h £
RACE STATEMANSHIP SERIES
NO. 5
RADICALISM AND
THE NEGRO
BY
KELLY MILLER
HOWARD UNIVERSITY
WASHINGTON, D. C.
PRICE 15 CENTS
ADDRESS AUTHOR
Copyrighted 1920
Race Statesmanship Series
I propose to issue from time to time a series of papers under
the above caption. Each paper will cover some particular
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ing value as part of the permanent literature of the race
problem.
PAPERS ALREADY ISSUED
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The Political Plight of the Negro
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2.
Education for Manhood
3.
The Disgrace of Democracy
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The Negro's Place in the New Reconstruction ...
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5.
Radicalism and the Negro
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Race Leadership
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RACE STATESMANSHIP SERIES
RADICALISM AND
THE NEGRO
BY
KELLY MILLER
HOWARD UNIVERSITY
WASHINGTON, D. C.
MURRAY BROTHERS PRINTERS
RADICALISM AND THE NEGRO
REVOLUTION AND EVOLUTION
Revolution accelerates evolution. Gradual advance is ex¬
pedited -by epochal upheavals. Social progress is wrought
through change. Stability begets stagnation. Perfection is
an ideal of perpetual approximation. Traditional values must
ever and anon be restated in terms of contemporaneous de¬
mands.
The world to-day is in process of radical readjustment. The
relationship of the rich and the poor, the laborer and the over¬
lord of labor, the strong and the weak, the white and the non-
white races of men, must be adjusted in harmony with the pro¬
gressive spirit of the times. The germ of the new idealism has
inoculated the blood of the world and thrown it into throes of
delirium. The social fabric is being battered with the shocks
of doom. Riot and revolution are rife. Action and reaction
are always equal, but in opposite directions. The whole crea¬
tion groaneth until now. It is the travail of the new birth.
WORLD RESTLESSNESS
The world war has upset everything, and, so far, has settled
nothing. The upset world must now be set to rights. Ger¬
many has been physically overpowered but not inwardly con¬
quered. Her tough Teutonic spirit has not been broken. She
is writhing under the sting of defeat, and planning troubles
anew. Russia is in the hands of the riotous "Reds." France
is trembling in the balance of insecurity. Italy is dominated
by the Socialists. The Laborites in England are awaiting the
next election for a conceded victory. The fate of the British
Empire will soon fall into the hands of a class unaccustomed
to exercise power and domination. Neutral states are not
immune from internal confusion. The Balkan States are
breathing out hatred and slaughter. China and Japan are
pitted against each other by connivance of the white man's
cunning to divide and control. Ireland is in revolt against
the tyranny of Anglo-Saxon dominion. Egypt and India are
dreaming of the hour when they shall be able to throw off the
yoke of British overlordship. There is no abatement of cus¬
tomary turbulence in the South American Republics. The
United States is seething with internal turmoil and confusion.
Labor is all but ready to try conclusions with Capital. We
have seen the Labor Unions shake the finger of defiance in
the face of the Government and wrest the demanded conces-
3
sions. The advice and counsel of the President of the United
States have been flouted, and his good offices and kindly sug¬
gestions rejected with scorn. The decree of the courts has
been regarded as little more than a scrap of paper. Strikes
€?verywhere abound. We have seen race riots raging along
Pennsylvania Avenue, the national thoroughfare which runs
from the Capitol where the laws are made to the White House
where they are supposed to be executed. Surely the times
are out of joint.
Surface sores are but the outward manifestations of inner
disease. The scourge of war with its grewsome toll of blood
and treasure was not the cause but the consequence of world¬
wide social dissatisfaction and unrest. Indeed the war in all
probability relieved the severity of the shock. The upheaval
might have come with greater suddenness and virulence had
not the war intervened. The violent cough is the outcome of
the irritation of the lungs. Sagacious statesmanship, both
in Europe and America, clearly foresaw the coming of the evil
day. William Jennings Bryan, like blind Cassandra, proph¬
esied its coming, but none would believe him. Theodore
Roosevelt was the greatest American who has lived since Lin¬
coln died. Through clear foresight and courageous conserv¬
atism he staid the revolution for half a generation.
WOODROW WILSON AND THE NEGRO
Woodrow Wilson believes, or believed, that he could hold a
restless world in poise by the soothing balm of pleasing phrase¬
ology. His single-track, double-acting mind moves with equal
celerity, sometimes with and sometimes against the onsweep-
ing current which he seeks to guide and control. He is no whit
abashed at the tangle of moral paradoxes in which he frequent¬
ly finds himself enmeshed. He follows the lead of events only
long enough to gauge their tendency and trend in order that
he might make himself appear to guide them. He frequently
reverses his course, and proceeds to the new goal with utter
disregard of logical sequence or ethical consistency. It is ut¬
terly impossible to tell whether he undergoes a genuine con¬
version of heart or a prudent shift of mind. The same lack
of consecutiveness and consistency appears in every great is¬
sue which he has been called upon to handle. Elected the first
time upon a platform which condemned renomination, he has
accepted a second term and is conniving at a third with con¬
venient forgetfulness. He forced his Party to change its de¬
clared attitude on the Panama Canal by threats of calamity
which he alone foresaw. Habitually opposed to national fe¬
male suffrage, after the propaganda had gained significant
proportions, as belated entrant, he now outruns the other disci¬
ples. He kept the Nation out of war while the Presidential cam¬
paign was on, and without additional provocation plunged it
4
into war when the election was over. After Germany had
committed every atrocity with which she has subsequently
been charged, he issued a proclamation to the American people
urging them to refrain from discussing the moral issues in¬
volved lest they disturb the serenity and composure of the
German mind. At first an ardent advocate of the Washington
policy of no entangling foreign alliances, he sits at the head of
the Council Table and ties his country to alliances which are
unentangleable. The apostle of new freedom for mankind ig¬
nores its application to the freedman in America. The High
Priest of Democracy in Germany becomes the obligated bene¬
ficiary of oligarchy in Georgia. He has played at peace and
war successively with Huerta, Villa and Carranza, and yet
our Southern neighbor remains untranquillized and defiant.
