AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NFW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO LALLAS ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE America s Code of Caste A Disgrace to Democracy BY KELLY MILLER Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences of Howard University, Washington WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ALBERT BUSHNELL HART THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1920 All rights reserved E tot COPYBIOHT, 1918 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and elcctrotyped. Published June, 1918. TO RIGHT MINDED AMERICA S101S8 "Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civil slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good." INTRODUCTION PROFESSOR MILLER raises in this book the question to which a solution has never yet been found. How is it pos sible to reconcile in the United States., of America a system of discrimina tions against a race which counts a tenth of the population, with the great national principles of equality of op portunity and civil and political rights for the remaining nine-tenths? The most candid and sympathetic reader may therefore find some of the au thor s positions out of focus with previous observations. For instance, while cordially appreciating the work and its spirit, it is not essential to ac-, cept the author s dictum that "a physi cal and spiritual identity of all peoples occupying common territory is a log ical necessity of thought." The book is written with excellent temper and INTRODUCTION an admission of difficulties which are very deep seated if not irremovable. The main thesis is a protest against the application of one standard to black men and another to white men. That such a discrimination exists is clear, and the evil consequences are well set forth. The chapter on Lawlessness is a just though spirited protest against lynching, an offence which does the white race ten times as much harm as the negroes, for it brutalizes the law- making and law-applying section of the population. It thrusts down the white farmer or townsman or working- man to a level below that of the worst negro criminal, because the lyncher glories in his crime. The chapter on Segregation exposes the brutality and uselessness of Jim Crow Laws and might go further by pointing out that there is never any segregation of ne gro purchasers who have the money to buy from white salesmen and store keepers. INTRODUCTION The main thesis is summed up in the chapter on Righteousness. Professor Miller does not in the least deny that the presence of the two races side by side brings difficulties and jealousies for which neither side is primarily re sponsible. What he does insist upon is that the principles of justice, im partiality and fair dealing, the rela tion of morals to conduct, rightly ap ply as much to men of negro blood as to other races, and should especially be observed by the whites in relation to the negroes. It all goes back to Emerson s great saying, "If I put a chain upon a slave, I fix the other end around my own neck." The book is a powerful appeal to the dominant race to protect itself by a fair treat ment of the unorganized race. As the author puts it, "Prosperity will take no pride in the deeds of this day which deprive the humblest citizen of his human rights in order that others may enjoy a larger measure of easement." Kelly Miller is a disputant of proof. INTRODUCTION It is not necessary to agree with every thing he says in order to find common ground. Some arguments and some illustrations might be left out without weakening his case. The merit of the book is its vigorous and well stated appeal to reason, a call for a just ap plication of the moral principles of which America is proud. It is a log ical, human, reasonable appeal to the doctrines of Christianity and of democracy, of which the nation is so proud. Its motto might well be "Physician heal thyself." ALBERT BUSHNELL HART. CONTENTS PAGE RACE CONTACT 13 LAWLESSNESS ....... 29 SEGREGATION 52 NEGRO PATRIOTISM AND DEVOTION . 68 RIGHTEOUSNESS 87 AN APPEAL TO CON SCIENCE CHAPTER I RACE CONTACT THE contact^ Adjustment and attri tion of the various races of mankind constitute the gravest pirohJerr/ of mod ern civilization. This problem is not limited by local or national bounda ries; is not confined to continental or hemispheric divisions of the earth s surface; but is world wide in its scope and operation. The conflict of races is the dominating problem of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, North and South America, and the scattered is lands of the seas. The political and [13] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE economic issues which now threaten disruption of the foundation of social order, on deeper analysis, will be found to have their root in the deeper issue of race. In the United States we have but an infinitesimal fraction of the universal race problem; and yet, the American Negro problem presents certain unique and peculiar features which cause the students of social subjects to bestow upon it a degree of attention accorded to no other point of race contact throughout the -globe. Among these peculiar features may be mentioned: (1); In; the: United ;Sj:ate& we have the most gigantic instance in history where the weaker race has been brought into the territory of the stronger as a serv ile element. The stronger race usu ally overruns the territory of the weaker, reduces it to subjection, and imposes upon the subdued people its lordly regime. (2) The Negro and the European represent widely diverg ent ethnic types. The experiment cf [14] RACE CONTACT adjusting markedly different races on terms of equality, under democratic institutions, is here being tried for the first time in the history of race re lationship. The weaker element is greatly outnumbered by the stronger, and is unevenly distributed over the geographical area. The numerical inferiority of the Negro renders his presence less menaceful in the judg ment of the more populous and more powerful race; while his segregation in the South produces a state of un balanced pressure of public sentiment concerning his place and part in the general political and social scheme. The traditional attitude of the North and the South grows out of this un- evenness of numerical distribution. The United States thus becomes the world s most interesting laboratory for working out the intricate issues of race adjustment. Well might the social philosopher observe with keenest in terest this tremendous experiment; for, if this experiment succeeds, it will [15] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE furnish a sure criterion for the solu tion of the various race problems which are coterminous with the ends of the earth. Voltaire, the famous French philos opher, states that it is more difficult and more meritorious to civilize the barbarian than it is to wean men from their prejudices. Here we have the dual nature of the race problem ex pressed in the clear terms of a French aphorism. How can the white race be freed of prejudice while the Negro is being lifted to the level of surround ing civilization? Either of these problems is sufficient to tax human in genuity. But when we roll the two into one, the world stands bewildered at the task. To add to its bewilder ment, these two features seem to be incompatible, the one with the other. /The more progressive and ambitious f the Negro becomes, the less tolerable he seems to be to his white lord and - master. The good old Negro slave who was ever faithful and loyal to the [16] RACE CONTACT welfare of his lord and master was always acceptable to him. But his more ambitious son, with a college di ploma in his knapsack, is persona non grata. The Negro coachman can drive his white master to the depot, sit ting side by side and cheek by jowl, with complaisant satisfaction; but a different situation is created should they become joint occupants of a settee in a railway coach, where each pays his own fare and rides on terms of equality. The attitude of the white race to- wards the Negro must be accounted for in the light of the origin of their relationship. The Negro was brought to this country for the purpose of performing manual and menial labor. No more account was taken of his higher susceptibilities than of the higher faculties of the lower animals. His function was supposed to be as purely mechanical as that of the ox who pulls the plough. There was no more thought of incorporating him [17] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE into the body social than of thus en nobling the beasts of burden. The institution of slavery made no requi sition upon the higher human facul ties of the Negro, and, consequently, its philosophers denied their existence. Those who assumed not only the good ness, but also the piety of their day and generation, at one time stoutly denied that the Negro possessed a soul to be saved; and he was, therefore, refused the rite of Christian baptism. And then the wise ones declared that he did not possess an intellect that could be enlightened after the Euro pean formulas. They said that the Negro s skull was too thick to learn, and, in order to make the prediction work out its own fulfilment, they forth with passed laws forbidding the at tempt. What nature decreed he could not do, man declared he should not try. It is always an indication of uncertainty of thought and disquietude of con science when men begin to re-enact the laws of the Almighty. The institu- [18] RACE CONTACT tion of African slavery sought to ex ploit the Negro s utility as a tool, in utter disregard of his higher human qualities. The Negro has had to fight his way upward from this low level of valuation of his animal and mechan ical powers to a just appraisement of his intellectual, moral and spiritual endowments which differentiate him from the brute creation. The one clear ray of hope of the ultimate satis factory adjustment of the races is seen in the fuller degree of recognition which the unfolding human faculties of the Negro command from an unwill ing world. The superiority of the black man s spiritual endowment is now universally conceded. Whether or not his skull is less thick than for merly, no one now affects to doubt his ability to learn, except those who themselves need to be pitied for their incapacity to grasp the truth. On final analysis, it will be found that it is not flesh and blood, but intellectual, moral and spiritual qualities that con- [19] AN APPEAL 70 CONSCIENCE stitute the controlling factor in human relationship. The earlier philosophers of Negro subordination maintained, with infal lible dogma, that the Negro was in herently and unalterably inferior in human qualities as a part of God s cosmic scheme of things. This in feriority of nature was assumed to be ample justification for all the treat ment which was bestowed upon him. But the progress of events plays havoc with preconceived notions. Inferior ity and superiority are relative and temporary terms. The rapidly devel oping powers and faculties of the Negro are making all but the infallible sceptical concerning the basis of their philosophy. It is interesting to note how these philosophers of Negro sub ordination have been compelled to shift from one discredited theory to an other, like a frightened bird that flut ters and flits from twig to twig, as they bend and break beneath its tremulous weight. There seems to be a touch [20] RACE CONTACT of primeval jealousy which is always fearful of the under man, lest he stretch forth his hand and partake of the tree of civilization and eat and live and become as one of us. The fear is well founded. It is only a comprehensive knowledge of human welfare that frees us from fear. Those who reason thus tell us that this is a white man s civilization. Be cause the Negro has no clearly trace able historical connection with this civilization, they tell us that it is none of his. But they forget the moral of that Scripture parable in which the la borer coming into the vineyard at the eleventh hour was received in terms of compensatory equality with those who had borne the heat and burden of the day. Other men have labored, and we have entered into their labors. The white race today is in the fore front of the civilized movements of the world. They are the trustees of civi lization, and, if true to their trust, it must be administered not only for the [21] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE welfare of their own breed after the flesh, but for all of the sons and daughters of men. Like all of the higher values of life, civilization will die unless it is propagated among all /who are capable of embracing it. