RACE STATESMANSHIP SERIES
Is Race Difference Fundamental,
Eternal and Inescapable ?
AN OPEN LETTER
TO
President Warren G. Harding
BY
KELLY MILLER
HOWARD UNIVERSITY
WASHINGTON, D. C.
ORDER FROM
AUSTIN JENKINS PUBLISHING CO.
WASHINGTON, D. C.
Price 25 cents
Copyright 1921, by Kelly Miller
Is Race Difference Fundamental,
Eternal and Inescapable?
By KELLY MILLER
Honorable Warren G. Harding,
The White House,
Washington, D. C.
My Dear Mr. President:
Your Birmingham address marks an epoch in the his¬
tory of race adjustment in the United States, if not
throughout the entire world. You have doubtless re¬
ceived thousands of responses from all parts of the
country expressive of every shade of thought, feeling and
opinion. There is a sort of dilatory prudence in with¬
holding the expression of one's opinion until others have
spoken. But one thus runs the risk of being charged with
hesitancy of opinion and deference of judgment. I trust,
however, that this communication will not be regarded
as being hopelessly belated or presented out of due season.
The significance of your proposition is comprehensive
and permanent. It possesses little or no news value or
journalistic timeliness. The principle which you lay
down and the policy which you approve are calculated to
have enduring consequences upon the tangled issue of
race relationships. Indeed, the hasty reaction will prob¬
ably have no important results. The race problem re¬
mains in all important respects the same immediately
after your delivery as immediately before it. Funda¬
mental principles cannot be judged by instantaneous re¬
sults. One generation sows the seed, the next enjoys the
fruition thereof.
The immediate effect of your declaration has been to
bring the eternal Negro question once more to the fore¬
front of current discussion. There seems to be a con¬
spiracy of silence on part of the organs of public opinion to
ignore troublesome or distressing issues. Men are prone
by nature to seek easement of conscience by affecting
obliviousness of obvious evils which menace private re¬
pose and public tranquility. In this way is cherished
the vain delusion that we may gain surcease from menac¬
ing conditions which we lack the moral courage to face.
But the ghost of evil conditions will not down at our bid¬
ding. The bronchial tickling and the occasional cough
remind the over-sanguine consumptive of the fatuity of
his optimism. From the foundation of the government
until now there has been no interval of long duration when
the unwelcome issue of race has not forced itself on*public
thought and action. Just at a time when the South was
flattering itself that its provincial regime of political and
civic inequity had received the approval, or at least the
connivance of the nation, and when the North, being so
absorbed in economic exploitation, that its ear had grown
dull to the complaints of the Negro, you come forward
with the courage,—may I say without offense, with the
2
temerity—to lend the weight of your high authority to
renewed discussion of an issue which the people, if they
could, would gladly relegate to the realm of oblivion.
The motive which prompted this bold and courageous
utterance on your part has given rise to much speculation.
Some have been disposed to consider its timeliness with
reference to the Disarmament Conference: as a prelimi¬
nary pronouncement on the great issue of race which lies
in the background of the international gathering now sit¬
ting in the city of Washington. This conference is a re¬
sult of your statesmanship, and the world is looking with
anxious expectancy to its effect upon the world-wide ad¬
justment of nations and races. The race problem in
America casts a shadow of suspicion upon the claims of
democracy as the ideal form of government. A clear
clarion pronouncement on this subject, coming from the
highest authority in the nation, might well serve to allay
this feeling of doubt as to the sincerity and genuineness
of America's pretensions which the other nations have a
right to entertain. Your declaration has been construed
in some quarters as the answer which Great Britain and
the United States, the two branches of the Anglo-Saxon
race, have agreed to render in respect to Japan's demand
for racial equality. It has been suggested that you may
have been voicing the sentiment of the more intolerant
Teutonic element of the white race in its endeavor to
persuade the more liberal Latin element that the whiter
races must adopt this policy in dealing with the darker
ones.