In one breath he declares that politics should be adjourned
during the progress of the war, with another he urges the
country to return a Democratic Congress as more easily pliant
to his imperious will. As head of the Nation he congratu¬
lated the Republican Governor of Massachusetts upon his vic¬
torious stand for law and order, and as head of the" Democratic
Party he felicitates the successful Governor of his own State
and Party, who won the election on the declaration that he
would make the Nation as wet as water, thus subverting all
law and order. The highest world exponent of derived powers,
he swiftly overleaps all precedents in the assumption of unau¬
thorized power. Elected President of the United States, he
makes himself the Chief Magistrate of Mankind. He reverses
the world motto; his charity begins abroad rather than at
home. He believes in Democracy for humanity but not for
Mississippi. Abraham Lincoln's gospel of freedom was im¬
mediate; Woodrow Wilson's is remote. The one believed in
the freedom of the Negro; the other in the freedom of Na¬
tions. President Lincoln wrought for the United States of
America; Woodrow Wilson for the"United States of the World.
The former never uttered one insincere or . uncertain
word; the utterances of the latter rarely escape the imputation
of moral ambiguity. By marvelous assumption of superior in¬
sight, he propounds preachments and compounds idealistic
theories as infallible solvents of all social ills. He retires into
the secrecy of his inner consciousness and evolves his famous
Fourteen Points—the new "tetra decalogue," which he was
the first to violate and ignore. The advocate of open covenants
openly arrived at proceeds to the Peace Conference enshroud¬
ed in the sacredness and secrecy of Sinai, and returns with
the League of Nations written upon the tablet of his own con¬
ception with the finger of finality. Although the newly con¬
ceived League of Nations transcends the Constitution and De¬
claration of Independence, "anathema, maranatha" be upon
the head of that impious statesman who would add or sub-
5
tract one jot or one title from the law oracularly vouchsafed
by the ordained lawgiver of the world. •
President Wilson is indeed the greatest phrase-maker of the
age, although each preceding phrase is apt to have its mean¬
ing nullified by a quickly succeeding one. "The Nations should
be permitted to shed all the blood they please"; "we are too
proud to fight"; "there must be peace without victory," have
already taken their places in the limbo of innocuous desuetude.
Such lofty expressions as "to make the world safe for democ¬
racy" ; "overridden peoples must have a voice in the Govern-
ments_ which they uphold"; "the only way to stop men from
agitation against grievances is to remove the grievances" still
await vindication in light of sanctioned and condoned prac¬
tices. To the Negro these phrases seem to possess the sinis¬
ter suggestion of hollow mockery under the guise of Holy De¬
mocracy. Mr. Wilson would strengthen the chain by ignoring
the weakest links. His abstract doctrine breaks down at the
point of concrete application. The Negro question, the most
aggravating moral issue of American life, is avoided or thrust
aside as hopelessly impossible. He has handled this issue with
less positiveness and moral aggression than any president
since James Buchanan. Under pressure of political exi¬
gency or military exaction he has indited several of his
customary notes on this question, but their luke-warmness indi¬
cates that they might have been written with the left hand as
the easiest riddance of a disagreeable issue. On promise of po¬
litical support, he pledged Bishop Walters the full recognition
of the Negro's claims. Shortly after election he sent the
name of a Negro as Register of the Treasury. His Southern
partizans protested. The nomination was withdrawn. The
promise has been ignored. It must be said that the Presi¬
dent's change of attitude or shift of mind is usually
in the direction of progress, aggression and courage;
on the Negro question it is in the direction of timidity, nega¬
tion, and reaction. President Wilson appears to be at once
the greatest radical and the greatest conservator of the age.
Under such leadership the American people—white and black
.—must face the issues which now confront the world.
THE OLD ORDER AND THE NEW
But the struggle grows apace. No man can move very far
forward or backward the hand of the clock of time. The full¬
ness of the hour has come; the conflict is irrepressible. A
better dispensation is at hand. Human relations must be ad¬
justed on the broad basis of righteousness and brotherhood.