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare has stated the self-enlarging law of human affection the more I give, the more I have. Universal law is reversible; it is as true when stated backward as when stated forward. The less of the higher values we give, the less we have. If an individual tries to keep his religion to himself, he will soon have no religion. And so it is with the higher form of civilization and culture. The attitude of the white mind to wards the Negro is understandable in the light of the former relationship of master and slave. The normal hu man attitude is conservative and re sents alteration and change. We do not like to see our erstwhile inferior assume equality. It is expecting, per- [22] RACE CONTACT haps, too much of human nature, to suppose that the southern white man would accept with satisfaction of feel ing a sudden transformation of the slave into the freeman, or of a former inferior into an equal. We must await the propitiating element of time to assuage the animosities and bias of mind engendered by ages of asserted and accepted dogma. To bolster up the cherished dogma, it is declared that race prejudice is a natural antipathy, and, therefore, is not subject to regulation and control. Henry W. Grady, not only the mouth piece, but the oracle of the South, de clared in one of his deliverances, that he believed that natural instinct would hold the races asunder, but, if such instinct did not exist, he would strengthen race prejudice so as to make it hold the stubbornness and strength of instinct. Analysis of the nature and theory of race prejudice would lead too far into the realm of philosophic speculation for the pur- [23] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE poses of the present undertaking. It is sufficient to say, however, that the criterion of an instinctive characteris tic is tested by its modifiability. A quality that is easily modified is not considered the product of heredity, but the acquisition of environment. Race prejudice is stronger on the part of the white race in Richmond, Virginia, than it is in Boston, Massa chusetts. It is stronger in the United States today than it was a generation ago. It is immeasurably stronger in the adult than in the child. Its mani festations on the part of the same in dividual, under the same stimulus, varies with time, place and circum stances. The Civil War suddenly raised the thermometer of public feel ing to such a degree that it seemed, for a time, that, on the part of many in dividuals, race prejudice would be wiped out altogether. The intensity of race feeling is proportionate to the number of Negroes in the community. Race prejudice takes on a different [24] RACE CONTACT form of manifestation in communities where slavery once existed and in those communities where it did not prevail. If race antipathy is a nat ural endowment, it would, necessarily, be reciprocal in its operation. It is not claimed that it asserts itself on the part of the Negro against the white man, but always in the opposite direc tion. It is sometimes asserted that the Negro seeks unwarranted associa tion with the white race, in preference to his own blood relation. If true, this assertion would destroy the foun dation upon which belief in innate race antagonism rests. It shows that the desire for contact with superior attainment early nullifies whatever stubbornness and strength the assumed antipathy of race may possess. And thus, in various ways, it is clearly manifest that the feeling which we call race prejudice is profoundly modifi able by time, circumstance and condi tion. It is equally clear that what ever inherency it may possess, it is [25] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE sufficiently controllable to permit the Negro to enjoy the full and free exer cise of his rights and prerogatives as a citizen in a democratic republic. We may as well dismiss without ar gument the various theories of the out come of race contact as being inappli cable to the present situation. It is merely necessary to mention exter mination and expulsion to prove their self-absurdity. Absorption of the Ne gro by the white race is too remote to be considered as a practicable propo sition. I may be permitted to repeat here what I have said elsewhere: "It must be taken for granted in the final outcome of things that the color line will be wholly obliterated. While blood may be thicker than water, it does not possess the spissi- tude or inherency of everlasting prin ciple. The brotherhood of man is more fundamental than the fellowship of race. A physical and spiritual identity of all peoples occupying com mon territory is a logical necessity of [26] RACE CONTACT thought. The clear seeing mind re fuses to yield or give its assent to any other ultimate conclusion. This con summation, however, is far too re moved from the sphere of present probability to have decisive influence upon practical procedure. It runs parallel with the prophecy that every valley shall be exalted and every hill shall be brought low. This is a phys ical necessity. Under the continuing law of gravitation, every stream that trickles down the mountain side, every downpour of rain, and every passing gust of wind removes infinite particles and shifts them from a higher to a lower level. This tendency to lower the one and lift the other will continue everlastingly until equality has been established as the final condition of stable equilibrium. In the meantime, however, the human race must adjust itself to the existence of mountain and valley as a lasting, if not everlasting, reality. Likewise, perpetual attrition of races must ultimately wear away all [27] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE distinction and result in a universal blend. But the approximation of this goal is too slow and imperceptible to have any effect upon the present plan of race adjustment. We are con cerned with persistent, stubborn reali ties which we have the power neither to influence nor affect, and must deal with conditions as they are in our day and generation, and not as we may vainly or vaguely imagine them in the ages yet to be." . . . The two races will continue to exist side by side. They are linked to a common destiny of good or evil and their relations should be characterized by amity rather than by enmity. The Negro appeals to the white race in the language of Ruth to Naomi: "Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried." [28] CHAPTER II LAWLESSNESS THE spirit of lawlessness against the Negro culminates in the practice of lynching. The whole civilized world is frequently shocked at the horrible lynchings of human beings such as took place at Waco, Memphis and East St. Louis. These horrible happenings are but eruptive symptoms of the race problem which break forth ever and anon with Vesuvian violence. These periodic outbreaks of lawlessness are but the outgrowth of the disfavor and despite in which the Negro is held by public opinion. During the past thirty years nearly three thousand Ne groes have been lynched in various parts of the country. Scores have been burned alive at the stake. Even [29] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE the bodies of women have been fed to the flames. Thousands of localities in various parts of the Union have ex perienced these outrages. A map of the United States with these localities indicated in blood spots would be a gruesome spectacle indeed. Our fair land of liberty is blotted over with these blood spots which cannot be washed out by all the waters of the ocean. It is not easy to calculate the total number of persons who have been involved in these lynchings, either as active participants, or as acquiescent lookers-on, every one of whom is a potential murderer, with the same guilt of Conscience which Paul imparted to himself when he con sented unto the death of Stephen. So general and widespread has become the practice that lynching may well be characterized as a national institution, to the eternal shame and disgrace of the land of the free and the home of the brave. The practice of lynching is not in- [30] LAWLESSNESS fluenced by the ascendancy of any po litical party. It prevailed with equal freedom under the administration of Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson. These American statesmen have all ex pressed their abhorrence of the prac tice, but have declared their impotence to deal with the evil. During the ad ministration of President McKinley the riot in Wilmington, North Caro lina, occurred. A horrible lynching took place in Alexandria, a few miles from the White House, which the Pres ident might have observed through his field glasses. The Atlanta riot oc curred under the administration of President Roosevelt, the one great American who has an all-consuming passion for righteousness. But he was impotent to remedy by reason of the theory of government. The au thor had the privilege of introducing President Taft, who addressed the Alumni Association of Howard Uni versity on the subject of lynching. [31] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE He denounced the practice with all the ardor and indignation of his high- minded and generous nature, but there was not the slightest suggestion of an effective remedy through federal agency. Under the present adminis tration, the burning at Waco, the au tomobile mob at Memphis, and the horrible outbreak at East St. Louis are still fresh in our memory, and have only been met with an expression of impotent regret. Grover Cleve land, with robust and untrammelled American spirit, was disposed to in voke the federal machinery to sup press local lawlessness, beyond any other President before or since his time. We can hardly take up a daily newspaper without seeing startling headlines about Negroes lynched or burned at the stake. At first, it shocked and horrified the conscience, but according to the law of psychic economy, the public conscience has be come so accustomed to these horrors [32] LAWLESSNESS / as to be no longer shocked at their recurrence. I remember to have read in a great journal the description of a / lynching in which it was stated that the victim was lynched, but that no cruelty was perpetrated. In truth and in deed, "Vice is a monster of such frightful mien, That to be hated, needs but to be seen; Yet seen so oft, familiar to our face, We first endure . . . then pity . . . then embrace." The nation has allowed itself to be come so accustomed to lynching that it has accepted it with complaisant tol eration. The nation s conscience has become sere, and responds but feebly to the quickening power of moral ap peal. Lynching is not limited to the south ern states, although it occurs more fre quently there than elsewhere