On the other hand there are those who are inclined to
believe that your chief intention was to extend the influ-
3
ence of the Republican party in the Southern States which
has, hitherto, been reduced to a nullity by reason of the
race problem. In the last election the Republican party
carried the States of Maryland, West Virginia, Missouri,
Kentucky, Tennessee and Oklahoma. You would prob¬
ably have received the electoral vote of every State in the
Union if the race issue had not interfered. All genuine
effort to remove this question from politics must meet
with the approval of all right thinking American citizens.
However, the recent overwhelming defeat of the Repub¬
lican party in Virginia, which, it seems, anticipated much
of your platform, is not reassuring.
The sudden abortive ending of the Ku Klux Klan in¬
vestigation by the legislative and executive branches of
the government lends color to the suspicion of some that
your forthcoming deliverance would- be relied on to
squelch this nefarious organization, whose midnight
wizardry seeks darkness rather than light because its
deeds are evil.
It is not unreasonable to suppose that it was your pur¬
pose to lay down a comprehensive platform on which both
races can stand and work out, with mutual confidence and
cooperation, their common destiny. I am disposed to ac¬
cept this interpretation of your motive.
There is all but universal commendation of your moral
courage in injecting an unwelcome issue at so critical a
juncture of the world's affairs. It is only the intolerable
type of Southern opinion that questions either the wis¬
dom or propriety of your doing so. As a Republican,
elected mainly by Northern and Negro votes, you have
gone into the heart of what Mr. Bryan would call the
4
enemy's country, to reaffirm a doctrine which for two gen¬
erations the white people of that section have united in
oath-bound allegiance to combat. Every President of
the United States, since Abraham Lincoln, with a single
exception, has indulged in public declaration on the race
question. Mr. Wilson, who relied on the soothing balm of
pleasing phraseology to hold a restless world in poise, is
the only President who did not deign a single word on this
subject during his tenure of office. He probably felt that
any utterance which he could afford to give would be vio¬
lative of his declared principles of universal liberty and
equality, and, therefore, preferred to remain silent rather
than convict himself of illogicality and ethical inconsis¬
tency. The race issue was always shunted by his single-
track mind. It will not be regarded as ungracious to say
that he retires to private life with the unanimous approval
of the Negro race. The esteem of the despised and neg¬
lected may seem to be of little import to one who treads the
highway of world renown, but it is doubtful whether any
American statesman, whatever his achievements, can re¬
ceive the highest meed of permanent esteem if the least of
his fellow citizens justly have aught against him.
No President has spoken more clearly or with more
genuine sincerity or with more evident indication of good
will and generous spirit than that which characterizes
your Birmingham address. But, Mr. President, any doc¬
trine originated or adopted by one in high authority will
not be judged in the future by the intention of its author,
but by the meaning and significance inherent in the doc¬
trine itself. A slaveholder penned the Declaration of In¬
dependence, but the motto: "All men are created free
5
Since the foundation of the government no other Presi¬
dent has ever lent the authority of his great office to the
doctrine that the rights of American citizens should be
conditioned upon recognition of indelible difference of
race.
The fathers and founders of this republic, though
dealing with the Negro race, then relatively more numer¬
ous than now, and on a decidedly lower level of progress
and development, were scrupulously careful to exclude
from the organic law all suggestion of race distinction.
The federal administration should ever be kept true to the
ideal of democracy. The fountain head must be kept
pure, although the streams which flow from it may gather
impurities from its tributaries after leaving the original
source. A corrupt fountain cannot send forth a pure
stream.
The danger lurking in your platform, Mr. President,
lies in its essential illogicality. You have attempted to
derive a Northern conclusion from a Southern premise;
and in doing so you have satisfied neither the North, the
South, nor the Negro. The South accepts your premise,
but rejects your conclusion; the Negro accepts your con¬
clusion, but rejects your premise; while the North main¬
tains a hesitant and lukewarm attitude towards both.