Shall the process of adjustment be peaceful or violent? Can
the old bottle hold the new wine? Can the tree of liberty be
saved by pruning away the dead limbs or must the axe be
6
laid at the root of the tree? The awful sacrifice of the
past six years will have been in vain unless it results in a se¬
curer fabric of social order than the one that has been shaken
down. The new order must be ushered in; the old order must
pass away. The passing regime, based upon the divine right
of kings, the avarice of power and the arrogance of race, dies
hard. The new order must rest upon liberty, fraternity, equal¬
ity for all the children of men. Conservatism is the inertia of
human nature. An imparted impulse tends to move forever
unaccelerated in speed and unmodified in direction. Innova¬
tion is universally denounced and condemned. Tradition is
the dead hand of human progress. Despite the terrible ordeal
through which the world has just passed, there is persistent
tendency to revert to the previously existing status in govern¬
ment and social polity. The vanquished nations may enter the
kingdom of freedom ahead of the victorious allies. Realign¬
ment in Germany is moving more rapidly than in England,
which with amazing illogicality adheres to the exploded tra¬
dition of King and hereditary class. America, with scarcely less
blind devotion, bows down to the idols of the past. Stand¬
ards and methods of a hundred years ago cannot fix the guid¬
ance of the people to the end of days. The fathers laid the
foundation on the eternal bedrock, but left the structure un¬
completed. The war has not yet wrought radical change in
the heart of the Nation. The old ideals still seek to perpetuate
themselves. The Civil War radically readjusted social opin¬
ion and conduct; but the World War so far has brought forth
only vacuous phraseology. The old spirit still persists with
stubbornness. The nations are vying with each other in sel¬
fishness and greed. The world is held in equilibrium by
the parallelogram of forces rather than the paragon of princi¬
ples. The strong exploit the weak; the rich oppress the poor;
the white lord it over the black, the yellow and the brown. The
belabored League of Nations which Mr. Wilson relied upon
with amazing optimism to cure all human ills from militarism
to the measles is based upon the dominance of five great powers
over a score of weak. ones. England still holds Ireland, Egypt
and India in the clutches of her overlordship. The territory
of the weak is given to the strong. The United States has a
strangle-hold upon Hayti and San Domingo. Japan insists upon
supremacy in the Orient. France demands the spoils of victory.
Britannia still rules the waves. Labor is still interpreted in
terms of money rather than of manhood. The laborer is be¬
sought to be satisfied with whatever the generous overlord
who exploits his labor may graciously dole out to him in the
form of wages or under the guise of philanthrophy. The Negro is
expected to resume his wonted place of inferiority as if he had
not felt the moral energy and self-elation of the new awaken¬
ing. The world has been bathed in blood, but not baptized
7
with the spirit. Religion has functioned, but feebly. The
church has looked on with pitiful impotency, while every prin¬
ciple which it professed has been trampled under foot. The
voice of conscience has been crying in the wilderness
with no language but a cry. No great leader in church or
state has yet arisen with moral virility to meet the new de¬
mand. Archaic platitudes and worn-out moral maxims will
not cope with the new situation. The doles of charity will
profit but little. There must be quickened a keener apprecia¬
tion of the inherency of the manhood of man. All programs
of reconstruction, not based on this conception are but sooth¬
ing syrup to relieve the delirium; leaving the internal malady
untouched.
BOLSHEVISM
The one distinctive dispensation which has come out of the
conflict, decisively different from existing conditions, appears
in Russia. The new philosophy proclaims that those who work
with the hand shall exercise exclusive right to rule. This is
a radical departure from the aristocratic theory wherein those
who work with the hand were excluded from participation in
government. Bolshevism is the antithesis of Autocracy. It
is Democracy run mad. The pendulum swings with equal
ease to either extreme and finally rests at the middle point.
The true order of things lies midway between Russia under
Nicholas, the Czar, and Russia under Trotzky and Lenine, the
ruthless Radicals. Bolshevism has thrown the world into a
spasm of convulsion for fear its example might become con¬
tagious and imperil the foundation upon which social order
rests. The first effect of release from autocracy is, naturally
enough, extreme experiment in democracy. The Russian peas¬
ants being crushed for centuries under the iron heel of tyranny,,
are over-elated with the first taste of self-direction. Liberty
is the medium between license and oppression. Moderation
in the golden mean between the extremes of indulgence and de¬
privation. The term Bolshevism, etymologically considered,
means the rule of the majority and it is equivalent to Democ¬
racy in the Russian tongue. Menshevism, the rule of the
minority, corresponds to the detested term, Oligarchy,
in the English speech. The world extols Democra¬
cy and detests Oligarchy; but when these expressions are
translated into Russian speech and practice, the feeling is re¬
versed. The rule of the majority in Massachusettes is
called Democracy; the rule of the majority in Mississippi
would be condemned as Bolshevism. We should not allow our¬
selves to be frightened at a phrase. It is not the word itself
that disturbs the world, but rather the abuse in the hands of
radical expounders who would push it to the verge of unmiti-
8
gated madness. We are reminded of the attitude of the Euro¬
pean monarchies when the Democratic spirit began to exert
itself a hundred and a half years ago. Conservative thought
and feeling of that day believed that it threatened the stabili¬
ty of social order and was destructive of accumulated values of
all generations that had gone before. The old monarchies
bound themselves in alliances, holy and unholy, to stamp out
the doctrine of Democracy which threatened the destruction of
the world order. History repeats itself. Order will arise out
of chaos.