because of the relatively larger number of Negroes in the total population. There have been lynchings and burn- [33] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE ings in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Colorado, Kansas and other northern and western states. The evil is indeed national in range and scope. Striking, indeed, is the analogy be tween the spread of lawlessness today and the spread of slavery two genera tions ago. Like slavery, lynching and lawlessness cannot be localized. Neither the evil nor the virtue of the nation can be held in airtight com partments, separating state from state, or section from section. As the nation could not exist half slave and half free under Abraham Lincoln a half century ago, so it cannot exist half law-abiding and half lawless today. The evil always tends to obscure the good, just as the darker phase over laps the brighter in the waning moon. If the Negro is lynched in the South with impunity, he will soon be lynched in the North; so easy is the commu- nicability of evil suggestion. The lynching of Negroes has become f ash- [34] LAWLESSNESS ionable in some parts of the country, and is rapidly becoming fashionable in the nation at large. When a black man is accused of wrongdoing, , "Lynch the Negro!" is the cry that springs spontaneously to the lips of man, woman and child. "Rape means rope," says the sententious Sam Jones. But the unlegalized rope has been the badge of ignominious death on the part of the black man only ; just as the cross was the symbol of igno miny to be inflicted only on those who were not Roman citizens. If the in stitution of human slavery could have been separated and isolated in the South, it doubtless would have had a much longer lease of life. The Free Soil party sprang into existence not as a means of exterminating slavery, but for the purpose of keeping it out of the uncontaminated territory. But there could be no free soil in America unless all the soil were free. If lynching could be localized, the nation as a whole would have less pretext [35] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE for interfering. But this cannot be done. Senator Tombs of Georgia boasted that he would call the roll of his slaves under the shadow of the Bunker Hill monument, an ambition which, doubtless, might have been gratified had not the nation arisen in its moral might and blotted out the in iquitous institution altogether. And so the Negro may yet be lynched, not only under the shadow of the Bunker Hill monument, but under the dome of the Capitol itself, unless the nation puts an effective stop to the evil prac tice. Lynching cannot be confined to the Negro race. Hundreds of white men have been made the victims of sum mary violence. Although the Negro is at present the chief victim of lawless ness, yet, like any other disease, it cannot be limited by racial lines. The Jewish race has been made to feel the sting of race prejudice, culminat ing in the lynching of Leo Frank in Georgia, arousing the resentment of [36] LAWLESSNESS \ all Jewry at the deep damnation of his taking off. Italians were lynched in Louisiana, almost precipitating inter national controversy. It is needless to attempt to place the blame on the helpless Negro. In the early stages of these outbreaks there was an attempt to fix an evil and lech erous reputation on the Negro as lying at the basis of lynching and lawless ness. Statistics most clearly refute this contention. The great majority of the outbreaks cannot even allege rapeful assault in extenuation. It is undoubtedly true that there are im- bruited and lawless members of the Negro race, as there are of the white race, capable of committing any out rageous and hideous offence. The Negro possesses the imperfections of his status. As long as the race is held in general despite, just so long will it produce a disproportionate number of imperfect individuals of evil propen sity. There are millions of Negroes who, like Topsy, "just growed." [37] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE They have missed the beneficent influ ence of home, school, church and so ciety and cannot but show a lack of moral quality. It is folly to suppose that the neglected Negro, without the reinforcement of heredity, ennobling environment or formal education, will measure up to the highest standard of moral accountability. The white child with the advantage of heredity and environment must have his facul ties carefully trained to meet the re quirements of civilization. The Negro is susceptible to the ordinary influ ences that ennoble or degrade human ity. To relegate the Negro to a status that encourages the baser instincts, and then denounce him because he does not stand forth as a model of perfection, is of the same order of ironical cruelty as shown by the bar barous Teutons in Shakespeare s Titus Andronicus who cut off the hands and hacked out the tongue of the lovely Lavinia, and then upbraided her for not calling for perfumed water to [38] LAWLESSNESS wash her delicate hands. The Negro is neither angelic nor diabolical, but merely human, exemplifying the vir tues and vices which belong to the status which he has been forced to occupy. The Negro should be encouraged in all right directions to develop his best manly and human qualities. Who will say that he does not respond to humane treatment? The Negroes who have had the proper influences brought to bear upon their lives show as high a degree of conduct and manly de meanor as any other element of our population. When the black man de viates from the recognized standards of conduct he should be punished by due process of law, no whit augmented or abated because of his race identity. It is a fatuous philosophy that would resort to cruel and unusual punish ment as a deterrent of crime. Lynch ing never made one Negro virtuous, nor implanted the seeds of right doing in the heart of any human being. On [39] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE the other hand, it has lowered the sen sitiveness of the conscience of the white race, and has damaged the moral reputation of the nation. Lecherous assault cannot be proved to be an innate characteristic of the Negro. The practice is not uncom mon among all civilized nations. The United States military authorities have recently hanged an American sol dier in France for rapeful assault and murder. Violation of feminine chas tity meets with as condign punishment in Africa as in civilized lands. Dur ing the days of slavery it was unheard of. In the midst of the Civil War, when the white men of the South left their fortunes and their families in the keeping of the black man whose chains they were endeavoring to tighten on the field of battle, he returned invio late all that was committed to his care. In the West Indies, and, indeed, in the entire world range of race contact, this charge is not lodged as a peculiar characteristic of the Negro race. [40] LAWLESSNESS The contact, adjustment and attri tion of the various races of mankind constitute a problem which is cotermin ous with the ends of the earth. The lighter and stronger breeds of men are coming in contact with the darker and weaker ones. How does it happen that in the United States alone of all civil ized lands, these atrocious outrages are heaped upon the helpless Negro? No other helpless people anywhere in the world have been made the victims of such lawlessness and outrage. The English nation has had the largest co lonial experience and success of any peoples since the destruction of the Roman empire, and has come into re lationship with the various weaker breeds of men in all parts of the world. But lynching never prevails under the British flag. In the West Indies, where the Negroes outnumber the whites 20 to 1, the word has not yet found place in the local vocabu lary. In Brazil and other South American states, which are involved [41] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE in a more complex racial situation than that in the United States of Amer ica, racial peace and good will pre vail, and racial prejudice and passion are controlled and held in restraint. The United States enjoys the evil dis tinction, among civilized nations of the earth, of taking delight in the mur der and burning of human beings. Nowhere else do men, women and children dance with ghoulish glee and fight for ghastly souvenirs of human flesh and mock the dying groans of the helpless victim, which sicken the air, while the flickering flames of the fu nereal pyre lighten the midnight sky with their dismal glare. The blood of the Negro cries from the ground unto the conscience of the nation. The evil is, indeed, national. So must the remedy be. It is but hollow mockery of the Negro, when he is beaten and bruised and burned in all parts of the nation, and flees to the na tional government for asylum, to be denied relief on the ground of doubt- [42] LAWLESSNESS ful jurisdiction. The black man asks for justice and is given a theory of government. He asks for protection and is confronted with a scheme of governmental checks and balances. If democracy cannot control lawless ness, then democracy must be pro nounced a failure. The old adage still holds true: "For forms of government let fools con test Whatever s best administered is best." The nations of the world have a right to demand of us the working out in their integrity of our institutions at home before they are promulgated abroad. The outrages of which the Belgians so deeply and so justly com plain are but merciful performances by gruesome comparison with these daily inflictions upon the American Negro. Our frantic wail against the barbarity of Turk upon Armenian, Russian against Jew, German against Belgian, are belied and made of no [43] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE effect. It cannot be said that these outbreaks are but the spontaneous ebullitions of popular feeling, without governmental sanction or approval. They occur all over the nation and give it an evil reputation in the eyes of the world. Sins of permission are as reprehensible as sins of commis sion. A nation that permits evil prac tices to go unchecked and hides be hind a theory of government is as rep rehensible in the eyes of the world as the nation that assumes responsibility for them. A few years ago a Turkish ambas sador became persona non grata to the government for calling attention to the moral inconsistency of the United States in denouncing the outrages per petrated by Turks upon Armenians, while condoning or ignoring those committed by whites upon blacks. The nation is compelled, in a spirit of humility, to accept the reproach which the world hurls into our teeth: "Thou hypocrite, first cast the beam out of [44] LAWLESSNESS thine own eye ; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother s eye." Every high-minded American must be touched with a tinge of shame when he contemplates that the rallying cry of the land of the free and the home of the brave is made a delusion and a snare by rea son of racial barbarities. The world is at war with the Teutonic powers be cause the German government openly declared an international treaty to be a mere scrap of paper. But, long be fore this avowed declaration, the Four teenth and Fifteenth Amendments the vital parts of the Constitution of the United States were made scraps of paper by the practice and condona tion of the American people. An outspoken governor of one of the states of the Union was widely de nounced throughout the length and breadth of the land for saying: "To hell with the Constitution where the race issue is involved!" It was not the substance, but the unceremonial [45] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE and explosive