an Au¬
tonomous Afro-American Cath¬
olic Church, 266: may exercise
the privileges which are exer¬
cised by Dioceses in the separa¬
tion of the Negro work, 278.
General Conference, of the M. E.
Church, has grappled with the
question of Negro Bishops, 261 :
how the Negro delegates to
the, are entertained, 277; of
the M. E. Church South, organ¬
ized an Independent Church
for its loyal Negro member¬
ship, 290.
Gentile, Episcopate, developed
with the spread of Christianity,
267; and Jew, antipathy be¬
tween, in the early Church,
294.
Georgia, Bishop otf. maintains
that a white ministry or su¬
pervision is necessary for the
Colored race, 183; her Negro
communicants about a thou¬
sand, 185: Colored work in.
has nrospered, 185: additions
of Negro communicants in.
from the West Indies, 186:
the prosperity of the work in.
no argument against the draw¬
ing of the Color-Line. 186 : the
Council of Colored Churchmen
in, is practically a Colored I
Convocation, 186; a review of
the Colored work in, during the
last decade, 186; Colored work
in, not a success as supposed,
187; Comparison of the work
In, with that in Arkansas,
187.
God, made races, 12; implanted
race prejudice, 12; His will
that racial differences be pre¬
served, 136; created all man¬
kind of one blood, 154 ; created
differentiating features, 154;
has not ceased to reveal Him¬
self to the world, xix; is being
revealed by scientists and
philosophers, xix; as it was
formerly revealed by the Scrip¬
tures, xxiv; His will is that
there shall be different races,
xxiv.
Gospel, The, and the Apostolic
ministry, inseparably connected,
220.
Government of State and Church,
the Negro must not be en¬
couraged to share in the, 14.
HAMPTON AND TUSKEGEE, it
is said that none of their grad¬
uates are in jail, 18 ; not doing
what they are popularly sup¬
posed to be doing, 51.
Hanckell. Dr., pointed out in
1868, the lapsing of the Negro
communicants in South Caro¬
lina, 183.
Harris, Joel Chandler, states that
the majority of Negroes are
sober and Industrious, 19.
Hayti, has a Negro Bishop, 299;
some consider the work in, as
a failure, 241; conditions in,
241 ; no Protestant body has
been able to make headway in,
241; negro missionaries have
done all the work in. 242;
Church in, made independent,
242 : work in. aided by the Do¬
mestic and Foreign Missionary
Society, 242: Clergy in, are
obliged to do secular work,
243: difficulties attending the
beginning of the work in. 243 ;
statistics of the Church in.
243; no white Bishop could
have done better work in, than
Bishop Holly has done,
243: work in. compares favor¬
ably with that in other Roman
Catholic Countries. 244; Bish¬
op Holly was the pionee? mis-
giongry to, 244.
Index
313
Henderson, the Hey. E. L., Treas¬
urer of offerings from Colored
Clergy intended for the Con¬
vocation of Arkansas. 149.
Higher learning, excellence in,
not a canonical requirement for
the Episcopate, 61.
Hindoos, and Caucasians, are
kindred peoples, 70; will not
be effectively reached by a
Caucasian ministry, 71.
Historic Episcopacy, The, cannot
be conceded for even the cause
of Church unity, 232.
History shows that Political and
Social equality are inseparable,
120.
Holly, Bishop, has measured up
morally, 60; his work consid¬
ered unsuccessful by some,
241; results of his work grati¬
fying. 243; no white Bishop
could have done better in
Hayti, 243; is a great success
all things considered, 244;
would have built up a self-sup¬
porting Diocese, had Hayti
been a State in the U. S. A.
Holy Orders, Colored men should
not be admitted to, unless all
Orders are open to them, 222.
Humiliating defeat for Afro-
Americans if represented in the
General Convention, 159.
IDEAL, every race has its own,
286; Negro should discover his
God-given, 286; that all races
should be united in the Church,
296.
Idealism, has its proper place,
228; too much, a hindrance,
229; should be supplemented
with practicalism, 230; should
give way to practicalism in
American Christianity, 234;
Republican, has failed in its
efforts for the Negro, 235.
Idealist. The, his objection to the
Arkansas Plan, 227 ; the Cath¬
olic, should learn wisdom from
Republican idealists.
Ideas versus Situations, 231.
Illiteracy of the Negro reduced
since the War, 18.
Independent, Episcopate for the
Negro, the author asked for it
in his Episcopal Address and
is its only advocate, 264, sup¬
position that it will lead to
schism, 264; Negro Churches,
statistics of, 179.
India, caste system of, not anala-
gous to racial antipathy in the
United States, 69; cannot be
permanently reached by a
Caucasian ministry, 71.
Indian, Anglo-Saxon did not
amalgamate with the, 106;
Spaniards did, 106; American,
reason why he is becoming ex¬
tinct, 117; Negro will follow
fate of, 41.
Industrial, deterioration of
Southern Negro, claimed by
Professor Wilcox, 35, Pro¬
fessor Hugh M. Browne, 38,
Mr. Fortune, 38, Mr. Fitch,
38, and Dr. Frissell, 39 ; Field,
the only hope of the Negro,
117.
Israelo-American, Episcopate
should be given the Jews, 83.
Israelo-Egyptial, history of is be¬
ing repeated in the Afro-Amer¬
ican, 151.
JAPANESE must be given a
native Episcopate, 259.
Jerusalem, Diocese of, had con¬
temporary Bishops, 207 ; Bish¬
op of, his relation to the other
Apostles, 207 ; the See city of
the Twelve Apostles, 207 ;
Council of, why called, 299.
Jew and Gentile, antipathy be¬
tween, in the early Church,
294.
Jewish, Episcopate was not in¬
tended to save the whole world,
266.
Jews, did not complain because
they were not invited to the
tables of the Egyptians. 10;
and Negroes in large numbers
would menace the peace of
the Church, 83 ; should have a
racial Episcopate, 83 ; in Egypt
show the opportunity of the
Negro in the political realm of
religion, 158; do not cease to
be Israelites when they be¬
come Christians, 214 ; cause of
failure of our missions to the,
214 ; ecclesiastical government
of the, 265.
Joint Commission of the General
Convention on the Memorial of
Colored Churchmen, 253 ; se¬
curing data, 281.
Jones, Absalom, first Negro cler¬
gyman of the Church, 178 ;
should have been consecrated
314 The Crucial Eace Question
a Bishop, 178 ; was better edu¬
cated than Allen or Varick,
178.
KEANE, Professor, on The Negro,
93.
Kentucky, the Negro has lost
ground industrially in, 36.
LESSON my First in the Race
Problem, 93, reflections result¬
ing from, 95, my second, 141.
Letter, of Anglo-American Priest
on the motive of the author
in writing this book, xxvi; of
Afro-American Priest on mo¬
tive, xxvii; of Northern wo¬
men protesting against the
drawing of the Color-Line, 4;
of a Boston rector on Color-
Line, 4 ; of a white Northerner
protesting against the charge
of Negro degeneration; of the
Rt. Rev. Dr. Penick, on the
Race Problem, 283 ; of Minister
of the M. E. Church, South,
289 ; of Rev. Dr. George Will¬
iamson Smith on Racial Bish¬
ops, 293.