The denunciation of Bolshevism rests upon the familiar
charge that when government is placed in the hands of the
peasant class without traditional inhibition and self-restraint,
it will inevitably pull down the Temple of Liberty and
Justice, involving all in common ruin. This argument is
parallel in every particular to the justification for the over¬
throw of reconstruction governments in the South. The French
Revolution passed through the same range of experiences.
Majority control in a complex constituency always entails se¬
rious law of her nature was condemned to appear at a certain
gerated and ridiculed and condemned in terms of loud denun¬
ciation.
MACAULAY ON LIBERTY
Lord Macaulay declares: "The final fruition and permanent
fruits of Liberty are wisdom, moderation and mercy. Its im¬
mediate effects are often atrocious crimes, conflicting errors,
skepticism on points the most clear, dogmatism on points the
most mysterious. It is just at this crisis that its enemies love
to exhibit it. They pull down the scaffold from the half-fin¬
ished edifice. They point to the flying dust, falling bricks and
comfortless homes, and frightful irregularity of the old ap¬
pearance and then ask with scorn where the promised splen¬
dor and comfort are to be found. There is only one cure for
the evils which newly acquired freedom produces. That cure
is more freedom "
"Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it
down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be
free till they are fit to use freedom. The maxim is worthy of
the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water
till he learned to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they
become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait for¬
ever."
"Ariosto tells a pretty story of a fairy who by some myste¬
rious law of her nature was condemned to appear at a certain
season in the form of a foul and poisonous snake. Those who
injured her during the period of her disguise were forever
excluded from participation in the blessing which she be-
9
stowed; but to those who in spite of her loathsome aspect pitied
and protected her, she afterward revealed herself in the beau¬
tiful and celestial form which was natural to her, accompanied
their steps, granted all their wishes, filled their houses with
wealth, made them happy in love and victorious in war. Such
is the spirit of Liberty. At times she takes the form of an
atrocious reptile. She grovels, she hisses, she stings, but woe
to those who in disgust shall venture to crush her! and happy
are those who having dared .to receive her in her degraded and
frightful shape, at last shall be rewarded by her in the time
of her beauty and her glory."
The world today might well take this lesson to heart as it
applies to the retarded and belated peoples of all lands strug¬
gling to set themselves free. American institutions
have nothing to fear from this neo-democracy which
for the moment is delirious in the first flush of release
from an intolerable tyranny. There is no ground in America
upon which Bolshevism may grow. Our people are too intel¬
ligent and understand too well the beneficence of free institu¬
tions. Our danger lies in failure to live up to the platform of
our own principles. The best way to make vice odious is by
making virtue odorous. We will most surely discredit the
vices of Bolshevism by exemplifying the virtues of Democ¬
racy. Our Ship of State if kept headed straight to the Haven
of Liberty will weather every gale.
COMMON CAUSE OF AGGRIEVED GROUPS
The American Negro, representing a suppressed and ag¬
grieved class, cannot be incurious or indifferent to the effort
which any struggling people is making to throw off the yoke
of tyranny and oppression. He has no interest in or sympa¬
thy for Bolshevism or any other radical doctrine excepting so
far as it may seem to suggest relief from existing evils. It is
perfectly natural for any new propaganda to seek support
among the dissatisfied groups wherever they may be found.
The greatest reformer of all time appealed to the restless, the
despised, the rejected and the aggrieved peoples of his day:
"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will
give you rest." The French Nation during the American Revo¬
lution encouraged the Colonists to revolt against the mother
country and helped them to throw off the yoke of op¬
pression. Lafayette and Washington joined forces because of
a common grievance against England. The descendants of
these glorious heroes joined hands with the descendants of
their /ancient foe, by reason of the common grievance against
Germany. The German nation, logically enough, sought to
encourage Irish revolt against Great Britain and met with
hospitable reception. The hanging of an Irish peer with a
10
silken cord may have put an end to the unholy alliance, but
not to the deep-seated grievances of the irrepressible Celt. The
Germans also sought to foster dissatisfaction among American
Negroes because of the alleged grievances against democracy's
illogical attitude towards them, but the seed fell on stony
ground. President Wilson, supposing that the German peo¬
ple entertained grievances against the Prussian autocracy, ad¬
vised them to join with him to rid themselves of their tyran¬
nical government, but subsequent events proved that he failed
to fathom the Teuton's deep-seated love for overlordship.