form of the utterance that evoked popular condonation. The nation cannot face its own con duct. It accepts the fact, but shrinks from the phrase. It, therefore, must blot out lynching and lawlessness in order to safeguard its moral reputa tion. At Houston, Texas, a group of Ne gro soldiers, goaded to desperation by reflex racial passion, inflicted a heavy toll of fatality upon the whites, revers ing the usual order of perpetrator and victim. The white race, accustomed to centuries of self-restraint and social control, swiftly overrides the exactions of civil and divine law in reaction to the virus of race passion. The Negro, in turn, made delirious by the same passion, overleaped the rigors of mil itary discipline. The American conscience has been touched and quickened by the East St. Louis and Houston outbreaks as it has never been before. Press and pulpit have tried to forget these outrages. [46] LAWLESSNESS At each fresh outbreak they would lash themselves into a spasm of virtue and exhaust the entire vocabulary of denunciation, but, forthwith, would lapse into sudden silence and acquies cent guilt. By some fatuous delusion they seem to think that the atrocities of Springfield, Wilmington, Waco, At lanta, Memphis and a thousand other places of evil report would never be repeated, nor the memory rise up to condemn the nation. But silence and neglect merely result in compounding atrocities. The East St. Louis and Houston occurrences convinced the na tion, as it has never been convinced before, that the time for action has come. The press is not content with a single editorial ebullition, but, by repeated utterances, insists that the na tion shall deal with its most malignant domestic evil. Reproach is cast upon the American contention for the de mocratization of the world in face of its lamentable failure at home. Ex- President Roosevelt has openly pro- [47] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE claimed, in a dramatic declaration, that these outbreaks make our moral propaganda for the liberation of man kind but a delusion and a snare. Can this nation hope to live and to grow in favor with God and man on the basis of a lie? A nation with a stultified conscience is a nation with stunted power. Experience shows that there can be no effective reform of widespread evil by local or state authority. Slavery, long regarded as a local institution, could be destroyed only by the firm hand of the national government. Polygamy, traffic in vice, the white slave trade, prohibition, peonage and the divorce evil cannot be controlled by state action, but must be wiped out by an all-embracing federal law. Lawlessness and lynching are more in sidious and widespread than any other national evils. They ramify through out the entire nation, flourishing more abundantly in some sections and lo calities under fostering local condi- [48] LAWLESSNESS tions. This evil taints the national character and cries loudly for na tional remedy. In time of war it is necessary to centralize authority in the hands of the federal government. The Presi dent, in the midst of the world war, has been given all but dictatorial powers. It is necessary to resort to autocratic methods in order to destroy hated autocracy. The federal gov ernment controls our common carriers and dictates what we shall eat and what we shall drink and what we shall or shall not say. All of this is justi fied on the basis of military necessity. But ample means to blot out lawless ness would be justified on the ground of moral necessity. The United States has the largest percentage of murders and homicides, and the lowest average of legal execu tions, of any nation on the face of the earth. Ex-President Taft, in a notable address before the Civic Fo rum of New York City in 1908, stated [49] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE that there had been 131,951 murders and homicides in the United States since 1885, and only 2,286 legal exe cutions. In 1912 there were 9,152 homicides and 145 executions. The laxity of the law lies at the root of the evil. In a new country like ours, where pioneer conditions prevailed, and where the stronger race was con fronted by two more primitive races, and where authority was subject to lit tle or no legal constraint, the spirit of lawlessness survives long after the evoking conditions have passed away. Pioneer conditions and the racial situation, in the earlier days, devel oped a sense of personal liberty and local freedom on the part of the white man which was intolerant of restraint even by the federal government. Robert Burns, committing the common logical fallacy of misconstruing an in cidental circumstance into a casual re lationship, in one of his frenzied outbursts, exclaimed: "Whisky and freedom go together." Subsequent [50] LAWLESSNESS experience has shown that they are as mutually antagonistic as evil and good. And they are not only unre lated, but, in the long run, one is de structive of the other. By parity of error, the wild spirit of lawlessness, which seems to flourish as a baytree in the boasted land of the free and home of the brave, might be disposed to insist that lynching and liberty go together. But the error is delusive and fatal. The principles are mutu ally destructive, like vice and virtue. The nation must destroy lawlessness or lawlessness will destroy the nation. [51] CHAPTER III SEGREGATION THE two races in America occupy separate social areas, with only inci dental and temporary points of con tact. In all purely personal and pleasureable relations of life, the two races are almost as distinct aa if sepa rated by interplanetary space. The races meet in matters of barter and business, but when these relations are released, each goes into his own com pany. Under the old dispensation of mas ter and slave, there was an understood overlapping area of social intimacy. A zone of social neutrality was estab lished by complaisant condescension on the part of the whites and willing self -subordination on the part of the [52] SEGREGATION blacks. By domestic contact and fa miliarity the Negro was made an ac cepted member of the household and, under definitely understood limitations and restrictions, mingled with the whites on terms of social satisfaction. Much of the harshness and severity of slavery was relieved through such con tact. Indeed, the advocate of slavery defended it as a patriarchal institu tion, where master and servant were bound together by satisfactory ties of mutual interest and kindly feeling. The inhuman barbarities of the sys tem, such as were revealed in "Uncle Tom s Cabin," were exhibited mainly in the commercial aspect where the cir cle of ownership became too large to be covered by the personal contact of human sympathy of the master class, which had to rely for hired intermedi aries upon overseers who neither un derstood nor felt the ennobling bond of human sympathy. But the Emancipation Proclamation destroyed this patriarchal relationship, [53] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE and overlapping circles of race asso ciation became tangential. The white man no longer feels disposed to in dulge in any feat of social intimacy be tween the races, for this action would be construed into acceptance of social equality, whereas under the old dis pensation no such construction was possible. It is related that a Russian nobleman, making a voyage to Amer ica, locked himself up in his cabin in complete social isolation from the other first class passengers, but that frequently he might be found on the lower deck indulging in free and easy intercourse with the steerage emi grants. On being questioned concern ing his seemingly inconsistent atti tude, he replied that social intimacy with his fellow cabin passengers might be easily misconstrued, while his friendly relationship with those in the steerage could not possibly be misun derstood. The white race endeavors to sepa rate the social spheres of the two races [54] SEGREGATION by a horizontal plane, keeping the low est level of white life above the highest attainable aspiration of the Negro. Illustrating the different levels of the kingdoms of this world and the king dom of heaven, Jesus states that John the Baptist was the greatest man born of woman, yet that the least in the kingdom of heaven was greater than he. By parity of illustration the white race might say that Booker T. Washington was the greatest man born of a Negro woman, yet the two relative spheres are so far apart that the least white man is greater than he. In his famous Atlanta oration, Booker T. Washington laid the foun dation of his fame upon a phrase describing the working of social rela tionship between the races. Accord ing to this philosophy, in all purely business and civic relations, the races might act together as the hand and yet remain separate as the fingers in so cial matters. The difficulty of the doctrine lies in the tendency of the [55] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE social domain to enlarge itself so as to include the entire area of human relationship. Because the Negro must be kept socially apart from the white man, he is not allowed to work at the same trade, be domiciled in the same locality, attend the same school, ride in the same coach, worship in the same church or be buried in the same grave yard. Social affinity, which is essen tially voluntary and spontaneous, transcends its proper sphere when it attempts to exclude those outside of the charmed circle from enjoyment of life, liberty and the pursuit of happi ness. During the last extra session of Con gress, numerous bills were introduced by southern members for the purpose of segregating employes of the federal government. But under the guidance of wiser and more comprehensive leadership, such regulations were rele gated to the pigeonhole of Congres sional oblivion. Several southern cit ies enacted laws separating the resi- [56] SEGREGATION dential areas of the two races, but such statutes have been nullified by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. The writer sat as an auditor in the Supreme Court when this case was being argued. It so happened that M. Vivian, Ex-Premier of France, member of the French High Commission sent from the democracy of France to make an appeal to the de mocracy of America, was a guest of the Chief Justice on this occasion. This gallant representative of the gal lant French Republic was confronted by the ridiculous anomaly of witness ing the highest tribunal in the domi nant democracy of the world trying to determine whether or not the rights of an American citizen at home to buy and occupy property should be limited by race and color. Great indeed was the triumph of democracy when a right decision was reached on this issue. The effect of segregation would be to fix upon the American nation a [57] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE caste system which human experience proves a blight to every civilization where it is allowed to take hold. De mocracy is incompatible with caste. The federal statute books, so far, are free from race or class legislation. At the time of the founding of the Con stitution, one-fifth of the population was of African blood and servile status. But the far-seeing wisdom of the founder omitted all racial designa tion or discrimination in the organic law. A government boasting of equal ity as its basic principle which should deliberately debase the weak and helpless among its own citizens would be an anomaly in the eyes of the na tions of the earth. Amid all the pas sion and tumult of the anti-slavery conflict the federal statutes were kept free from the odium of race distinc tion. The obiter dicta importing race distinction into the decision of that tribunal