Senator Watson of Georgia, and Senator Heflin of
Alabama, who typify the more radical Southern attitude,
as well as Senator Pat Harrison, who occupies a medium
position, were quick to retort that your conclusion would
at once destroy your premise, and, therefore, must be
rejected. The governor of Alabama, who presided at your
meeting, gave a courteous and cautious approval to your
8
address as a whole, but he will probably have to pay a
heavy political price when the day of reckoning comes
with the junior senator from that State.
From the Negro's point of view you have attempted
to build a superstructure of righteousness upon a fallar
cious foundation. Whatever the intention of the builder,
a house builded on sand will not stand when the rains fall
and the floods descend and beat upon it. If you write at
top of the page the declared and accepted doctrine of
"fundamental, inescapable and eternal differences of
race," it then makes no difference what you may write
underneath, the Negro would be degraded into an in¬
ferior caste which would render any form of equality im¬
possible. The Negro's claim to political and civil equality
does not rest upon any condition or concession, but grows
out of his inalienable right as a human being and his guar¬
anteed rights as an American citizen. When the 14th
amendment made the Negro a citizen, it was intended
that he should enjoy all of the benefits and fruitions of
citizenship. There was not the slightest suggestion or
intimation that he would be required or expected to as¬
sent to any assumption as a condition precedent to the en¬
joyment of his rights. These rights instead of being
stipulated upon the assumption of racial difference, were
affirmed "without regard to race or color." The Negro,
if he would, cannot barter away his rights, or hypothe¬
cate them upon the acceptance or rejection of any alleged
theory of difference of race. If both races should accept
or reject your platform, or if one race should accept and
the other reject it, in whole or in part, the rights of the
black man would be wholly unaffected by such agreement
or disagreement.
9
So far as I have observed, the white press of the South
has not in a single instance clearly and unequivocally
adopted your platform of political, economic and educa¬
tional equality for the Negro. But some of them, out of
considerations of courtesy, and through ambiguity of
language, and with evident mental reservation, have
given cautious quasi approval of your position. On the
other hand, the Negro press, in considerable proportion,
either condemns your doctrine of eternal racial difference
or ighores it in view of the hoped-for advantages to be
derived from equality of opportunity. Your words are
so much more pronounced and emphatic than any which
this generation is accustomed to hear, that the over-opti¬
mistic Negro is carried away with the enthusiasm of the
promise without stopping to consider the impossibility
of its fulfillment. But in no single instance have I seen
the Negro opinion which accepts in clear and unequivocal
terms the doctrine of "fundamental, inescapable and
eternal difference of race." Neither Major Moten nor
Marcus Garvey would avow a categorical acceptance of
this doctrine. Some are disposed to hope that the ad¬
vantages which are calculated to flow from political, eco¬
nomic and educational equality would justify present
silence, but not general acceptance of your premise.
Others, I feel, have deluded themselves with the hope that
if the conclusion be granted, the premise will speedily be
overlooked or forgotten. The general drift of opinion,
however, on part of the Negro press that has taken pains
to give careful thought and analysis to the question, is
that any form of equality will be impossible if your
hypothesis becomes generally accepted. The Negro would
10
thus sell his birthright for a mess of pottage, with no
assurance that he will receive the pottage.
President Roosevelt, in his celebrated letter to a South¬
ern publicist, declared that he would not shut the door of
hope in the Negro's face. Your policy, Mr. President,
contrary to your purpose would latch, lock and bolt it to
all eternity.