There is a widespread belief that the Bolsheviki of Rus¬
sia are disseminating their doctrine among the American Ne¬
groes and are finding converts among them. A new propagan¬
da is always persuasive in its promises to the oppressed to
whom it appeals. The Bolsheviki of Russia have made an
American Negro a Cabinet officer under the Soviet Govern¬
ment. This is in striking contrast with our democratic policy
which accords no Negro an office of first-class importance, al¬
though this Government is supported and upheld by ten million
loyal people of this race. The Socialists and Industrial Workers
of the World, it is said are making overtures to the Negro work-
ingman by holding out more flattering considerations than those
which he received at the hand of organized labor. Any new
party is apt to write a better platform than an old one. Politi¬
cal parties degenerate in moral quality and tone when they
are harnessed with concrete responsibilities. These appeals
will find little lodgment in the mind of the Negro. His con¬
servative nature makes him for a long time bear the ills which
he has before flying to those which he knows not of. There are
doubtless a few minds of the race to whom such doctrine might
appeal. This is not surprising for there are many white
Americans, native and foreign-born, who give hospitable, ear
to the new doctrine. In every race there are to be found men
of a certain type of moral temper and mental oddity, who will
be swayed by the wind of any new doctrine; but the wind of
false doctrine will pass away with its own blowing. There
would be no Negro radicals if the wise policy were pursued by
those who would vindicate the beneficence of American insti¬
tutions for all the peoples who are true and loyal to them. If
the American people would only follow the advice of President
Wilson, "the only way to stop men from agitation against
grievances, is to remove the grievances," there would not be
found a single one of the ten million of this race in the ranks
of restlessness and discontent.
ALIEN PROPAGANDA AMONG NEGROES •
It is the policy of cunning to make a doctrine detestable by
casting odium upon its advocates. It appears that the leaders
11
in this new agitation against existing order are recruited in
large part from the ranks of dissatisfied foreigners who do not
understand or appreciate the beneficence of American institu¬
tions. They fly from the oppression of the old w'orld to the
freedom of the new; but abuse the asylum which offers them
shelter and protection. America cannot be expected to receive
hospitably foreign radicals who would destroy the house that
gives them shelter. Insidious attempt is being made to align
the Negro with the restless and dissatisfied foreigners, which
would at once deprive him of the tolerance which he has
always received because of his unfaltering patriotism and
loyalty, whatever the circumstances of his lot. But it does not
require the persuasion of the Bolsheviki to make the Negro dis¬
satisfied with injustice. He does not need the advice of the
Industrial Workers of the World to feel keenly the sting of
industrial discrimination. No foreign propaganda is required
to cause him to denounce Jim Crow cars. His feelings are not
so numb that he must await the urgency of Socialism to make
him cry aloud against lynching. Such supposition would prove
the Negro is not a normal human being and does not voluntari¬
ly feel the sting of cruelty, injustice and wrong which should
meet with universal condemnation. It used to be thought that
the Negro, if left to himself without outside inter-meddlers,
would be satisfied with any condition that might be imposed
upon him. That day has past. His self-insurgency of spirit
rebels. But if external stimulus were necessary to excite a
quickened sense of resentment and resistance to the iniquities
which he suffers, it need not be looked for in the plausible and
specious pleas of the Bolsheviki, Industrial Workers of the
World, or the propaganda of native or foreign Socialists. He
absorbs it from the new atmosphere which the world war has
created. President Wilson has become the mouthpiece of the
new freedom for humanity. His high declarations have
quickened the spirit of resentment and resistance of every
aggrieved group in the world.
SUPPRESSION OF FREE SPEECH
Attempt is made to throttle the expression of dissatisfaction
on the part of the Negro against the wrong and injustice which
he suffers. A proposition has been made on the floors of Con¬
gress to shut off free speech of the Negroes who would give
vent to their just complaints. It must be conceded that in times
of war the Government has the right to commandeer the- life,
property, and the conscience of the people in order to save
itself from destruction. Beyond this, universal experience
proves that the suppression of complaint against grievances is
the very best way to advertise them. During the anti-slavery
controversy the South used every endeavor to shut out free-
12
dom of speech. The detested agitators were bodily banished.
Uncle Tom's Cabin and other literature bearing upon the
evils of slavery were forbidden circulation; but such prohibi¬
tion did not prohibit full and free discussion of the merits
of that moral issue. William Lloyd Garrison, the Chief Apostle
of Freedom, went so far as to denounce the Constitution as
being "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell."
For such assertion today, he might be given free passage on
the ark of the Soviets or lodged in jail with Eastman and
Debs. But the result of free discussion was to vindicate the
integrity of the Constitution, and to purge it of this alleged
evil alliance. Any attempt to limit free speech on the part of
the Negro, except for the purposes of war, would merely serve
to make martyrs of those whose voice is suppressed and fur¬
ther disseminate the doctrine "which they declare. The best
way to promote any doctrine is by persecution and martyrdom.
KINDNESS AND CRUELTY
The Negro's soul is prepared soil for the sowing of good
seed which quickly takes root and springs forth into abundant
harvest, but the seed of destruction and discord finds uncon¬
genial reception. Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner had few
followers and no successors. On the other hand, the seed of
the Christian religion found Negro nature a congenial soil
where, without cultivation, it has grown into luxuriant harvest.
The Negro masses can easily be aroused to frenzy by religious
or patriotic appeal, but respond very slowly—if at all—to the
appeal of hatred, animosity and revenge. The race is slow
to anger and plenteous in mercy. The Department of Justice
would more effectively perform its function by using strenuous
endeavor to secure justice for the Negro rather than by trying
to stop his complaint against injustice.