were swiftly repudiated by the moral indignation of the aroused con science of the American people. For [58] SEGREGATION this government, today, to declare that the Negro shall not enjoy identical rights and privileges with the rest of his fellow-citizens would be equivalent to the re-enactment of the discredited dogma of Judge Taney. Indeed, the principle involved is just as vital to the ideal of the nation today as it was sixty years ago, although the public conscience may be less keenly alive to it. The war amendments to the Consti tution reaffirmed the original intention that there should be no race distinc tion recognized by the national gov ernment. These great amendments written into the Constitution by the point of the bayonet dipped in patri otic blood can never be erased nor their purpose ultimately defeated. Race discrimination is mentioned only to be forbidden. Mindful of the ex istence of these amendments, the states that have enacted laws repugnant to their spirit and letter, have sought cir cumvention by cunningly devised [59] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE phrases and tricky contrivances. Every such revised constitution bears the stamp of righteous condemnation in its phraseology. The American people for two gene rations have been divided in local alignment as to the relation of the Negro race to the federal government. The South has always been opposed to the recognition of the Negro as a fed eral citizen, and has striven inces santly to reduce him to governmental nullity. It would deny him both the right to vote and the privilege of hold ing office. Every southern senator voted to repeal the Fifteenth Amend ment when that proposition was added as a rider to important legislation be fore Congress. No northern senator voted for this proposition, because it does not represent the spirit or pur pose of his state or section. The pol icy of segregating the Negro is the out growth of the same local spirit. The leaders of southern thought and opin ion do not hesitate on all occasions to [60] SEGREGATION declare their fixed and unalterable purpose to eliminate the Negro from all political and governmental consid eration. The policy is well under stood and accepted as the political dogma of that section. In the duel for national supremacy between the North and South, during the generation preceding the Civil War, the South was hopelessly over matched. Today it constitutes less than one-third of the population of the United States and has fallen far below its former rival in wealth, education and liberal ideas. This is in no sense a reflection upon the South, which has striven heroically to measure up to the standard of excellence set by the North, under severe and serious handi cap. But it is a plain statement of palpable fact pertinent to the issue now under discussion. Massachu setts and Iowa, rather than Mississippi and Georgia, embody and typify the national spirit. The southern atti tude on the race question has become [61] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE provincial, while the northern position is national. This race has all but universally fa vored and followed the part of the North. The anti-slavery crusade de veloped in the North against the pro- slavery obsession of the South ; the one upheld the cause of liberty and union ; the other was devoted to secession and slavery; the one imbibed the spirit of progress; the other, that of reaction; the one stood for the rights of man; the other, for the arrogance of race. The Negro s cause was caught up in the vortex of the whirlwind of patri otic fervor, sweeping from the higher latitudes and lashing itself against the barriers of the lower tiers of States. The party of the North rode trium phant on the storm, while the party of the South bore the brunt of its fury. Sections and parties for the time being became connotative, like up and down in ethics; the North was synonymous with patriotism; the South, with dis loyalty. To the mind of the uncrit- [62] SEGREGATION ical Negro, the North and the friends of the Negro race were one and insep arable in the advocacy of all of his political and civil rights, while the South and his enemies were united in the bonds of iniquity to antagonize his progress. And yet, the southern white man s attitude toward the polit ical status of the Negro has always been determined by circumstances of racial situation rather than from any abstract theory of government. His political tenets are the outcome of cir cumstances and environment rather than of any inherent principle of party creed. The differentiating principle, which lies deeper than lines of polit ical division, is that communities with heavy Negro population are hostile to political and civil equality, while those with thinly scattered numbers are either friendly or indifferent to that proposition. There is no psycho logical division of the white race de terminative of the status of the black member within their midst. [63] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE It is imperative that the federal statutes should be forever free from race proscription, whatever afflicted states may feel forced to do under the pressure of acute issues. California, if unrestrained, might pass laws for bidding Japanese ownership of land in that state, but this would furnish no justification for the federal govern ment to sanction or adopt such policy. The policy of social separation of the races, alleged in justification of such measures, is a matter with which the federal government has nothing to do. The intimate social and personal, relationship of citizens do not fall within the scope or purview of the fed eral authority. Its concern is with the comprehensive relations of all citi- zens. Matters of minor detail are left to local and subordinate jurisdictions. The general government cannot find warrant for such action in the example of the several southern states. Dis criminatory laws in the states are sought to be justified on the ground [64] SEGREGATION that the greater number of Negroes are unprepared for participation in gov ernment or for free intermingling with the whites without seriously lowering the tone and standard of civilization. The federal government has abso lutely no such basis of excuse. The Negro represents at present less than eleven percent of the total population. This ratio is growing less with the passing of the decades. So far, no state with so slight a Negro element has deemed it necessary to adopt a code of "Jim Crow" laws. The federal gov ernment leaves each citizen socially where it finds him. Those who advocate the policy of segregation permit themselves to in dulge in the fallacy that it is for the best advantage of the Negro. It was once said that slavery was best for the Negro; later we heard that "Jim-Crow * cars were enacted especially for the benefit of the Negro; and then disfran- chisement was intended for his well- being. It remains for some grim hu- [65] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE morist to rise up and declare that lynching is encouraged for the black man s peculiar and especial benefit. It does seem strange that iniquitous practices, which are universally con demned by mankind, are regarded as for the best welfare of the Negro race. When the Negro contends for public equality, he is often accused of the de sire to force himself into association wherein he is not wanted. If this were his motive, the accusation would be justified. If Negroes walk on the north side of the street on a summer s afternoon, it is not because they desire to force association with whites who occupy the same thoroughfare, but they are both seeking shelter from the scorching rays of the burning sun, and the fact that they are thrown together is incidental to their common quest of the same advantage. When the Negro seeks a residence where white people happen to live, it is not that he wishes to force himself into unwelcome asso ciation. The whites, representing the [66] SEGREGATION more numerous and wealthy elements of the population, are apt to occupy the more advantageous localities and sections. The Negro is in quest of a fair chance to work out his own destiny, and to contribute his share to the com mon honor and glory of the nation. This he cannot do if handicapped and circumscribed by laws separating him from the rest of his fellow men. Al ready handicapped by tradition and environment, it is poor sportsmanship on the part of his white fellow citizens still further to handicap him in the race of life. Equality of opportunity is the most that the Negro asks, and the least that a democratic nation can af ford to grant. [67] CHAPTER IV NEGRO PATRIOTISM AND DEVOTION PATRIOTISM consists in the love of country, the love of home and of the local community. It is essentially an emotional attribute. The Negro is en dowed with high emotional qualities which find outlet in outbursts of patri otic fervor. He possesses a sense of local attachment akin to that which the Jews manifested for beloved Zion. No sooner had the African captive for gotten the pang caused by violent severance from his native land than he fell in love with the land of his cap tivity. He early forgot the sunny clime and palmy wine of the native soil for the "cotton, corn and sweet potatoes" of Virginia. The trans planted Negro contributed the only [68] NEGRO PATRIOTISM original American music to the reper tory of song. The city of Jerusalem and the region around about Jordan have become prototypes of the land of promise, merely because the humble people who lived there poured out their souls in joy and sorrow, express ing their patriotic attachment as tran scending their chief joy. The Hebrew captive hung his harp upon a willow tree and refused to sing the songs of Zion in a strange land. But the transplanted African has glorified the land of his captivity by the songs of sorrow which sprang from his heart. These "spirituels" are but the expres sion of blind, half-conscious poetry, breaking through the aperture of sound before the intellect had time to formulate a definite cast of statement. The emotional element of patriotism is not manifested merely in epochs and episodes which produce renowned warriors and statesmen, but in the com mon deeds and endearments of the humble folk, which make the deepest [69] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE impression upon the human memory and imagination. It is the folk song which manifests the folk soul. The red Indian, the aboriginal owner of this country, has left no monument of enduring patriotism in- terpretable in terms of European thought and feeling. Anomalously enough, it was reserved to an Anglo- Saxon poet, Longfellow, to catch up the thread of the Indian s patriotic de votion in the legend of Hiawatha, and to the son of Africa, S. Coleridge Tay lor, to give it musical expression. It is difficult to describe the current of feeling that flows through the soul of the speculative auditor as he listens to Negro voices in a choral rendition of Hiawatha, uttering with lyric pathos the patriotic soul of the red In dian, as portrayed by the Anglo-Saxon poet, and colored musically by the genius of the African composer. Robert Burns, the national poet of Scotland, has seized upon the joys and sorrows, the deeds and endearments [70] NEGRO PATRIOTISM of the humblest cotters of that land, and woven them into soulful song which has made old Scotia ever dear to human memory and imagination. Who would not gladly go to the ex pense of a European trip in order to retrace the steps of the immortalized Tarn O Shanter, or to review the scene of Mary poor, departed shade? If human memory and imagination ever turn to our Southland with a pas sionate