Liberia has a Negro Bishop. 299.
Linus and Clement, contemporary
Bishops of Rome, 206.
Little Rock, material progress of
the Negroes of, 131.
Living Church, The, Editor of,
is "on the fence" with regard
to the racial Episcopate, 82;
suggests Suffragans, 82; op¬
posed to the Arkansas Plan,
82.
Louisiana, Negro has lost ground
industrially in, 37; Bishop of,
the Chairman of the Joint Com¬
mission on the Memorial of
Colored Churchmen, 253.
MAGNA CHARTA of the Negro,
the supposed, 111.
Man, a complex being, xx; civil¬
ization the greatest character¬
istic of xx; the three essential
and inseparable parts of, xxi;
the body and the civilization of,
analagous, xxi.
Mann, Bishop, on pulpit courtesy
to the denominations, 218.
Massachusetts, (The Bishop of,
on racial lines, 99.
McGuire, Archdeacon, offers sta¬
tistical rebuttal to Negro de¬
generation, 27; First Annual
Report of, 273; on Racial
Bishops, 273.
McLegion and Pierce, Methodist
Bishops, ordained two inde¬
pendent Negro Bishops, 290.
Martyrdom, the author does not
desire, 176.
Maryland, the Bishop of, believes
that white supervision is nes-
essary for the Colored work,
183.
Medical evidence points to the
Physical degeneration of the
Negro, 42.
Memorable event, a, in the his¬
tory of the Diocese of Arkan¬
sas, 245.
Memorial of Conference of Col¬
ored Churchmen to the General
Convention may be answered in
one of four ways, 254.
Methodism, lessons may be learnt
from, in dealing with races,
217.
Methodist Episcopal Church,
North, has not been able to
adjust the question of Negro
Bishops, 261, its colored mem¬
bership still agitating the ques¬
tion. 290 ; South, organized the
C. M. E. Church for its Negro
members, 179, relations of the
C. M. E. Church with, 190, the
Episcopal Church should imi¬
tate the, in setting up an
independent Negro Church,
190, letter from a Minister of
the, 289, state of its Colored
membership at close of the
War, 289, these were largely
absorbed by the Northern Negro
Methodists, 289, the loyal con¬
tingent organized into independ¬
ent church, 290, ordained two
Negro Bishops, 290, and main¬
tains schools for these Negro
Methodists, 290.
Methodist and Baptists, white, do
more for their Colored brethren
than Churchmen do for theirs,
80.
Milman, asserts that there was a
dual episcopate in Rome, 207.
Miscegenation, Northern theorists,
on, 99; Wendell Phillips on,
99; in the Soflth as witnessed
by the Mulattoes, 106; Pro¬
fessor Smith on, 107 ; Professor
Winchell on, 108 ; James Bryce
on, 108 ; in the North, 121.
Index
315
Missonary, Benefactors, fell away
after the drawing of the Color-
Line in Arkansas, 3 ; efforts of
the Colored clergy to be con¬
centrated on the Convocation
of Arkansas, 149 ; jurisdictions,
appealed for by Colored
Churchmen, 253 ; Report, First
Annual, of Archdeacon Mc-
Guire, 278; Work among the
Colored People of Arkansas
when the author became Bish¬
op, 171; under the old plan,
171; under the new, 172.
Missionary Episcopate for the
Negro, doomed to failure, 105 ;
an insult to the race, 114; will
not afford opportunity for self-
government. 158; will result
in humiliation for Colored
Churchmen, 160; the idea of,
should he given up by the Col¬
ored Churchmen, 160; many
are in favor of a, 257; would
not be the best thing, 258:
would defeat the end in view:
will not provide Colored
Churchmen with enough Bish¬
ops and freedom, 259.
Missions, Prayer for, its thrilling
effect, 246.
Mississippi, school tax in, 47;
material progress of Negroes
in, 131; Diocese of, its prepos¬
terous request concerning
Bishop Ferguson, 163.
Mistake made by the author's
critics on Color-Line drawing,
xviii.
Mongrels, African proverb con¬
cerning, 110.
Moral, degeneration of the Afro-
American shown by Professor
Smith, 31; failure, possibility
of, should not prevent the con¬
secration of Negro Bishops,
59.
Moses, Negro. needed. 119;
DuBois not the, 119; Washing¬
ton not the, 119; the true,
will not preach amalgamation.
126; the standards he will
set, 197.
Motive of the author in writing
this book, called into question,
xxvii: must be left to Him
Who knoweth all things, xxix;
a personal defence as to the,
xxix.
Mulatto, population, parentage of,
106; bears witness to the
shameful admixture of blood,
106 ; shows that Southern men
do not practice what they
preach, 13; inferiority of,
claimed by Professor Smith,
110.
NATION, the true meaning of
the word so translated, is
"race," 68.
National, Church, on racial lines,
needed by the Negro, 255;
Churches, are race churches,
294.
Native, Churches, will be formed
in China and Japan, 299;
Episcopates, a necessity, 215;
must be given Chinese and Jap¬
anese, 259, and Afro-American,
259.
Nature, unity, of, universally ac¬
cepted, xix.
Necessity laid upon the Anglo-
American to give Afro-Amer¬
ican his own Episcopate, 156.
Negro, The, supposed to be
Preadamic, 71; Professor
Keane, on, 110.
Negro, The American, considers
the Southernized Northerner
his worst enemy, xxvii; must not
be encouraged to hope for
share in the government of
State or Church, 14; property
acquired by him since the War,
19 ; is not prepared for racial
Episcopate according to South¬
ern conviction, 20 ; in the South¬
ern Black Belt, his condition,
26; in civilized employments,
29 ; has lost ground industrially
in Virginia, 36, Kentucky, 36.
Louisiana, 37, South Carolina,
37 ; will follow the fate of the
Indian, 41; not as buoyant as
formerly, 42 ; his ills not cured
by education, 52; his moral
condition improved by contact
by the whites, 75 ; moral con¬
dition largely due to religious
influences, 75: can be bene¬
fited by the Episcopal Church
more than by any other body.
75 : would find opportunity for
self-government in an exodus,
77; shameful neglect of, by
white churchmen. 80; should
guard against contamination of
his blood by white villains, 110 ;
can never receive firm foothold
in American politics, 116; of
greater industrial value than
the Indian, 117 ; welcomed into
politics in the North, but not
into the field of labor, 127;
316
The Crucial Eace Question
excluded from politics in the
South, but welcomed into the
field of labor, 127; his lot
harder than when in bondage,
128 ; no, the object of charity
in Arkansas, 129 ; will he over¬
shadowed while he remains in
the United States. 145, 255;
must strike out for himself,
145; his salvation bound up
with religous independence,
151; fortunate for him that he
gravitates towards autonomy.