I am fully aware that you do not use the term "in¬
feriority" in this discussion. Race difference does not in
itself necessarily carry this connotation. There are
marginal dissimilarities in racial attributes and endow¬
ments. The German is more phlegmatic than the French¬
man, the Celt is more hysterical than the Teuton, the
peoples of Northern Europe show greater racial intoler¬
ance than those of Southern Europe. Italy has artistic
temperament different from that of England. The China¬
man is more stolid than the Japanese. The Negro pos¬
sesses patience, meekness, forgiveness of spirit which sur¬
passes that yet manifested by any other race. In the
sum total of racial endowment it is not a question of
equality, but of equivalence. These differences or dissimi¬
larities are doubtless the outgrowth of environment and
long continued custom and practice. I think that no
biologist or psychologist who has regard for his reputation
would care to venture the opinion that such differences
are inescapable and eternal.
Your words, Mr. President, were addressed to a
Southern audience, and must have conveyed to them the
meaning which they are accustomed to attach to such
phraseology. In the vocabulary of the South, race differ¬
ence means Negro inferiority. It would not be fair or
11
courteous to you to suppose that you would employ words
which would convey to your hearers strange and unusual
meaning. Nor can we for a moment suppose that you
intended that your words would convey one meaning to
the white man of the South and another to the Negro.
Your language, translated in terms of Southern interpre¬
tation and understanding simply means that the Negro
should be treated kindly so long as he is content to occupy
the place which God and nature have assigned him. The
man temporarily at the top is ever prone to set up fixed
barriers between himself and the man at the bottom. This
policy is as old as human oppression. But any insistence
beyond these fixed limits leads swiftly to the reaffirma¬
tion of the Taney dictum that the Negro has no rights
that the white man is bound to respect, but only restricted
privileges which he is generous enough to bestow.
You recite with approval the views of Mr. F. D.
Lugard set forth in the April number of the "Edinburgh
Review":
"Here then is the true conception of the inter-relation
of color—complete uniformity in ideals, absolute equality
in paths of knowledge and culture, equal opportunity for
those who strive, equal admiration for those who achieve;
in matters social and racial a separate path, each pur¬
suing his own inherited tradition, preserving his own
race purity and race pride; equality in things spiritual,
agreed divergence in the physical and material."
This conception is magnificent in theory, but un-
worked and unworkable in practice. It might conceiv¬
ably be applied to races of widely separated residential
boundaries like Japan and England, but is utterly im-
12
possible as a permanent solution where races are inex¬
tricably intermixed on the same territory. In the Ha¬
waiian Islands there exists today a conglomerate racial
situation composed of competing numbers of Europeans,
Japanese, Chinese and natives, with a sprinkling of the
Negro, together with various cross progenies. Such a
permanent outcome of this tangled situation as Mr.
Lugard proposes is but a beautiful dream.
One opinion in sociological matters suggests another.
Surely the position of Professor Franz Boas, of Colum¬
bia University, would be as convincing to Americans as
that of the author whom most American readers met
with for the first time in your citation. Writing in the
June number of the "Yale Review," Professor Boas
closes an illuminating article on "The Problem of the
American Negro" with these words:
"Thus, it would seem, that man being what he is, the
Negro problem will not disappear in America until the
Negro blood has been so diluted that it can no longer be
recognized, just as anti-Semitism, until the last vestige
of the Jew as a Jew has disappeared."
When doctors of equal learning disagree, the layman
is at liberty to accept the diagnosis of either, or reject
both.
You have taken for granted a doctrine of universal
importance without attempting to prove its accuracy or
even to argue its validity. Without intending to do so,
you have adopted the dogma of every pro-slavery advocate
and of every present day reactionary on the question of
human rights. On this point you are in perfect accord
with the late Senator Benjamin R. Tillman, and Mr.
13
Thomas Dixon, Jr., author of "The Clansman." This
unintentional agreement, I am sure, will prove an un¬
comfortable one. The question of essential difference of
race is one on which there are not sufficient scientific data
to base any conclusion of value. The few psychologic
tests already made are inconclusive.