RADICALS AND CONSERVATIVES
Since time began, mankind has been divided into two types
of temperament—the radical and the conservative. The radi¬
cal is habitually dissatisfied with existing order and seeks
change through revolution. He would rather prove all things
than to hold fast to what is good. The conservative is disposed
to be content with things as they are and deprecates effort at
reform. Social progress is the resultant of these two con¬
flicting tendencies. In the fundamental sense, there are com¬
paratively few Negro radicals. The Negro nature possesses
the conservatism of inertia. Some Negroes are cautious, while
others are courageous in the expression of their conservatism.
The cautious conservative believes in amelioration through
moderate modification, as distinguished from the radical who
advocates change for the love of innovation. The Negro who is
13
content with existing conditions is a satisfied simpleton; while
the Negro who advocates the destructive radicalism is a dis¬
tracted idiot. Before the World War, the race leadership was
divided into two hostile camps based upon quiescence on
the one side and assertion on the other. There never has been
a Negro conservative in the sense of satisfaction with existing
status, but merely in the sense of prudential silence in the face
of wrong. All right-minded Negroes everywhere and at all
times must want equal and impartial laws, equally and impar¬
tially applied. Any other attitude is simply unthinkable.
Every Negro today who is using his brain above the dead level
of a livelihood is pronounced in demanding the full measure of
manhood rights. He would not be a worthy American if this
were not so. Any individual or group of individuals who are
willing to accept without protest less than the fulness of the
stature of American citizenship is not fit material for the new
order of things now about to be ushered in. The leaders of
any suppressed people should speak boldly, even though they
be ambassadors in bonds. It is not impossible for the Negro
to be courageous and sensible at the same time. He must rec¬
ognize conditions which he may not be able to overcome, but
Tie must not let such conditions cower his spirit or sour his
soul.
THE VOICE OF THE NEGRO
The highest function of the higher education of the Negro is
not merely to produce a set of educated automatons who can
ply a handicraft or practice a profession with creditable clever¬
ness, but to develop a class of men who can state the case and
plead the cause of the masses in terms of persuasive speech and
literary power. Their voice should not be controlled or con¬
strained by any outside coercion. Their attitude must be candid
and courageous if they would fulfill the high function of inter¬
preting to the world the feelings, hopes and aspirations of
the people who look to them for leadership and direction. Every
institution of learning, North and South, has produced its quota
of leading Negroes who are now "insisting upon the fulfill¬
ment of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
of the United States. This courageous attitude is shown by
Trotter of Harvard; Dubois of Fisk and Harvard; the Grimkes
of Lincoln; Frazier Miller and Murphy of Howard; Johnson and'
Hershaw of Atlanta; Ferris and Whaley of Yale; Hurst and
Ransom of Wilberforce; Pickens of Talledega and Yale; Daly
of Cornell; Abbott of Hampton; Brawley of Morehouse; and
Barber and Owen of Virginia-Union. It is no reflection to
say that those Negroes today who take any other public at¬
titude are operating on a lower level of moral courage and
intellectual understanding, and are moved by motives
14
of thrift or constraint of prudence. This spirit is not
limited to the educated Negro, but pervades the en¬
tire mass of the race—the man between the plow-
handles ; the mechanic applying his tools; the miner in
the bowels of the earth; the waiter standing behind the chair
while his white lord and master sits at meat; the barber with
his razor; the menial in the humblest service—all feel and are
actuated by the same spirit and are moved by the same im¬
pulse. Although they may not be able to give voice to the sen¬
timent which they feel, they quickly respond when it is ex¬
pressed and interpreted for them. The New Negro has ar¬
rived. The war has developed a new spirit. In the time of
revolution there is but a tenuous partition between timidity
and cowardice. If Booker T. Washington were living today
with all the high prestige of his personality, patronage and
power, he would not be able to hold the Negro to his avowed
doctrine of prudential silence on the issue of manhood rights.
HOPES AROUSED BY THE WAR
During the war the Nation relied upon the forgiving spirit
and patriotic emotion of the Negro and that reliance was not
in vain. Although he had just cause for deep dissatisfaction,
he held his grievances in abeyance, but not in oblivion. He was
a good American while the war was on, and wishes to be con¬
sidered as an American now the war is over. His valor and
courage contributed in full measure to the consummation of
the struggle. The slogan of Democracy was harmonious to his
ear. It aroused in him hopes and ambitions that he would
enter as a full participant in the fruition of that Democracy
which he was called upon to sustain and perpetuate. He was
given every assurance that the Nation would no longer deny
him a just share in the new Democracy which his courage
helped bring to the world. Andrew Jackson advised the Negro
troops who won the belated victory behind the fleecy breast¬
works at New Orleans, to return to their masters and be loyal
and obedient servants, but no one now expects the Negro
soldiers of the World War to revert with satisfaction to the
status they occupied before the war for the emancipation of
mankind.
RACIAL EQUALITY
The final outcome of the war must be the fulfillment of the
Tennysonian prophecy:
"Where the common sense of most shall hold a fretful world
in awe;
And the kindly earth shall slumber lapped in universal law."