151; his face should be turned
towards his own ideal, 153;
why he should be excluded from
civil government affairs, 157;
must be governed by white
man in civil affairs, 157 ; must,
however, take an important
part in the political govern¬
ment of himself, 157; why he
should govern himself in ec¬
clesiastical affairs, 157; how
he may become a mighty power
in the government of the
United States, 158; has failed
in the political arenas of Dio¬
cesan Councils, 159; will ex¬
perience a most humiliating
defeat in the political arena of
the General Convention, 159;
why one went from the Sunny
South to the Windy City, 195 •
needs a national and racial
church. 254: lacks race pride.
10, 143, 145, 196, 265: must
work out his own ideal, 284:
should be made to see the peril
of following false ideals, 284 :
his ideal made by God, 286:
cannot be made into a white
man, 286: to be pointed to
God's use for him. 287; prac¬
tically separated from the
Church as though in a different
geographical area, 299: sepa¬
rate organizations for the. will
not divide the Church, 300.
Negro Birth-rate, decreasing, 34.
41.
Negro Bishops, a failure if
limited to one only, xiii; con¬
secration of. necessary and
expedient, xiii: the desire for
them perfectly right and na¬
tural, 65; action upon, by the
Diocese of Pennsylvania. 74:
one only would be physically
unable to cover territory, 163:
one. might succeed in a
limited territory, 163; one,
would be an absurdity. 163:
one, would not be a fair test
of the Plan, 163; four, the
minimum to be consecrated,
163 ; General Convention could
not safely open its door to as
many as four. 163; less than
four would be deplorable, 164 ;
one for North, three for South,
164 ; claimed that the two, are
not a success, 239 ; have meas¬
ured up to expectations, 240;
have been successful all things
considered, 240; of the Angli¬
can Communion have measured
up morally, 60; one foreign,
not objectionable in the House
of Bishops, 260 ; in large num¬
bers would be intolerable, 260;
question of has not been ad¬
justed by the M. E. Church,
North, 261; asked for by Ne¬
groes with the desire that they
shall preside over white as
well as black conferences. 261 ;
their entertainment considered,
277; consecrated already for
Liberia and Hayti, 299.
Negro, Blood, Southerners guard
against its introduction into
their veins. 106; Child, the
first born in America was bap¬
tized in the Church, 183;
Church, would he established
in Negro territory if there
were such, 299.
Negro Churchmen, remarkable
drift among, on the Negro
Episcopate, xv; should have
white leadership, 56; had not
official representation before
the War, 76; should not med¬
dle in the government of the
Church, 79; before the Civil
War, 183; believe their Pro¬
posed Canon the best adjust¬
ment, 275; loyal, 276, 282;
require the equipment of the
complete ministry, 277; dis-
» play common sense in social
matters, 277.
Negro, clergy, who might be nom¬
inated for the Episcopate, 254.
needs of, not met by the white
Bishop, 280; Clergyman, first
was Absalom Jones, 178, one,
by chance, was a member of a
General Convention, 236: Com¬
municants in Georgia, 185, why
they fell away in South Caro¬
lina after the War, 184; Con¬
verts, cannot be assimilated by
the Church, 70; Criminality, as
shown by Professor Smith, 32,
by Professor Wilcox, 39, by
Hon. E. J. Bowers, 42 ; Death-
rate alarming, 35; Degenera¬
tion, many disagree with the
Index
317
author's views on, xviii; Dele¬
gates to General Conference of
the M. E. Church entertained
by Negroes, 277; Development
as shown by statistics, 19;
Domination in Southern poli¬
tics would cause blood-shed,
118.
Negro Episcopate, would be a
dreadful mistake if the Color-
Line be not drawn, xiii; must
be numerically large, xiv; re¬
markable drift on, xiv, among
Southern Bishops, xv; per¬
sonnel of, cannot be expected
to average up to that of white
Bishops, 254; would be an up¬
lift to Afro-American, "257 ; op¬
posed by many Bishops. North
and South, 260.
Negro, Girls should prefer black
dolls, 143 ; Graduates of Hamp¬
ton and Tuskegee, an excellent
moral record claimed for them,
18; Illiteracy greatly reduced
since the War, 18; labor,
worthless condition of, 44,
117; Methodists, why they
separated from the whites.
177; Methodist Bishops would
have come into the Church had
there been a Negro Episcopate,
189: Ministry, the immorality
of, 55 ; Missionaries have done
all the work in Hayti, 242.
Negro, Missionary Episcopate,
would be tramelled by over¬
lapping of jurisdictions, 260,
would be barred from some
Dioceses, 260, the great disad¬
vantage of, 260, objection to»it
on account of its representa¬
tion in the General Convention,
260, would come to a disap¬
pointing end, 262, would be a
mistake, 262, is feasible and
expedient according to some,
279; Missionary Jurisdiction
in the South. Mississippi re¬
quests that Bishop Ferguson
erect a, 163; Problem, of the
Episcopal Church a two-fold
one, 70, has crept into all re¬
ligious bodies, 275, the most
vexed of American questions.
275; Professor, a. entertained
by Northern whites, 7, pro¬
tests against the refusal of his
white colleagues to lunch with
him, 8: Question, the strong
editorials of The Church Stand¬
ard on. 73; Representation in
legislative assemblies, in the
Church will result in failure,
238, keeps Northern and South¬
ern Presbyterians apart. 261 ;
Suffragan Episcopate would be
a Jim-Crow affair, 88; Up¬
starts would cause trouble as
Bishops, 57; Work, done by
the Church in 100 years, 178,
in Georgia not as successful
as supposed, 187.
Negroes, claim that drawing of
the ecclesiastical Color-Line is
wrong, xviii; have made en¬
couraging progress since the
War, 17 ; contribute to the sup¬
port of white schools in some
Southern States, 18; the ma¬
jority are industrious, and
sober, according to Joel Chand¬
ler Harris, 19; in the United
States as described in Census
Bulletin No. 8, 32; gratifying
progress of many, 49; some are
losing interest in education,
50; self-respecting, will likely
abandon the Church. 70; and
Jews in large numbers would
menace the peace and prosper¬
ity of the Church, 83; in Ar¬
kansas making material prog¬
ress, 129, in Florida, 131, in
Mississippi, 131; should not
make political equality the pur¬
pose of getting an education
or wealth. 132; prefer to be
by themselves in religious af¬
fairs, 150; some go North to
marry white women, 196 ; their
interest in the question before
the Church, 276; self-respect¬
ing, will not enter the Church
until there is a racial Episco¬
pate, 279 : think it an invasion
of their rights to place white
pastors over them, 290.
New England, change of senti¬
ment in, on Color-Line draw¬
ing, 100.
New Testament does not support
Diocesan Episcopacy, 231.
New York, Dr. Frissell's address
in, 18 ; the great city of human
equality, 102; the place in
which the Color Question will
be settled, 102; in, money
counts rather than blood, 103 ;
the rich Negro cannot find ac¬
commodation in the hotels of,
103 ; the Mecca of the wealthy.