On the other hand, the apostles of race prejudice
assert with self-assumed infallibility that the difference
of race is God-ordained, beyond a shadow of doubt or per-
adventure. These extemporaneous philosophers assume
omniscience without taking the pains to acquire intelli¬
gence. They take their cue from the cuticle. On sight of
color they seek no further proof. They assert without
proof and argue without reason. Mr. Thomas Dixon, Jr.,
the chief effect of whose works is to stir up racial strife
and ill-will, presents a fair specimen of the type of argu¬
ment relied upon to prove the everlasting inferiority of
the Negro. When the mind is already made up, confirma¬
tion is easy. Mr. Dixon's citations are hoary, his argu¬
ments trite and his rhetorical form of statement pre¬
scribed. Not a new fact or argument has been advanced
on this subject since the days of Calhoun.
President Lincoln, in the heat of political discussion,
in 1856, indulged in some general remark concerning the
social distinction of the races, which is the only utterance
from the Great Emancipator which Southern statesmen
recite with approval. It is indeed disappointing to find a
President of the United States at the end of the World
War for democracy reverting to the undemocratic doc¬
trine which has always been relied on to justify man's
inhumanity to man.
14
Sometime ago I wrote an open letter to Mr. Thomas
Dixon, Jr., in which I undertook to controvert the whole
fabric of his anti-Negro philosophy. I challenged him to
point out a single intellectual, moral or spiritual discrim¬
inant which distinguishes the two races. So far the chal¬
lenge remains unanswered. No reputable author has as
yet isolated it.
In the present inflamed state of public feeling the
question of social equality can be asserted only to be
assented to. Opinion on a given question is of value only
when the one who entertains it is equally free to espouse
the opposite conclusion. Even the President of the United
States could not discuss the question of social equality in
Alabama, unless it was understood beforehand that his
conclusion was in consonance with local sentiment. Ra¬
tional discussion on this issue serves only to inflame the
mind of its proponents.
"You may as well go reason with the wolf
Why he has made the ewe bleat for the lamb."
The Negro does not wish to agitate this issue, but only
asks that it be defined, so that he may understand the
range and scope of its operation. If the two races, from
instinct or from calculated reasons, prefer to group them¬
selves separately in all matters of personal and pleasur¬
able intercourse, neither would have the right or reason
to complain of the mutual exclusiveness. It is only be¬
cause the plea of social equality limits citizens in their
public and civil rights that the Negro utters the voice of
protest. The two races at present occupy separate social
spheres. Social prejudice, whether it be based on color,
race or religion, may be deep-seated and long abiding,
15
albeit not eternal. All peoples at times have recognized
and acted upon set schemes of social distinction by accept¬
ance, acquiescence and silence or by prudent complaisance
or compulsion. But one can hardly expect the debased
party to justify the grounds of his debasement. The
Negro finds himself in a segregated social world. He is
making the best he can of this situation. He is not
clamoring for so-called social equality, and would be
wholly unable to assert his claim even if he were clamor¬
ous. But surely it cannot be expected that the race
will meet in solemn conclave and affirm its belief in and
acceptance of "fundamental, inescapable and eternal
differences." This would justify the propaganda of the
Ku Klux Klan whose avowed purpose is to help the Al¬
mighty carry out his plan of everlasting white suprem¬
acy. Complaisant acquiescence on his part could not
mitigate the malignity of race prejudice, but would serve
to intensify it, if it be natural, and to justify it if it be
acquired.
You mention with approval Mr. Stoddard's book on
"The Rising Tide of Color." This book was under review
by Mr. Lugard when he proposed his platform of race
adjustment based on race distinction. Mr. Stoddard is
the apostle of the dominance of the white race by sheer
right of its color. His doctrine sounds the death knell
of democracy, Christianity and the brotherhood of man.
Idolatry of race is more vicious than idolatry of graven
images. Mr. Stoddard and all those of his persuasion
would do well to ponder the fundamental purpose of the
Second Commandment, "Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image or likeness—Thou shalt not bow down
16
thyself to them nor serve them." According to Mr. Stod¬
dard it is more important that the world should be white
than that it should be right. I wonder how this doctrine is
received by the Japanese, Chinese and Hindu representa¬
tives who are now sitting in the world conclave at Wash¬
ington. There is no attribute of the Almighty which is
understandable by the darker races of mankind which
dooms two-thirds of the human race to the everlasting
domination of the other third by virtue of the pigmenta¬
tion of the skin.