yearning for a manifestation of the outpouring of the human spirit, it will not be in quest of the deeds and doings of renowned warriors and statesmen, but rather in quest of the songs and sorrows and soul strivings of humble black folk embodied in plantation melodies. "Swanee River," "My Old Kentucky Home," and "Carry Me Back to Ole Virginny," spiritualize these regions beyond any other expression which they have yet evoked. Even the motif of the musi cal inspiration of the southern Con federacy, the world-renowned "Dixie," [71] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE was but the embellishment of the ex pression of longing of a Negro for his homeland, where he was born "on an autumn day and a frosty morning." Which of America s patriotic songs would we not willingly exchange for "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," or "Steal Away to Jesus"? There is no tone of bitterness in these songs. On the con trary, an undertone of love and devo tion runs like a minor chord through them all. The plantation melodies which have come up from the low grounds of sorrow portray in sub-con scious form the patriotic as well as emotional capacity of this transplanted race. They sometimes tell us that America is a white man s country. The state ment is understandable in light of the fact that the white race constitutes nine-tenths of its population, and exerts the controlling influence over the various forms of material and sub stantial wealth and power. But this land belongs to the Negro as much as [72] NEGRO PATRIOTISM to any other, not only because he has helped redeem it from the wilderness by the energy of his arm, but because he has bathed it in his blood, watered it with his tears, and hallowed it with the yearnings of his soul. The Negro s patriotism is vicarious and altruistic. It seems to be an ano maly of fate that the Negro, the man of all men who is held in despite, should stand out in conspicuous relief at every crisis of our national history. His blood offering is not for himself or for his race, but for his country. His blood flows like a stream through our national history, from Boston Commons to Carrizal. Crispus At- tucks was the first American to give his blood as an earnest of American independence. His statue on Boston Common stands as a mute reminder of the vicarious virtues of a transplanted race. The Negro was with Washing ton in the dark days of Valley Forge, when the lamp of national liberty flick ered almost to extinguishment. The [73] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE black troops fought gallantly with Jackson behind the fleecy breastworks at New Orleans. Two hundred thou sand black boys in blue responded to the call of the immortal Lincoln for the preservation of the Union. The Negro was the positive cause of the Civil War and the negative cause of the united nation with which we face the world today. The reckless daring of Negro troops on San Juan hill marked the turning point in that struggle which drove the last vestige of Spanish power from the western world. The nation buried with grateful honor at Arlington cemetery the Negro soldiers who fell face forward while carrying the flag to the farthest point in the heart of Mexico, in quest of the bandit who dared place hostile foot on American soil. In complete harmony with this splendid patriotic record, it so hap pened that it was an American Negro who proved to be the first victim of ruthless submarine warfare after [74] NEGRO PATRIOTISM President Wilson had distinctly an nounced to Germany that the continu ance of such outrage would be con sidered tantamount to war. In all of these ways has the Negro shown, pur posely or unconsciously, his undevi- ating association with the glory and honor of the nation. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his country. It is related that a Negro soldier was in hot-footed pursuit of a Mexican who had crossed the border line. The captain, noticing the pursuit, called a sharp retreat as the line of demarca tion was approached. Upon his re turn, the captain said in a commenda tory tone: "You certainly gave him a hot chase, but, you know, you must not cross the international boundary line." Thereupon the powder-col ored son of thunder quickly re sponded: "Captain, if these Mexi cans keep on fooling with us, we ll take up this international boundary line and carry it down to the Panama [75] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE Canal." This reply, so aptly spoken, expresses the attitude of every right minded Afro-American. Wherever the boundary line of American oppor tunity, privilege and prestige is to be flung, the American Negro will do his full share in pushing it thitherward. The Negro s vicarious patriotism is but one form of manifestation of his vicarious nature. The devotion of the black mammy to the offspring of her mistress gives a new meaning and defi nition to that term. Out of the super abundance of her simple, unsophisti cated soul she was able to satisfy the needs of the child of her heart, though not of her flesh, as nothing else could do. The man-slave, during the Civil War, in complete reversion of the law of self-interest, remained absolutely loyal to the family and fortune of his master, who at that very time was fighting to tighten the chains that bound him to lasting bondage. Though not often proclaimed, it is a well known fact that several colored [76] NEGRO PATRIOTISM regiments enlisted under the banner of the Confederacy. Had the Rich mond government carried out its ten tative purpose to enlist Negro soldiers on a wholesale plan, there is little doubt but that colored soldiers would have followed the leadership of Lee as valiantly as they did that of Grant. This altruistic quality of loyalty and devotion is not destroyed by freedom and education, but translated and ex pressed in other terms. Fifty years after the glorious vic tory at Appomattox, the lingering remnants of the boys in blue marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in the city of Washington, in semi-centennial cele bration of that great event. There was not a dry eye on that Avenue, as white and black veterans, broken with the weight of years, marched with feeble tread to the reminiscent strains of friendly reunion: "Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot?" One year later the rapidly thinning ranks of those who followed the fortune of the [77] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE Confederacy marched down the same thoroughfare in celebration of their triumphant defeat. There was a noticeable intersprinkling of Negroes in their ranks also. The Negro s par ticipation in these two parades epito mizes and expresses both his self-inter ested and his altruistic patriotism. Ethnic character is too deep-rooted to be transformed by a political pro gram. The Christ-like quality of long-suffering, forgiveness of spirit and loving-kindness is a natural co efficient of the Negro s nature. Booker Washington merely embodied and expressed the folk sense of his race when he said: "No man could be so mean as to make me hate him." The Negro, in the issue now upon us, will not sulk in his tent, nursing his grievances, like Achilles before the walls of Troy. He has no quarrel with the Germans. But he is fighting at the behest of his country. It is not to be wondered at if the German gov ernment, supposing that the Negro [78] NEGRO PATRIOTISM holds animosity and resentment with the stubbornness of the Teuton, should judge that he might furnish a fertile field in which to sow the seed of traitor ous disloyalty. But such seed falls on stony ground. There is no depth of earth in the Negro s nature for its nourishment. The Negro will not deny or belittle his just grievances. He simply holds them in abeyance un til the war is ended. If it be a political as it is a sacred principle that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins, when we consider the blood of the African captive making red the At lantic Ocean on his way to cruel bond age, the blood of the slave drawn by the lash, the blood of the black soldier shed in behalf of his country, we can say with Kipling: "If blood be the price of liberty, Lord God! the Negro has paid in full." At such a time as this, when the na tional life and honor are involved in the prevailing struggle, the govern- [79] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE ment must make careful appraisement of all available resources of both men and material. Mind power, man power and money power are the indis pensable elements of success. The Negro, constituting one-tenth of the population, may be relied upon to con tribute more than his quota of man power. There need not be the slight est apprehension concerning his loyalty, soldierly efficiency or willing ness to serve his country. The Negro is sometimes called the Afro-Ameri can, and classified etymologically with the hyphenated citizens. But no hyphen separates his loyalty from that of his white fellow citizens. The Negro s patriotism is an innate and spontaneous feeling. The race is endowed with emotional qualities which find outlet in an outburst of patriotic fervor. Strains of martial music and the Stars and Stripes float ing on the breeze quicken his ardor and awaken his militant spirit. He does not stop to reason why, but is [80] NEGRO PATRIOTISM willing to follow the flag even unto death. He has also an attachment for locality which is the very essence of patriotism. He has hallowed the land of his enslavement by the sorrow songs that gushed from his heart. There is no tone of bitterness, but an undertone of love and devotion runs as a minor chord through it all. "To the victor belong the spoils" is a righteous and just motto if the spoils be liberty. Those who fight for the honor and glory of the flag are worthy of a full measure of freedom and privilege under that flag. No right-minded American will care to dispute this proposition, and none will dare refute it. The reverse of this proposition is also true. No class that refuses to defend the flag in the hour of peril has any just claim to its protection in time of peace. The present war is a struggle for democ racy; for the uplifting and ennoble ment of the man farthest down. Ra cial and religious barriers are being [81] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE swept away. Christian and heathen, Catholic and Protestant, Jew and Gen tile, Asiatic and European, African and Aryan are all involved in one titanic struggle for freedom and hu manity. The world is engulfed in the red ruin of war. The present conflict is not due to the inherent deviltry of one nation or the innate goodness of the other. The cumulative ethical ener gies of society for generations have been damned up by barriers of hatred and greed. They seek outlet through the easiest crevice. The stored-up power is now breaking through the barrier as a cataclysmic convulsion of nations. The foundations of social order are being undermined by the shocks of doom. As an outcome of the war, the re-adjustment of the social structure will be more radical than that effected by the French Revolution. The transforming effect upon the status of the Negro will be scarcely less [82] NEGRO PATRIOTISM momentous than that produced by the Emancipation Proclamation. The democratization of the world, coined as a fitting phrase, will be translated into actuality. The Decla ration of Independence, penned by a slaveholder, sounded the death knell of slavery, although three quarters of a century elapsed between promise and fulfilment. The democratization of the world is but a restatement of this doctrine in terms of the present day. Political autocracy and racial autocracy will be buried in the same