104 ; residence of the wealthier
Negroes, 104 ; the Color-Line is
drawn even against rich Ne¬
groes in, 104; Bishop Co¬
adjutor of, his remark on
missionary funds, 160, he
would be able to raise the
318 The Crucial Eace Question
funds necessary for the support
of an Afro-American Episco¬
pate, 160.
North Carolina, its Negro Church
work compared with that in
Arkansas, 189.
Northern, People outraged be¬
cause of the drawing of the
Color-Line in the Church, 3;
Christians claim that the Ar¬
kansas Plan is opposed to the
law of Christian Charity, 3;
Objectors to the Color-Line oc¬
cupy untenable ground, 5 ; Din¬
ner Party, an interesting dia¬
logue at a, 6: Lady's attack on
Color-Line drawing in the
Church, 6: Dioceses, the Suffra¬
gan Episcopate admirably
adapted to, 82.
Northerners, not ready to dis¬
franchise the Negro, xxvi; deny
the charge of Negro degenera¬
tion, 15; cannot learn the
Negro by statistics, 26.
OBJECTION, chief, of Negroes
and Northern whites to the
Arkansas Plan, 3 : Overlapping,
199, 277 : of the Catholic, 199 :
of the Idealist. 237; of the
Southerner, 239.
Observation, much of the mate¬
rial in this book gathered from,
44.
Occasion for writing this book,
the Appeal of Colored Church¬
men xxv.
One Bishop, more than, permitted
for exigencies in Sub-apostolic
times, 204.
Opponents to the Arkansas Plan,
the two-fold task of, xxv.
Opportunism, rather than ideal¬
ism. needed in the religious
realm, 234.
Origin, of the A. M. E. Church.
Bethel. 177, Zion, 177; of the
first Colored congregation of
Churchmen, 178; of the C. M.
E. Church, 179: of the Cum¬
berland Presbyterian Church
(Colored), 181.
Orthodox Greek Church has two
Bishops in New York city for
different races, 211.
Ovation to Archdeacon McGuire,
248, how accounted for, 248.
Overlapping, objection to the Ar¬
kansas Plan, 199, 277; juris¬
dictions not uncommon, 199;
many examples of, 199; all
Roman Bishoprics in the United
States are examples of, 199;
Anglican communion is respon¬
sible for much, 199; may be
done at home as abroad, 200:
exemplified in the ministry of
St. Peter and St. Paul, 203;
in Rome, 206; practised in
providing Bishops for Jews and
Bishops for Gentiles, 206; an
instance in Samaria, 207; il¬
lustrated by the Bishopric for
the Ruthenian Poles, 212; uni¬
versal in the British Empire
and the United States, 213;
would work against Negro Mis¬
sionary Episcopate, 259, 260;
of jurisdictions does not de¬
stroy Catholicity, 269.
PAINE INSTITUTE maintained
by Southern Methodists for
Negroes, 290.
Pan-American Conference of
Apostolic Bishops should be
created, 221.
Pan-Anglican Conference, * Bish¬
ops of the Afro-American
Church would be invited to,
227.
Penick. Bishop, expresses forcible
truths on the Ra^e Problem.
152; his letter, 283.
Pennsylvania. Diocese of. the
greatest missionary force in the
Church, 73; Diocesan Conven¬
tion of, its important work on
the Appeal for Negro Bishops.
74, its conclusive arguments for
such Bishops, 74: St. Thomas
Colored congregation accepted
by, 178.
Perfection, not a requirement for
the Episcopate, 254.
Personal criticism of the author
unanswerable, xxvli.
Philadelphia, Clerical Brother¬
hood, the strongest weekly as¬
sociation of Anglo-Catholic
Clergymen, 73; first Colored
Episcopal congregation orig¬
inated in, 178.
Phillips. Wendell, on Miscegena¬
tion, 99.
Philosophy of Color-Line draw¬
ing, xvii.
Physical degeneration of the
Afro-American shown by Pro¬
fessor Smith, 34, by Professor
Wilcox, 41.
Index
319
Ficnic Party, a, which required
two shade trees, 7.
Pierce, the late Bishop, his ideals
respecting the relation of the
Negro to the Church, 175 ; ex¬
perienced great troubles because
he did not draw the Color-
Line in the Church, 175.
Pierce and McLegion, Methodist
Bishops who consecrated the
first two C. M. E. Bishops.
Pine Bluff, liberal pledge of the
Colored Mission in, 130.
Plantation Negro, wise saying of
a, 168.
Political, equality for the Negro
held out by Northern Demo¬
crats and Dr. Washington,
112; self-government, fitness
for, 129; enfranchisement, is
claimed to be a strong incen¬
tive to Negro virtue, 129;
realm of religion the great op¬
portunity of the Negro, 158;
arena of the Diocesan Council,
Negro has failed in, 159 ; arena
of the Church is the General
Convention, 159, and Negro
will fail here also, 159 ; power
in the South will remain with
the whites, 169.
Politics, the Negro must with¬
draw from, or perish, 116 ; ex¬
ists in religious as well as civil
governments, 159.
Prayer Book, the, opens up the
higher orders of the ministry
to the Negro Deacon, 222 ; re¬
ligion, would be a great bless¬
ing to the Afro-American, 257.
Practicalism, its necessity, 229;
should be exercised by Church¬
men in dealing with the ques¬
tion of Negro Bishops, 230.
Preadamite origin of Negro
claimed, 71.
Preamble and Resolution of Con¬
ference of Church Workers
among Colored People protest¬
ing against action of the
Diocese of Arkansas, 148.
Preface to Ordinal maintains the
three-fold Order of the minis¬
try as of Apostolic origin, 232.
Presbyterians, North and South,
kept apart through Negro rep¬
resentation in legislative as¬
semblies, 261.
Progress of Negroes since the
War 18.
Property acquired by Negroes
since the War, 19, Dr. Frissell
quoted, 19.
Prophets who are still revealing
God, xix.
Propositions, six, established by
this book, xii.
Protest against Color-Line draw¬
ing from Northern people, 4.
RACE, the true rendering of the
word translated nation, 68;
importance of the word from a
missionary standpoint, 68;
each, has its own civilization,
284; one, can be schooled by
another, 286; each, needed in
the family of races, 287.
Race, antagonism, Mr. Sharpless
states that it is universal, 22;
differences in the East result
in racial churches, 298 ; hatred,
the author is free from, 23;
prejudice, implanted by God,
12, 118, demands that Color-
Lines be drawn, 13, how the
Apostles met it, 203 ; pride, the
Negro lacking in, 10, 143, 145,
196, 265; Problem, exists in
Northern cities, 6, a sad real¬
ity, 20, how the Episcopal
Church can best aid in solu¬
tion of, 20, the author's ignor¬
ance of the, before 1898, 25,
what Bishop Dudley thought of
the, 25, my first Lesson in the,
93. its solution stated, 98, my
second Lesson in, 141, Bishop
Penick's weighty words on,
152, 283, more than a color
question, 152, in the Church,
not altogether new, 297 ; Ques¬
tion, the author criticised for
discussing all phases of the
xxii, the first which troubled
the Church, 298 ; service, spec¬
ial officers provided for, in the
early church, 298.