Four hundred million members of the white race
today are dominating twice their number of the non-
white peoples of the world. They are at present su-
15
perior in the development of concrete and concerted
power and lay arrogant claim to superiority as inherent race
endowment. By some sort of divine favor it is claimed that
they are predestined to rule over their darker brethren for all
time to come. The darker and at present the feebler races
cannot recognize the justice of this claim and would seriously
question the justice of that providence which ordains one-
third of the human race to rule over the other two-thirds to
the end of days.
THE NEGRO A NATURAL CONSERVATIVE
The conservative elements of the Nation—white and black—
who would test the values of American institutions must unite
in determined effort to withstand reckless revolution
which threatens to shake the foundations of existing
world order. It will require united effort of all men
of sound judgment and conservative temper to uphold
and vindicate the integrity of our laws and institutions,
purged as they must be of injustice and inequity. The Nation
looks to the Negro as a great store-house of conservatism. Be¬
fore entering upon the war the Government began to count
upon its reliable resources. The devotion and loyalty of the
Negro was regarded as a certain asset. In the past this has
been the loyalty of inertia—the blind altruistic devotion to
flag and country. In the future this loyalty will not be less
emotional or ardent, but more intelligent and self-enlightened.
The Government said to itself that the good-natured and un-
resentful Negro will quickly forget all of the indignities and
outrages heaped upon him and join with his white fellow citi¬
zen in upholding the glory and honor of the Flag which he has
never failed to magnify and adore. The Negro has been prone
to exhibit the spirit of humility and forgiveness—the crown¬
ing glory of the Christian graces. He has loved his enemies.
He has done good to them that despitefully used him. He has
returned love for hate and good deeds for despiteful usage.
Booker T. Washington, the personal embodiment of the blame-
lessness of the Negro, has declared that no white man could be
so mean as to make him hate him. However cruelly and unjustly
the Nation might treat the black man, he has always re¬
sponded, "though you slay me, yet will I serve you." But the
acerbity, not to say the bitterness, of W. E. B. DuBois very
strongly indicates that this submissiveness of spirit is not uni¬
versal and may not be everlasting.
CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER RACIAL CHARACTER
Although these characteristics have prevailed up to the
present time and are still operative, we cannot rely upon their
16
everlasting continuance. Circumstances not only alter cases,
but characteristics as well. There is no such thing as un¬
changeable racial character. The Hebrew race possessed the
spiritual genius of the world as long as they were shut in to a
peculiar environment which encouraged the development of
spiritual talent, but when they became scattered abroad among
the gentiles they forthwith lost their spiritual ascendancy. There
has not arisen a single Jew with transcendent spiritual genius
or originality since St. John died. The Greek mind reached
the loftiest pinnacle of thought and genius as long as the en¬
vironment favored the development of this peculiar form of
culture, but the lapse of two thousand years does not indicate
that this race possesses today the slightest trace of that intel¬
lectual subtlety which gave rise to "the glory that was Greece."
God has made of one blood and of one mind and of one spirit,
all nations to dwell on the face of the earth, and has set as
the bounds of their habitation no geographical lines or racial
limitations but the natural boundaries of land and sea which
fix the confines of human habitability. Race and color are
physical and geographical attributes and do not permanently
determine mind and spirit. All races in the long run will
respond to the same stimulus in the same way. The Negro is
perhaps the most adaptable and chameleon-like of all the races
of men. He takes on the quality of the environment in which
lie is involved. He is a Mohammedan in Turkey; a Catholic
in South America; a Protestant in the United States; a French¬
man in France; an Englishman in Jamaica. He helps Peary
find the North Pole and assists Goethals in digging the Panama
Canal. There is no type of human culture which he does not
readily absorb and assimilate. He has learned the white man's
language, borrowed his religion, and conformed to his political
policy in all the ends of the earth. He reads his literature and
is quickened by his ideals, hopes, and aspirations. He has
also absorbed a goodly measure of the white man's blood, carry¬
ing with it an asserted quantum of disposition and spirit.
The Negro cannot therefore develop meekness and humility
in an environment of resentment and aggression. The white
man will not let him do so. Hatred begets hatred, as love be¬
gets love. It is an imperfect knowledge of human nature that
expects the white man to preserve his attitude of over-lordship,
revenge and disdain while the Negro, nourished with the
same nurture, will forever remain passive and forgiving.
It is too much to hope that he will forever requite cruelty with
kindness and hatred with love and mercy. The Nation cannot
expect to humiliate the Negro eternally with Jim Crow cars,
disfranchisement, segregation and lynching, and expect him
to assign his love and devotion in perpetuity. If the victims of
mob violence were equally distributed throughout the Nation,
there would be standing a blood-stained tree in every county
17
in the United States as a ghastly reminder to the Negro of the
crucifixion of his race. Unless this barbarous tendency is
checked, lynching will become ingrained in the warp and woof
of the national character. Would the Nation, then, have
the moral right to demand the Negro's love and devotion?
The Nation must destroy lynching or lynching must destroy
the Nation. Let us fondly hope that the Negro will be for¬
ever true to the Nation; but let us fervently pray that the
Nation will prove itself worthy of his affection.