Mr. President, your platform conforms with consid¬
erable closeness to that of the late Henry W. Grady, the
oracle of the new South, and to that of Booker T. Wash¬
ington, the acknowledged race statesman of his day. Only
you go farther in both directions than either of these
cared to go. Mr. Grady was ready to give the Negro
every consideration consistent with the separateness and
superiority of the white race. He entertained certain
misgivings as to the eternal barrier of race and was frank
enough to declare that, if in his judgment natural an¬
tipathy were not enough to keep the races asunder he
would stimulate race prejudice in order that it might
acquire and hold the strength and stubbornness of in¬
stinct. Dr. Booker T. Washington, in his epoch-making
Atlanta address, proposed the familiar hand and finger
policy as a working hypothesis. But I find nowhere in
his teaching nor in his practice any recognition of a
"fundamental, inescapable and eternal difference of
race."
Your doctrine of eternal difference is contrary to the
scientific, ethical and social tendencies of the age. The
17
human race is moving toward unity, not diversity. The
ancient barriers of caste, religion and race are being
thrown down by the onward sweep of cosmic forces. The
varieties of gifts, talents and attainments of different
individuals, races and nations of mankind are easily
interchangeable and modifiable by contact and culture.
The rapid means of communication and transmission of
intelligence are bringing the ends of the earth into mo¬
mentary touch. No longer can any race or nation expect
to hold its peculiar culture in airtight compartments.
You and I, Mr. President, are about the same age. It
is a reasonable hope and expectation that we shall both
live to see the time when aerial communication between
Tokio and New York will be as expeditious as land com¬
munication is at present between Washington and Chi¬
cago. Where people meet and mingle, differences dis¬
appear and unsuspected likenesses are revealed. The
culture of mankind flows from the higher to the lower
levels and tends, with increasing facility, to cover the
earth as the waters cover the sea.
Your audience must have received your remarks about
the impossibility of amalgamation with a measure of
amusement mixed with amazement. A glance over the
colored section of your audience would have convinced
you that amalgamation is not a theory, but a fact. No dis¬
cerning eye was keen enough to tell where the white strain
left off and the Negro began. In face of these stubborn
facts, your statement is hard to understand. According
to the 13th Census, there were over 2,000,000 mulattoes
in the United States. This albescent contingency of the
Negro race was not produced by the semi-tropical climate
18
of the Southland, as Southern white men know full well.
No wonder your audience received this deliverance in
silence. It is idle for white men to prate about race
purity while they practice race promiscuity. There is
need of plain speaking on this point. It is needless to
blink the facts, if I may be permitted to use your own
expression, or, like the ostrich, to engage in complacent
self-deception. The white man has never failed to min¬
gle his blood with the darker races wherever he has met
them in all the ends of the earth. According to President
Roosevelt, Brazilian statesmen are convinced that their
method of benevolent amalgamation is a more effective
solvent of the race problem than the Anglo-Saxon policy
of social segregation. In South Africa a million and a
half Europeans have already produced one-half their
number of mulattoes. The production of this composite
progeny constitutes an important factor in the solution
of the race problem not only in the United States of
America, but throughout the world.