Races differ because of God's
will, xxiv; made by God, 12,
283; cannot be treated alike,
152, 283; should be united in
one Church, 296.
Racial antipathy, prevents whites
and blacks living together as
equals, 137.
Racial Bishops, favored by Editor
of the Church Standard, 72;
would contribute to race pride,
143; would not be a radical
measure, 201 ; must be con¬
secrated if the Church has any
mission in the United States,
215; indicated by the law of
expediency, 233; in Eastern
320
The Crucial Bace Question
countries, Dr. George William¬
son Smith on. 267, 293; de¬
manded by membership of the
M. E. Church, North, 290; in
Apostolic times, 294.
Racial, co-operation required to
work out God's designs, 152;
distinctions to be recognized by
the Negro, 98; difficulty, the
root of our, 98.
Racial Episcopate, a recognition
of the Color-Line, xxvi; South¬
erners do not think that the
Negroes are ready for a, 20;
the hope of the Arkansas Plan
is a, 81; would be justified by
example of the Apostles, 200 ;
a necessity, 215 ; Bishop Whit-
tingham on, 223; the Lord's
intention, 266.
Racial, integrity, not impaired by
white male incontinence. 107;
police, teach a lesson, 212.
Randall, Bishop, shows govern¬
ment of the United States to
be shaped on ecclesiastical
lines, 266.
Reconstruction Period, the only
time when the Negro had a
real part in political govern¬
ment, 111.
Relation of Convocation of Ar¬
kansas to Diocese of Arkansas,
146.
Relationship between the races
in the South before the War,
76, changes in, since, 98.
Reformed Episcopal Church, Gen¬
eral Convention should be open
to the, 218.
Refutation of the charge of Ne¬
gro degeneration as appears to
be offered by the Census Bu¬
reau statistics, 19.
Religion, the only realm left the
Negro for self-government, xii,
145; its essence, xxiv; insep¬
arably connected with politics
and society, xxiv; Christian,
the, does not do away with
human distinctions, xxiv.
Religious independence, the sal¬
vation of the Negro is bound
up with, 151.
Replies, four, that General Con¬
vention may make to the Ap¬
peal of Colored Churchmen,
254.
Representation in the General
Convention, the error in the
Appeal of Colored Churchmen,
xxvi; will not afford oppor¬
tunity for self-government, 150 ;
will bring humiliation and de¬
feat to the Negro, 159; would
be disastrous to the whole
Church, 163; the great objec¬
tion to a Negro Missionary
Episcopate,
Representation, in General Coun¬
cils, the only official relation¬
ship of Catholic Churches,
227 ; in legislative assemblies
not essential to Catholic unity.
228 ; of the Negro in legislative
assemblies keeps apart North¬
ern and Southern Presby¬
terians. 261.
Republic, The, may exist without
universal suffrage, 120.
Republican Party, The, cannot
fulfill its political promises to
the Negro, 112; its ideals for
the Negro impossible of real¬
ization, 176, 235.
Resolutions of the Arkansas
Diocesan Council of 1906, xi.
Richmond, General Convention at.
will act upon the Memorial of
Colored Churchmen, 254.
Righteousness of drawing the
Color-Line in every realm, xix.
Roman Church, meets the needs
of different races, 298.
Rome, has granted a racial Bish¬
op for the Ruthenian Poles in
America, 212.
Roosevelt, President, is unable to
work out the ideals of the Re¬
publican Party for the Negro,
176.
Ruthenian Poles have their own
Metropolitan in America, 212.
SALVATION of the Afro-Amer¬
ican dependent upon drawing
of the Color-Line, xxv.
Samaria, an instance of overlap¬
ping jurisdiction, 207.
Schism, guarding against, xiii;
need not be feared by Catholics
because of racial Bishops, 88;
cannot be created where there
is no unity, 88 ; Colored Clergy
have no desire to create, 178;
healed by communion of Bish¬
ops with overlapping jurisdic¬
tions, 209; not incurred by
setting Negroes apart in a
racial organization, 228; fear
of, is based upon a misconcep¬
tion of Catholicity, 256.
Index
321
School Tax, in Mississippi, 47,
Florida, 47, Arkansas, 48.
Science, teaches that unity runs
through the works of God,
xxiv ; and philosophy reveal the
will of God, xxiv.
Scientists and Philosophers, their
claim upon our belief, xix.
Scientific Creed, what it teaches
of the unity of nature, xx.
Second Lesson, my, in the Great
American Race Problem, 141.
Segregation, in religious affairs
preferred by the Negro Chris¬
tian, 150.
Self-gvernment, a necessity for
racial development, xii, 145 ;
can be effected by Conquest or
Exodus, 77; should follow
emancipation, 77 ; will pro¬
mote race pride, 146 ; political,
its two spheres, 157, the
Negro must take part in his
own, 157, out of question for
the American Negro, 265; ec¬
clesiastical, precedes other
forms, 265, the only field left
the American Negro, 265, its
bearing on political self-govern¬
ment, 265.
Self-support, progress in, being
made by the Colored Church¬
men of Arkansas, 173.
Sentiment, public, in favor of
granting Episcopate to Negro
Churchmen, 256.
Separate, schools and churches
desired by both races in the
South, 169; church organiza¬
tion !for the Negro will not
divide the Church, 300.
Separation, does not mean neg¬
lect, 86, of races necessary not¬
withstanding any endowments
of the Negro, 124; movement,
opposed by some Southern
Bishops, xvi, in Arkansas is
advantageous, 274. may be fos¬
tered by General Convention as
by Dioceses, 279.
Sewanee Conference of Southern
Bishops, 1905 and 1906, xvi;
of 1883 proposed special Dio¬
cesan organizations for Ne¬
groes, xvi.
Sharpless, Mr. R. P., on race an¬
tagonism, 22.
Situations versus ideas, 231.
Six fundamental convictions
forming the thesis of this book,
95.
Statistical Protest from Arch¬
deacon McGuire, 27t and from
Professor Tunnell against the
charge of Negro degeneration,
29.
Statistics, required in proof of
Negro degeneration, 17; sup¬
porting Negro development, 19 ;
cannot deceive the author, 51 ;
fail to tell the story of Negro
degeneration, 26; concerning
the Negro have no great real¬
ities behind them, 51; of the
A. M. E. Church, 179; C. M.
E. Church, 179; Negro Work
in our Church, 179 ; C. M. E.
Church, 180 ; Cumberland Pres¬
byterian Church, 181; compar¬
ing the strength of independent
and non-independent Negro
Churches, 182.
Statisticians, adverse criticisms
of, answered. 15; Expert, on
Negro Degeneration, 31.
Smith, Professor, his work on
"The Color-Line" recommended,
31; on Negro degeneration, 32 ;
on Negro criminality, 32; on
the inferiority of a mixed
stock, 110; on Miscegenation,
106.