grave. The divine right of kings and the divine right of race will suffer a common fate. Hereafter no nation, however strong, will be permitted to override a weaker neighbor by sheer dominance of power; and no race will be permitted to impose an unjust and ruthless regime upon the weaker breeds of men through assumption of race superiority. The people of all lands who are [83] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE heavy laden and overborne will be the chief beneficiaries of this war. The Negro problem is involved in the prob lem of humanity. The whole is greater than any of its parts. The Negro will share in the general mo mentum imparted to social welfare. The Negro has been politically dis franchised in the South and indus trially disfranchised in the North. Already he has been admitted to in dustrial opportunity in the North with manifest reflex action upon the harsh regime in the South. National prohi bition, which is borne forward on the wave of the world war, will immensely improve his moral status. Thousands of Negroes have been en listed, and seven hundred Negroes have been commissioned as officers in the army of the United States. A Negro has been made assistant cabinet officer whose function is to adjust har moniously the race s relation to the impending struggle. The improved attitude of the white race towards the [84] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE Negro is apparent in two affirmative decisions rendered by the Supreme Court of the United States with unan imous concurrence. The Negro will emerge from this war with a redoubled portion of privi lege and opportunity. The Negro will be loyal and patriotic, despite injustices and discriminations which try his soul. If he prevails, these trials and tribulations will work out a more exceeding weight of ad vantage. But if he allows them to overcome him, woeful will be his lot indeed! To stand sulkily by in re sentful aloofness would be of the same kind of folly as to refuse to help ex tinguish a conflagration which threat ens the destruction of one s native city, because he has a complaint against the fire department. The Negro will help put out the conflagration which threat ens the world, and thus make the world his lasting debtor. He will stand shoulder to shoulder with his white fellow citizens to fight for the freedom [85] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE of the world outside of our own na tional circle, and then hold them to moral consistency of maintaining a just and equitable regime inside of that circle. The tide of democracy is sweeping through the world like a mighty river. Race problems and social ills are as marshes, backwaters, stagnant pools, estuaries, which have been shut off from free circulation with the main current. But the freshet of freedom is now overflowing its bed and purify ing all the stagnant waters in its on ward sweep to the ocean of human liberty and brotherhood, bearing upon its beneficent bosom all those who labor and are overborne. [86] CHAPTER V RIGHTEOUSNESS THE presence of the weaker race in the midst of a stronger is apt to develop the evil propensities on the part of the stronger. The same moral code is not applied to the weaker race. The an cient limitation of ethics which in cludes in its ennobling bond only one s neighbor is made to apply. Ethics takes on ethnic quality. Herein con sists the inherent nature of the evil growing out of the contact of diver gent races. Man is always prone to justify his unrighteous deeds by claim ing that the object of his despite does not belong to the same ethical regime as himself. This is the attitude which the Jew is wont to exhibit toward the Gentile, rich toward poor, white to- [87] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE ward black. All of the discrimina tion against the Negro rests on this basis. He was brought to this coun try as a slave because he was not con sidered of the same moral order as the white man. He is disfranchised and segregated and lynched for the same reason. The supremacy of science rests upon the inexorability of natural law which pays no heed to the prejudices and predilections of man. The law of gravitation and the binomial theorem apply with absolute impar tiality to all men, everywhere and at all times. They admit of no ethnic variation to accommodate human arro gance or caprice. By those who un derstand the principles of these laws, the prediction of their outcome may be relied upon with undeviating certainty. According to the foundation of Chris tian ethics, moral principles are as absolute in nature as natural law. The Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount and the Golden Rule are [88] RIGHTEOUSNESS as universal and impartial in their operation as the fixed principle in natural or physical science. Just as we could have no science of chemistry if the atoms could be made to obey one law to suit the racial pretensions of the Germans, and another to suit the Japanese, so our moral scheme is frus trated where the same formula is in terpreted according to the manner of man to which it is to be applied. A double standard in morals is as dangerous as a double standard in mathematics. A democracy that deals in double standards for its citi zens is doomed. Identity is the es sence of equality in all public func tions. Two non-interchangeable parts cannot long maintain their original parity. There cannot be a different standard of weights and measures for the two races. A double yardstick would be an abomination to common sense. Although a sagacious states manship might decree that the two yardsticks should have the same [89] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE length, and that the racial pounds should have the same weight, under the imperfections of human nature the Negro would soon be receiving the shorter measure and the lighter weight. If there were two standards of coinage of the same weight and fineness for the two races, provided only that one set should for ever circulate among Negroes and the other among whites, the black man s coinage would imme diately depreciate in value. Parity can only be maintained by free inter- changeability. The criterion of a standard of value consists of its easy currency and universal acceptance. The merchant who has one set of prices for the Negro and another for his white customers is considered dis honest. The physician who would treat his white patient according to one formula and his Negro patient with the same ailment according to another would violate the integrity of the sci ence of therapeutics. The double moral standard of which the Negro is [90] RIGHTEOUSNESS made the victim is manifest in the white man s general attitude towards him. To mistreat a Negro is not deemed a violation of the moral code. Even to kill a Negro is not considered a serious offence on the part of the white man in many sections of the country. So general has become this attitude and practice that the governor of a southern state in a notable procla mation stated that the open season for killing Negroes has closed in his state. Of the thousands and scores of thou sands of Negroes who have been mur dered in the South, few indeed are the instances where the perpetrator has been brought to justice. But where the race relation is reversed and the Negro kills a white man, condign pun ishment is swift and sure. That mur der is murder by whomever committed ought to be an axiomatic assertion. But in actual experience murder is not murder where the perpetrator is white and the victim is black. The impression which this attitude [91] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE leaves on the mind of the Negro is ob vious. He is forced to feel that he is a moral alien, and is not considered a part of the ennobling bond of human sympathy. It would seem that en lightened self-interest on the part of the white race would lead them to hold up to the Negro the beneficent meaning and purpose of the law through its just and impartial enforcement. This is the practice of the English government in dealing with the natives in its col onies. In Bermuda and Jamaica the Negro swears absolutely by the integ rity of British law, because it is en forced impartially on white and black alike, without the slightest suggestion of a double standard. But the Negro in the South no longer expects the im partial enforcement of the law where the feelings and passion of the white race are involved; and, consequently, he is led to look upon the law not as an instrument for preserving justice between man and man, but as a device for keeping him in subjection and sub- [92] RIGHTEOUSNESS ordination to the white race. The Negro appeals to the white man to en force his own law. It is a poor sportsman who will not play the game according to the rules, especially when he makes the rules. The white man boasts of his God-given right to rule, but he should prove his right to rule by ruling right. A nation that would endure must base its conduct upon the law of Righteousness. Moral grandeur is more enduring than material exploita tion. A nation, like an individual, that walketh uprightly, walketh se curely, because the centre of gravity falls inside the basis of support. Without fixed moral purpose, a nation, like a pyramid resting on its apex, is in unstable equilibrium. Abraham Lincoln possessed the clearest understanding of any Ameri can statesman before or since his time. He was one of the few moral geniuses of the human race. He had an un clouded vision of moral values and an [93] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE intuitive conception of ethical relation ships. Our great national savior told us that this nation was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the propo sition that all men are created equal. A nation that falls below the level of its fundamental ideals and goes in quest of false idols cannot hope to escape the fate of all apostate peoples of whom history makes record. God has given to America the moral oppor tunity to become the leader among the nations of the world along the line of national rectitude. Great will be its condemnation if, for any reason, it fails to live up to this great oppor tunity. Moral reforms grow out of the peo ple who suffer and stand in need of them. All of the moral progress of the race has been due to the circum stances and conditions of the humble and the lowly. God has chosen the humble things of life to confound the mighty. The whole course of Ameri can history has been given moral trend [94] RIGHTEOUSNESS and direction by reason of the pres ence of the despised, neglected and rejected Negro. The Revolutionary statesmen, at a time when the question of African slavery had hardly become a keen moral issue, endeavored to ignore cognizance of the presence of the Negro. His unfortunate status, however, could not be obliterated in their subconsciousness, and so he seri ously influenced the laws and statutes of that day. Like the victim who tries to conceal the gnawings of a vital dis ease, they affected to ignore the griev ous evil which they inwardly felt. Thomas Jefferson, the great statesman of that epoch, said that when he con templated the institution of African slavery he trembled for his country, feeling assured that God s justice could not sleep for ever. The Decla ration of Independence and the Con stitution of the United States made no avowed reference to the presence of the African, although, at the time, he constituted one-fifth of the total popu- [95] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE lation. It was clearly in the minds of the far-seeing founders of this nation that, through some process of self- purification which they could not fully divine, American