RACE RIOTS
We have heard of late very much about the so-called race
riots in several parts of the country. Although these riots do
not indicate an aroused spirit of revenge, they do suggest an
awakening purpose of self-defense. But these outbreaks were
perpetrated by a small element of lawless whites against the
Negroes who merely acted on the defensive. Mr. Dooley has
complained that the Negro is "too aisily lynched." To para¬
phrase the famous statement of Frederick Douglass, "the people
who are lynched easiest, will be lynched oftenest." But there
has not been, and let us hope that there never shall be a race
riot, in the full sense of the term, where all the members of
one race will be arrayed in violent hostility against the other.
In these recent happenings we have had the conservative
masses of both races, white and black, uniting to quell the riot
and put down lawlessness. In acting on the principle of self-
defense, the Negro has but followed the advice of Abraham
Lincoln, who in the Emancipation Proclamation advises the
people set free to refrain from all violence except in necessary
self-defense. The moment the Negro goes beyond the limit of
self-defense, aggressive violence will mean self-destruction.
But there is no likelihood that the Negro will ever become the
aggressor. He is the victim, not the perpetrator. The wolf
always has some sinister purpose when he accuses the lamb of
muddying the stream above him.
It is entirely probable that all conservative elements of this
nation will be appealed to in the approaching Presidential elec¬
tion to uphold the integrity of the courts. The finality of the
courts lies at the basis of free institutions. We have already
seen two of the most distinguished Americans leading cam¬
paigns to upset this doctrine. The Negro complains that he
can hardly secure justice at the hands of the courts. The white
man precititates race riots, the Negro is punished by the courts.
A recent survey has been made showing how difficult it is for a
poor man to receive justice, but there is a double difficulty when
the applicant is both poor and black. And yet when this appeal
is made, the Negro, although it places a severe tax on his devo¬
tion, will be found standing shoulder to shoulder with his con-
18
servative white fellow-citizen in vindicating the majesty of the
law and upholding the finality of the judiciary as the last word
in the settlement of human issues.
THE INTEGRITY OF AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS
As outcome of the World War, every nation except our own
will probably have its governmental structure radically modi¬
fied and readjusted. Our institutions are pedestaled upon the
Declaration of Independence, and though the winds of revo¬
lution may blow, they will withstand the fury of the storm
because they are founded upon the eternal Rock of Ages. No
other foundation can be laid than that which has been laid.
We may hope to live up to but can never transcend the con¬
ception therein contained. The spiritual genius of the Hebrew
race gave the world the everlasting, never-changing religious
truth. Through inspiration of the intellect, the Greeks have
given us the formal laws of thought which never can be
changed. The founders of our government with no less politi¬
cal genius have formulated for all time the right law of
political procedure. The Constitution was founded in the midst
of slavery, but the founders had the projected discernment to
transcend these regrettable incidents which they knew would
pass away with time. Had their vision been fully caught by
the immediately succeeding generations, the Thirteenth, Four¬
teenth and Fifteenth Amendments would have been unneces¬
sary. But when the first test came to justify their faith and
vision, there sprang up a new set of political thinkers with a
double portion of the spirit of the old. They completed the
purpose of the founders by the necessary addenda to the
Charter of Liberty. Abraham Lincoln justified the faith of
Thomas Jefferson. The Emancipation Proclamation was the
fulfillment of the Declaration of Independence.
NOT TO DESTROY BUT TO FULFILL
And now in this day of world dissatisfaction and unrest,
we need not doubt the validity of the foundation on which we
rest. The way has been left open for progressive adjustments
to meet the requirements of events. Orderly amendments may
be added in harmony with the progressive needs of the human
race. But unless the new additions are in alignment with
the old foundation the superstructure will topple and fall. The
Negro has no hope outside of the Declaration of Independence
and its embodiment in the Constitution of the United States.
There is no other power under Heaven whereby he might be
saved. It is the greatest human instrumentality for the pro¬
found development of mankind. The world revolution will but
disseminate the blessing of American institutions among the
19
other nations of the earth. This is the light that lighteth the
path of every struggling people of the world. The Negro must
insist, with incessant insistence, upon the exact fulfillment of
the declared purpose of American institutions. Not only his own
self-interest, but the integrity of their high purpose as well,
demands that he should do this. Let him insist upon every
American right with the "i" dotted and "t" crossed, but woe
be to him who would lay destructive hand to tear down this
Temple of Freedom. The Negro will be the last of all to give
hospitality to such unholy thought. When it is considered
what American institutions have done and are calculated to
do for this race despite the past disappointment and present
hopes deferred, he might well exclaim, "Though all men should
forsake you, yet will not I." The Negro will seek remedy for his
grievances under the flag and will uphold the institutions which
it symbolizes and extols. There is a divine discontent, but
there is also a diabolical spirit of disturbance. The Negro will
not be allured by the arguments of distracted, destructive radi¬
cals who like Job's wild wife would curse and die. The reckless
radical is without the restraint of law and reason and is guided
only by the license of a disordered imagination. He would
strike at the chastity of women, the integrity of the home and
the regnancy of law and order, and the beneficence of divine
providence, while setting up a materialistic dispensation which
begins in appetite and ends in death. The Negro will have
none of this, but joins with the courageously conservative
forces of this nation, not to destroy the law, but to fulfill.
"AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE"
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HOWARD UNIVERSITY
WASHINGTON, D. C.