Smith, Dr. George Williamson, on
racial Bishops, 211, 267, 293,
does not think it schismatic to
give Negroes their own church,
225, hfilds that Episcopal au¬
thority is spiritual rather than
geographical, 225.
Social, Equality, prohibits polit¬
ical and ecclesiastical equality,
135, is not what Negro Church¬
men are seeking, 282; inter¬
mingling of the races prohib¬
ited in the South, 168.
Solution of the race problem in¬
dicated, 98.
South Carolina, Negro has lost
ground industrially in, 37;
colored communicants in, be¬
fore and after the War, 183;
cause for falling away of these
communicants, 184 ; condition
of the Colored work in, under
a white Archdeacon, 185 ; col¬
ored congregations in, are mem¬
bers of the Catholic Church
though not represented in the
Diocesan Council, 236.
Southern, Bishops, remarkable
drift among, on Negro Episco¬
pate. xv, some opposed to the
separation movement. xvi,
asked for an expression of
322'
Tiie Crucial Eace Question
tlieir views on the Memorial of
Colored Churchmen, 253 ; Dio¬
ceses, Suffragan Episcopate not
adapted to the, 82, falling
away of Negro communicants
of, after the War, 185 ; Black
Belt, one must live in the, to
know the condition of the
Negro, 26 ; People, have greater
affection for Negroes than
Northerners have, 96; States,
some list separately the prop¬
erty of white and colored peo¬
ple, 46, need three Negro
Bishops, 164 ; Whites will not
tolerate social and official mix-
ups. 63; Men do not always
regard the Color-Line as is evi¬
denced by Mulattoes, 13.
Southernized Northerner, a, talk¬
ing cursed prejudice to Dixie
galleries, xxvi ; the author
a, 24; Negroes regard a, as
their worst enemy, xxvii; de¬
fends Color-Line drawing in
the Church, 9.
Southerner, his objections to the
Arkansas Plan, 239; does a
great service to God and man
in drawing the Color-Line, 12.
Spaniard, The, amalgamated with
the Indian, 106.
Spartan citizenship, 120.
Special ministry created by the
apostles, 202.
Spirit of Missions, The, contains
a recent picture of Bishop Fer¬
guson and his clergy, 241.
Spiritual, Unity of the Church
not disturbed by the Color-
Line, 155; Jurisdiction in the
same area by two or more
Bishops, 209, rather than ter¬
ritorial in Western Europe in
the Middle Ages., 211, Bishop
Whittingham's letter on, to
Bishop Howe, 222.
St. Paul, his utterance on Cath¬
olicity explained, 268.
St. Philip's Church, New Tork,
the wealthiest Negro congrega¬
tion, 104; Little Rock, before
and since the separation move¬
ment, 271.
St. Thomas Church. Philadelphia,
the first Negro Episcopal con¬
gregation, 178, accepted by
Bishop White under certain
conditions, 178, has been self-
supporting from the start, 178.
Suffragan, Bishops, not much
more in authority than Arch¬
deacons, 87, 263; two classes i
would exist, 87 ; for Negroes a
temporary makeshift, 280;
Episcopate, favored by Editor
of The Living Church, 82 ; ad¬
mirably adapted to Northern
Dioceses, 82; not to Southern,
82 ; not suitable for a popula¬
tion of different races; the
only purpose to be served by
a, 83; the best for Negroes
after the Autonomous form, 84 ;
is insufficient, 84 ; being with¬
out representation would be
defective, 84 ; with representa¬
tion would result in defeat for
the Negro, 160 ; Afro-American
Churchmen should give up the
idea of a, 160; should be
created for differentiated peo¬
ples of the Caucasian race,
218; why preferable to the
Missionary form, 262 ; would
not give Negro Bishops suffi¬
cient freedom, 263; will not
meet the needs of the situation,
263 ; unsatisfactory, 276.
Sunny South, Why this Negro
left the, for the Windy City,
195.
Syllogism in which is stated the
thesis of this book, 145.
TABLE, the, is the gateway to
the social Eden, 11.
Tendency of Afro-American to
gravitate to autonomy is for¬
tunate, 157.
Territorial, rights in Apostolic
times, 278; limits, not essen¬
tial to exercise of Episcopal
office, 299.
Texas, the Negro has lost ground
industrially in, 36; a Negro
clergyman from, was by chance
a member of a General Con¬
vention, 236.
Thesis of this book, 15, the argu¬
ment supporting the, 16.
Three essential and inseparable
parts, of Man, and of civiliza¬
tion, xxi.
Three Hundredth Anniversary
should be made an epoch by
offering the Episcopate to all
races and denominations, 220.
Title of this Book, what it might
have been. xxv.
Traditionalism hedges in the
Episcopal Church, 230.
Tunnell, the Rev. Professor, of¬
fers statistical criticism of the
charge of Negro degeneration,
29.
Index
323
Tuskegee and Hampton, no grad¬
uate of, it is said,, is in jail,
18; not doing what they are
popularly supposed to be doing,
51.
Two shade trees required at a
picnic party, 7.
Two-fold task of opponents of
the Arkansas Plan, xxv.
UNANIMITY, practical, of action
of the Diocese of Arkansas in
1906, xii.
Uncle Remus, shows traces of
Negro ideals, 286.
United States, government of the,
shaped on ecclesiastical lines,
266.
Unity, of nature, universally ac¬
cepted, xix ; spiritual, the most
essential thing, 90.
Universal suffrage not necessary
to the existence of the repub¬
lic, 20.
Utilitarian principles should
guide in settling the question
of racial Bishops, 233.
VALLEY of the Shadow of Death,
the Negro is in the, 54.
Varick, first Bishop of the A. M.
E. Church, Zion, 177.
Vincentian rule asserts that
whatever is most primitive is
most Catholic, 203.
Virginia, Negro has lost ground
industrially in, 36 ; Bishops in,
maintain that white supervis¬
ion of the Colored work is nec¬
essary, 183.
Vitality of Negro race consid¬
ered, 41.
WASHINGTON, Dr., honored and
trusted by Eastern business
men, 18; on the Negro grad¬
uates of Hampton and Tuske¬
gee, 18 ; a demand made of, by
the author, for a list of such
.graduates, 50; dollar ideal of,
104 ; holds out political equal¬
ity to the Negro, 112; is not
the ideal Moses of his race,
119 ; his .ideals compared with
those of DuBois, 119 ; Booker,
would be a sad misfit for
George Washington, 153, 285;
his theories will lead to mis¬
cegenation, 197.
West Texas, the Bishop of, jus¬
tifies an Afro-American Epis¬
copate, 203; on the overlap¬
ping of jurisdictions of St.
Paul and St. Peter, 203; on
learning lessons from Metho¬
dism, 217.
White, Bishop, of Pennsylvania,
accepted St. Thomas colored
congregation under his super¬
vision, 178.