institutions ulti mately would exemplify the principle of Righteousness for all men amenable to their control. They laid the foun dation upon the bedrock principles of equality and justice, feeling that fu ture generations would build upon no foundation other than that which they had laid. The principles of the Declaration of Independence led to disquietude of the national conscience over the issue of African slavery. The leaven of liberty worked the nation into a moral ferment, which resulted in the Civil War and the emancipation of the slave. This was the greatest moral victory which the nation has ever achieved over itself. The triumph was universal and complete. African slavery, at first accepted with compla cency by the Christian conscience, be- [96] RIGHTEOUSNESS came quickened into a moral issue by a few minds of keener ethical discern ment, and plunged the nation into frat ricidal strife over a question of right and wrong. The right prevailed. The proponents of the lost cause now congratulate themselves over their de feat, while erroneously espousing the wrong side of a moral issue. By unanimous concurrence the nation has accepted the principle of Righteous ness so far as human slavery is con cerned. We are not yet far enough removed from the prejudices and passions of that moral revolution to appraise justly or appreciate fully its influence and effect upon the nation s character. It is the one outstanding epochal event in our national life upon which all of the people can look with unalloyed satisfaction. When the kindly propi tiation of time shall have completely obliterated the memory of the pangs of the awful divisive issues of that titanic struggle, the culmination of the [97] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE quickening of the American con science will be set forth in dramatic portrayal. John Brown will be the hero. Garrison, Grant, Lee and Lin coln will play important roles. Os- sawatomie and Gettysburg and Appo- mattox will be available for scenery and situation. The scene of the crowning act will be set at Harper s Ferry. Here nature piled the sur rounding mountains as a fitting back ground. The blue skies of West Vir ginia shall be the uplifted curtain, while the confluent waters of the Po tomac and Shenandoah shall represent the flood of tears that the nation will shed at the pity and pathos of it all. John Brown on the scaffold, pouring out his life for a race alien in blood and culture to his own, illustrates the highest point of moral sublimity that this planet has witnessed since Jesus Christ hung on the Cross. That scaf fold is both the antetype and prototype of the moral history of America. The Civil War marked the highest [98] RIGHTEOUSNESS practical expression of the national conscience. It required the Thirteenth and Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend ments to make our Constitution a char ter of liberty indeed. All of this was brought to pass because of the presence and helpless condition of the Negro in our midst. Every modification of state or national constitution that has been made involving the complaint of the Negro has been in the direction of righteousness and moral grandeur. On the other hand, every alteration that has been made in local institu tions limiting the just rights of the Ne gro has been contrary to the principles of Righteousness and has led ulti mately to the reproach of those enact ing them. Posterity will take no pride in the deeds of this day which deprive the humblest citizen of his human rights in order that others may enjoy a larger measure of easement. Righteousness means more to the weak than it does to the strong. The strong nation may, for a time, seem to [99] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE succeed in violation of the principle of Righteousness. It may be carried forward by an already acquired mo mentum, but the weak have no other reliance. We praise the sheep for his supposedly moral qualities of meek ness, humility and forgiveness of spirit. We denounce the wolf for his savagery and ferocity of disposition. And yet, if we could analyze the work ings of the minds of the two according to an exact psychological test, the sheep would be found to be no whit superior in inherent moral quality and essence to the wolf. He is just as cruel and exacting over all crea tures with whom he has the advantage as the wolf is over him. They both follow the law of nature, in total ob livion of the law of Righteousness. But since the sheep is the weaker ani mal and the inevitable victim in the contest, we ascribe to him the moral advantage. When Belgium felt she was a pow erful land, she, through her monarch, [100] RIGHTEOUSNESS laid violent hand upon a far-off Afri can region and injected a ruthless regime upon die natives. of the Cojigjo, an act which brought down upon lier head the moral condemnation of the civilized world. But, on a day, a stronger power laid a ruthless hand upon Belgium, and transformed her strength unto weakness, and, in her helpless and pitiful plight, she now appeals to the moral sympathy and support of the world. The Jewish race throughout its his tory stood constantly in need of vica rious political salvation, and was thus enabled to teach the world the need of a vicarious spiritual Savior. Na tions, like individuals, are prone to follow the law of nature, and rely upon the dominance of power until checked by a superior power. It is then that the weaker power invokes the beneficence of ethical consideration. The basic complaint against the Ger man people lies in the fact that they are boastfully exploiting their ac- [101] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE knowledged superior military effi ciency over weaker nations without heed to the moral law. .It is interest ing to note . .die parallelism of argu ment of the German philosophers who justify their ruthless dominance over weaker European peoples, and that of our American publicists who strive to justify the lordship of the white man over the Negro. Righteousness, like money, has an inherent value and a relative value. A coin has a fixed value, according to its weight and fineness, which means just as much to Mr. John D. Rockefel ler as to the humblest washerwoman. But, relatively, it means immensely more to the washerwoman who may be dependent upon it to pay her weekly rental than it does to Mr. Rockefeller, in comparison to whose wealth it is a negligible quantity. So it is with moral qualities. While they have in herent and intrinsic values, yet they mean most to the people who stand mostly in need of them. [102] RIGHTEOUSNESS The Negro today stands mostly in of the principles of public Right- usness because of his humble situa- on. But, as a compensation, this gives him the moral advantage and makes him the monitor over the con science of the white race. Is it not an anomaly that the black man, who, throughout recent history, has not been noted for the higher and finer moral qualities and feelings, should stand as a monitor over the conscience of the white race, and have that claim al lowed? The Negro says to the white race: "You ought to enact just and righteous laws and enforce them right eously." He says further: "You ought to apply the principles of Jesus, Whom you profess to follow, to your brother in black the same as to your brother in white." The white race is forced to plead guilty. It is not contended that the Negro is inherently better than the white race. If he represented nine-tenths of the population and had the advantage of [103] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE culture and opportunity and control of the machinery of public and prac tical power, it is not declared, al though it is devoutly hoped, that he would be better in his treatment of the white race than the white race is at present in its treatment of him. But circumstances not only alter cases; they alter character. The Negro has the character and quality of his cir cumstances, which at present put him in the position of moral advantage whereby he makes appeal to the con science of the nation in behalf of per sonal and public rectitude. An individual or a nation is justly adjudged cowardly which will not ex ercise the full measure of its power to enforce its just and righteous de mands. It is unjust to the wrongdoer to permit him to continue unrestrained in the perpetration of evil deeds. But where power is lacking, resort must be had to the higher ethical principles. It may be said without blasphemy that the Negro is the only American [104] RIGHTEOUSNESS who, as a class, can conscientiously utter the petition in Our Lord s Prayer: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." His long-suffering and non-resentful nature would readily forgive the white race all of its his torical and contemporary trespasses, enormous as they are, if it would now accord him the consideration and hu man treatment which the law of hu man charity demands. Some one has said: "No man is great unless he is great to his valet." No American statesman can attain transcendent greatness unless it rests upon the broad principles of Right eousness which meet the approval of all of the people, even the despised and rejected Negro. Negroes all over this nation are aroused as they have never been be fore. It is not the wild hysterics of the hour, but a determined purpose that this country shall be made a safe place for American citizens of what- [105] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE ever color in which to live and work and enjoy the fruits of happiness. Ten thousand speechless men and women marched in silent array down Fifth Avenue in New York City as a spectral demonstration against the wrongs and cruelties heaped upon the race. Negro women all over the na tion have appointed a day of prayer in order that Righteousness may be done to this people. The weaker sex of the weaker race are praying that God may invoke the great American conscience as the instrument of His will to promote the cause of human freedom at home and abroad. At one of the six o clock prayer meetings in the city of Washington, two thousand humble women snatched the early hours of the morning before going to their daily tasks to resort to the house of prayer. They literally performed unto the Lord the burden of their prayer and song, "Steal Away to Jesus." There was not a note of bitterness or denunciation through- [106] RIGHTEOUSNESS out the session of prayer. They prayed as their mothers prayed in the darker days gone by, that God would deliver the race. May it not be that these despised and rejected daughters of a despised and rejected race shall yet lead the world to its knees in ac knowledgment of some controlling power outside of the machinations of man? To one sitting there, listening in reverent silence to these two thou sand voices as they sang, "On Christ, the Solid Rock, I stand, All other ground is sinking sand " there could not but come the thought of this ungodly war which is now con vulsing the world a war in which Christian hands are dyed in Christian blood. It must cause the Prince of Peace to groan as in His dying agony when He gave up the Ghost on the Cross. The professed followers of the Meek and Lowly One, with heathen heart, are putting their trust in reek ing tube and iron shard. As God uses [107] AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE the humbler things of life to confound the mighty, it may be that these help less victims of cruelty and outrage shall bring an apostate world back to God. The Negro s helpless position may yet bring America to a realizing sense that Righteousness exalteth a na tion, but sin is a reproach to any people. 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