Several years ago I appeared before the House Com¬
mittee to oppose a bill then pending forbidding inter¬
marriage of whites and Negroes in the District of Colum¬
bia. I find that my words used then are pertinent now:
"If you let people alone, of their own motion they do
not usually amalgamate. The Jew will marry a Jew,
the Italian an Italian, the Englishman will marry an
English woman. This is so in the natural course of
things. Amalgamation of races is a slow and long pro¬
cess when you leave people alone. If you want to forbid
intermarriage of races you must have in mind this funda¬
mental principle. It makes no fundamental difference in
19
the long run whether races are amalgamated legitimately
or illegitimately. Students of history know that at one
time in England there were two distinct peoples, the Nor¬
mans and the Saxons, who finally became amalgamated
very largely through the illegitimate process. But, after a
few generations, when the social stigma had passed away,
it made no difference. The social stigma of the father is
visited on the children only to the third and fourth gen¬
erations. For instance, the chairman of our delegation,
though a colored man, is as white inside and outside as
any member of Congress. If he chooses to change his
name and residence and to practice a little deception
he could easily become a part of the white race. What
he could do is only what 200,000 others could do in like
situation." If God or nature had intended any indelible
difference between the races, He could easily have ac¬
complished the purpose by making them immiscible. It
requires great human audacity to reenact laws of the
Almighty, to say nothing of enacting laws for the
Almighty.
You urge the Negro not to imitate the white man, but
to set up his own racial ideals. The American Negro has
acquired the European's consciousness and put on his
spiritual clothes. He uses the same language, reads the
same books, admires the same art, understands the same
science, accepts the same standard of ethics and prac¬
tices the same religion. When he builds a house or buys
a suit of clothes or preaches a sermon or writes a poem,
he must proceed along European lines. Whatever racial
aims or ideals he might have developed if left .in his
native country have been destroyed by transplantation
20
and by imitation of his captors. Fred Douglass used to
say "there is none of the banana in me." It is no par¬
ticular compliment to the white man that the Negro
imitates him. The human race is ever prone to imitate
admirable qualities wherever they appear. It is not
color or racial indiosyncrasy that are imitated, but at¬
tainment, of which the color may be a negligible accom¬
paniment. The Anglo-Saxon professes to imitate Jesus,
Saviour of the World, although he may affect to despise
the idiosyncrasies and race peculiarities of the Jew. It
is not the race, but the ideal manifested by the individual.
As in the water face answers to face, so the heart of man
to the heart of man. The external incidents of race and
color count absolutely for naught. Because the Negro's
forefathers travelled in the dugout, there is no reason
why his descendants may not use the steamship, the rail¬
way and the airplane. Whatever divergencies there
may be in racial gifts and qualities serve but as the spice
of variety. It would be a curious philosophy that urged
the Indian to put aside his ancestral and tribal ways and
yet encourage the Negro to revert to his African customs
and traditions.
If I may be permitted to revert again to the de-
racialized millions of mixed - breed, whose ethnic
identity the white man has made doubtful, it would be
interesting to know what traditions and racial ideals
they should be encouraged to develop. Your advice to
the Negroes on this point, Mr. President, though given
with a generous purpose and kindly intent, is necessarily
void of effect. No one can effectively advise another to
be different from himself or to be content with anything
21
guide a street car which moves along fixed grooves. This
single citation is sufficient to show that you cannot have
democracy in industry as long as you recognize inescap¬
able difference of race.
In conclusion, Mr. President, you have called the
nations of the earth together to promote peace and good
will among men. Whatever adjustments immediate
exigencies may require, whatever concessions weakness
may be forced to make at the behest of strength, the
weaker and darker races will not shut the door of hope
in their own faces by accepting the doctrine of "funda¬
mental, inescapable, and eternal difference" among the
members of the human race.
The Negro has given his labor and his life to build
up American civilization. He is willing to cooperate
with his white fellow citizens in all constructive ways
for the common weal. He accepts without complaint the
temporary humiliation of an inferior position. But he
believes that God Almighty has ordained America as the
trial ground of democracy where among all men there
shall prevail equality with the T dotted and the (V crossed.
Yours truly,
KELLY MILLER.
29 November, 1921.
24
. s
Kelly Millee
The Disgrace of Democracy 15 cents
Booker T. Washington Five Years After 25 centd
austin jenkins company,
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