White,Archdeacon of South Caro¬
lina, his work among Negroes,
185; Bishops, have not been
successful among Negroes, 188,
are not perfect, 254, do not
meet the needs of Negroes, 56;
Leadership, believed to be
necessary for the Negroes, 56,
has outlived its usefulness, 64,
hurtful effects of much of it,
64; Professors were right to
refuse to lunch with their
Colored colleague, 12 ; Man, the
Negro cannot be made into a,
286; Methodists and Baptists
do more for their Colored
brethren than we, do for ours,
80; women of the South are
pure, 106 ; Man's country, this
is a, 116 ; ministry for Colored
People maintained by certain
Bishops, 183; shepherds, are
no longer listened to by the
colored sheep, 184; pastors,
impossible to find for colored
congregations, 290.
Whittingham, Bishop, his letter
to Bishop Howe on spiritual
rather than territorial juris¬
diction, 222 ; on a racial Epis¬
copate, 223.
Wilcox, Professor, his statistical
researches on Negro degenera¬
tion, 31; on industrial de¬
terioration, 36; on criminality,
39; defines "Black Belt," 39;
thinks that the Negro will fol¬
low the fate of the Indian, 41.
Winchell, Professor, on Mis¬
cegenation, 108.
Windy City, why this Negro
went to the, from the Sunny
South, 195.
Woman's Auxiliary of the Dio¬
cese of Arkansas, greet Arch¬
deacon McGuire, 245.
ZACH, is appealed to on the
question of the color of a doll
for Cora, 142 ; his reply, 142.
"The Church for Americans"
BY
The Rt. Rev. William Mongomery Brown, D. D.
Bishop of Arkansas
A Popular Work on the Distinctive Features and Claims of the
Episcopal Church. An Educator and Missionary of Great Interest
to all Episcopalians and to the Multitudes who would like to
Know More About the Mother Church of England and Her
American Daughter.
SIXTEENTH EDITION
(Five Editions Within Its Firit Year)
DESCRIPTION.
The book contains 501 pages which are divided between
an Introduction and Seven Lectures, sub-divided into 35
Chapters; and an Appendix with 28 Sections. It is well
printed in large type on a good grade of paper and is attrac¬
tively bound in cloth. There are five .valuable maps and
charts in colors. The Bishop of Pittsburgh says of these:
"They are in themselves worth the price of the book." The
title of the Lectures are I, Church Membership; II, Our Con¬
troversy with Romanists; III, Our Controversy with Denom-
inationalists; IV, The Mother Church of England; V, The
American Church; VI, Objections to the Episcopal Church;
VII, Why Americans Should Be Episcopalians.
PRICE.
One copy, postpaid, $1.25. It may be had at this price
from its publisher, Mr. Thomas Whittaker, 2 and 3 Bible
House, New York, or from The Arkansas Churchman's Pub¬
lishing Company, Little Rock, Arkansas. Rectors and Church
Workers desiring the book for distribution may get copies,
expressage collect, from the Arkansas Churchman's Pub¬
lishing Company at the following rates: Six copies, $5; twelve
copies, $9; twenty-four copies, $16; fifty copies, $25.00.
OPINIONS OF THE CLERGY AND PRESS.
"The fifth and enlarged edition of your book,' The Church
for Americans,' is a most fascinating work. I am recom¬
mending it as a very Vade Mecum of ecclesiastical principles,
and as one of the best vindications of institutional Christian¬
ity extant. What religious society needs is a corporate
Christianity—an objective system, and not merely a subjective
philosophy. Never was it more clearly established, that the
Church is not only an idea, but an institution, and that those
elected to Christianity are elected not to a human society,
but to the Divine and visible Church. The crucible of his¬
tory is indeed the only test of the original constitution of
Christianity—it discriminates the dross from the metal, and
you have virtually closed the discussion. Henceforth the
principle must be conceded, 'no Bishop, no Church.' The
book must inevitably promote that missionary spirit which
is apostolic. As an argument for the proportion of faith, I
think it without parallel, and believe it to be the first publi¬
cation really calculated to recover to the Church of Christ
all candid readers seriously in search of certitude and truth.
It will surely accelerate the unification of the Christians of
America."—The Rev. W. Rix Attwood, Rector of All Saints'
Church, Cleveland, Ohio.
"For Parish and lending libraries, for the Clergyman's
desk and the Layman's table it is worth its weight in gold,
five times over. I have ordered fifty copies. I should like,
indeed, to see a copy of it in every home in Georgia."—■
Bishop Nelson.
"It is by far the best book on the subject I have ever
seen. I have already sent out a half-dozen or more to do
missionary work, and expect to make very extensive use of
it."—Bishop Peterkin.
"I can say of it what I can say of no other work. After
reading the volume through, I began at once and read it
over again, and I believe the second time with more pleasure
and profit than the first. It was my purpose to read it a
third time, which I shall now do in a careful perusal of your
fourth edition. I have trumpeted the fame of your book far
and near, and have distributed a dozen of the second edition,
and have ordered a dozen more of the fourth."—The late Rev.
James A. Buck, D. D., Washington, D. C.
"The work is the best I have ever read. It will be pro¬
ductive of a tremendous amount of good in every parish of
the land. I have ordered twenty-five copies."—The Rev.
Percy T. Fenn, D. D., Wichita, Kansas.
"In the first short hour I spent with your book, I deter¬
mined to procure 25 copies for distribution about my parish."
—The Rev. N. S. Thomas, M. A., Philadelphia, Pa.
"One of the fields for the book to work in, if you can get
it into that field, is the men in our shops and factories. It
gives me new interest to see how eager my men are to catch
on to it. I ordered twenty-five copies, but was too late for
the first edition. If you must die young you can die in peace.
You have done a life's work in The Church for Americans."
The Rev. Francis M. Hall, Cleveland, Ohio.
"I shall to-day send for twenty-five copies. I want them
in my parish."—The Rev. C. S. Aves, Galveston, Texas.
"The Bishop has read it most carefully with great pleas¬
ure and satisfaction. He does not know of any other one
book which contains so much that every Churchman ought
to know communicated in such delightful form. The least
instructed Churchman can understand its statements, and the
best instructed find delight in the method of putting things."
—Bishop Dudley in "The Bishop's Letter."
"We should be more hopeful of the progress and strength
of the Church in this Diocese did we know that hundreds of
those who read this notice would purchase the book, and
read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it."—Bishop White¬
head in The Church News.
"Charitable in tone, indisputable in facts, definite in teach-'
ing. It is the book to read, to own, to use, to circulate."—
St. Andrew's Cross, New York.
"These lectures are destined to great usefulness in teach¬
ing Church people and many who are not now members of
the Protestant Episcopal Church what is the true nature of
the Church, and what its mission to the American people. It
is impossible in this place to give an account at all complete
of the rich store of instruction in which the book abounds,
and we must content ourselves with saying that it supplies
a very large amount of information on the very subject upon
which an intelligent American Churchman should be most
thoroughly equipped. We predict a wide circulation of the
work."—The Spirit of Missions, New York.
"It should be in the hands of every member of the
Church in the land who wishes to be instructed in regard to
the origin and history of the Church. Nowhere else will they
find the same information conveyed in a more convincing,
and, at the same time, attractive manner. It is pre-eminently
a book for the masses—for those who are not members of the
Church; for those who are Communicants; and for those
members of the Church who are denied her Services. No one
can read the book without being profited and instructed
thereby. By all means purchase the book, read it, and then
loan it to others, for it is capable of doing much good. No
rector of a parish could be engaged in more profitable work
than by endeavoring to give the book a wide circulation in
his parish for he would find that his people would become
wise as to the things relating to the Church, and be well
equipped to give an answer to every one that asketh."—
Archdeacon Edwards in The Church Chronicle, Cincinnati,
Ohio.
"This book presents in a masterly style the best thought
and argument in favor of the Episcopal Church. The grounds
set forth in the Romanist Controversy seem incontestable."
—The Cleveland Daily Leader.
"This book has mainly to do with the institutional side
of Christianity, and meets a need not met by Kip's 'Double
Witness,' and similar publications. It owes its origin to the
actual experience of Archdeacon Brown in prosecuting mis¬
sionary work in the Diocese of Ohio, and for that very reason
will be found a practical and useful manual for others
engaged in the same work of Church extension. It is a book
to put into the hands of the thousands in all our Dioceses
who know little or nothing about the origin and history of
the Church, and are, on that account, prejudiced against
her."—The Churchman, New York.
"Being confined to the house for two days I have had
time to read your most excellent book. I so enjoyed it
that I wished to read it aloud to everyone. I
wish that some rich Churchman would present a copy to
every preacher in the United States. Perhaps we may find
some one to do it. It seems truly wonderful that with
all your other work you should have found time to examine
so many authorities. They constitute quite a library. You
cover more ground than any book of the kind, and the style,
manner and temper are all calculated to win. You ought
to start out an agent to sell the book in every town and
hamlet. It will have a very great influence in promoting the
growth of the Church."—The Rev. Wm. C. Hopkins, City
Missionary, Toledo, Ohio.
"Though I can only write in haste I must not defer
thanking you for your interesting book. There is one point
of it which I should particularly like to see worked out in
full with the dates and all particulars: it is the 'Anglican
Succession apart from Parker.' The attack on the Parker
lines are answered."—The Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone,
Hawarden Castle, England.
"I am particularly pleased with the clear and plain style
which makes it easy to read and understand. It looks as if
you had brought whole libraries of books to the comprehen¬
sion and education of the Laity."—Judge J. D. Cleveland.
"Have almost finished reading it once. It will be re-read.
It is as interesting to me as a romance, and brimful of much-
needed instruction. Since coming into the Church from the
Methodists, I have done considerable reading along this line,
and will say it is the best thing I have as yet seen. Our
Rector speaks of it in terms of highest praise. He also will
furnish a copy, and the two will be loaned and read every¬
where in this region."—J. A. Dobie, (Ex-Methodist) Lima,
Ohio.
"No adherent of Methodism or Presbyterianism or other
forms of Denominationalism will read this book of yours
and be the same man or woman afterwards. The arguments
are irresistible, and your book will either bring its readers
back to the old Mother Church of English Speaking Chris¬
tianity or haunt them with the uncomfortable feeling that
they have closed their eyes to the truth."—The late Rev.
Ephraim Watt, Hot Springs, Arkansas.
"It is not like any other book on the subject. In many
and most valuable particulars it surpasses every other book
in the field. It is particularly interesting in style, and read¬
able, the kind of a book that holds the attention. That was
the charm of McConnell's 'History of the American Church/
and I think it is one of the charms of yours also—it is so nat¬
ural."—The Rev. E. J. Cooke, Schuylerville, N. Y.
"I have read it through. It will be of great use to Lay
readers, Sunday School Teachers, the young Clergy and all
Laymen."—The Rt. Rev. Hugh Miller Thompson, D. D.
LL. D.
"It will prove very helpful in answering many questions,
and giving important information upon a great variety of sub¬
jects concerning which even a majority of our Church people
are not sufficiently informed. It is written in a very pleas¬
ant style."—Bishop Whittaker.
"The book bears evidence of great care in its preparation.
The arguments are well sustained, and most needful for these
times."—Bishop Garrett.
"I had seen it before at Middletown, where the Pre¬
siding Bishop had turned my attention to the remarkable
maps which you have devised. The book will be very help¬
ful."—Bishop Johnson, Los Angeles.
"I have read it carefully through, and I beg leave to
return to you my most sincere thanks for the pleasure and
benefit which the perusal has afforded to me. Both in the
range of the subjects treated, and in the soundness and power
of the treatment, the book seems to me to have extraordinary
claims upon the attention and interest of all readers. It is,
of course, a book addressed to the people, and it is pre¬
sented in a popular style. But it is none the less based upon
profound and just thought, and a true and extensive learn¬
ing, and brings out the whole case so that no one can be
seriously misled by any of its statements, and so that, in
point of principle and historical fact, the reader who got his
first information from it must inevitably be started in the
right direction. Such a reader might in some particulars,
when he came to follow the line of study and thought
which you have opened to him, find occasion to qualify or
re-state for himself some of your positions. But he would
never feel himself to have been misled, or obliged to deny
the substance of what you have taught him. One should not
expect from a broadside of grape such precision or aim as
would come from a single rifle. Your book is not one, but
a succession of such broadsides, every one well directed and
effective in dismantling some of the many oppositions to the
just claims of the Church."—The Rev. Professor Wm. Jones
Seabury, D. D.
"I am forbidden by your express command to give you
any praise. I think that you said that you have had com¬
pliments enough, and that what you wish now is friendly
criticism. I will run the risk of your wrath enough to say
that I greatly enjoyed reading the Lectures. Moreover, I
want to congratulate you on the thoroughness with which you
have worked out the questions, and not the least on the
clearness and strength of your style. No one can misun¬
derstand you."—The Rev. Professor Davies.
"As a Bishop of God's Church, let me thank you most
heartily for having written the book. Taking it as a whole,
I consider it the best thing in the line of apologetics that has
appeared in the American Church, and even, so far as I have
seen, in the Anglican Communion. You have accomplished
a very difficult task. You have presented great principles,
important and clearly established historical facts and acute and
sound reasoning in such form as to be readily grasped by any
mind able to think at all. Your book is not a popular one
because you have not skimmed the surface of things, for seldom
does a work of this kind go to the very bottom of the mat¬
ters discussed as yours has done. Your clear style reminds
me of the river at San Antonio, Texas, as I saw it years ago.
The stream seemed, owing to its great transparency, to
be only a few inches deep, where the actual depth was from
eight to twelve feet. This, to my mind, is the perfection of
style. You have done the Church a very great service."—
Bishop Pierce.
GUARANTEE.
If for any reason whatsoever any one who orders a copy
of "The Church for Americans" from The Arkansas Church¬
man's Publishing Company does not find it in all respects
satisfactory it may be returned within ten days and the pur¬
chase price will be refunded.
The Arkansas Churchman's Pub. Co.
Postoffice Box 468.
Little Rock, Arkansas.