Following the Color Line Part 42

Since that time another highly significant movement has arisen. In 1907 Miss Jeanes, a wealthy Quakeress of Philadelphia, gave $1,000,000 for the encouragement of Negro primary education. She placed it in the hands of Dr. H. B. Frissell of Hampton and Dr. Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton of Tuskegee. In the organisation of the board for the control of this fund and its work, a further step forward in nationalisation and, indeed, in the direction of democracy, was made. It marks a new development in the cooperation of all the forces for good in the solution of this difficult national problem.

The members.h.i.+p of the board includes not only Southern and Northern white men, but also several leading Negroes. The president and general director is a Southern white man, coming of an old family, James H. Dillard, dean of Tulane University of New Orleans. It will be of interest to publish here a full list of the members, because they represent, in more ways than one, the new leaders.h.i.+p not only in the South, but in the nation:

Southern white men:

James H. Dillard, President.

David C. Barrow, chancellor University of Georgia.

Belton Gilreath, manufacturer and mine-owner, Alabama.

Dr. S. C. Mitch.e.l.l, of Richmond College, Richmond, Va.

Northern white men:

Robert C. Ogden, of New York.

Andrew Carnegie, of New York.

Talcott Williams, of Philadelphia.

George McAneny, president of the City Club of New York.

William H. Taft, of Ohio.

To these must be added:

Dr. H. B. Frissell, of Hampton Inst.i.tute, a Northerner, whose work and residence has long been in the South.

George Foster Peabody, treasurer, a Georgian, trustee of the University of Georgia, who resides in the North.

Walter H. Page, the editor of the _World's Work_, a North Carolinian who has long lived in the North.

Negro members.h.i.+p:

Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton.

Bishop Abraham Grant, of Kan.

R. R. Moton, of Hampton Inst.i.tute, secretary of the board.

J. C. Napier, a banker of Nashville, Tenn.

R. D. Smith, a farmer of Paris, Tex.

In a true sense the Southern Education Board and the Jeanes Fund Board represent organisations of working idealists. Such cooperation as this, between reasonable, broad-minded, and unselfish men of the entire country, is, at the present moment, the real solution of our problems. It is the solution of the Negro problem--all the solution there ever will be. For there is no finality in human endeavour: there is only activity; and when that activity is informed with the truth and inspired with faith and courage, it is not otherwise than success, for it is the best that human nature at any given time can do.

In making this statement, I do not, of course wish to infer that conditions are as good as can be expected, and that nothing remains to be done. As a matter of fact, the struggle is just beginning; as I have shown in previous chapters, all the forces of entrenched prejudice and ignorance are against the movement, the political leaders who still dominate the South are as hostile as they dare to be. The task is, indeed, too big for the South alone, or the North alone, or the white man alone: it will require all the strength and courage the nation possesses.

_Universities Feel the New Impulse_

Besides the campaign for better common schools, the educational revival has also renewed and revivified all the higher inst.i.tutions of learning in the South. The state universities, especially, have been making extraordinary progress. I shall not soon forget my visit to the University of Georgia, at Athens, nor the impression I received while there of strong men at work, not merely erecting buildings of mortar and brick, but establis.h.i.+ng a new sort of university system, which shall unify and direct to one common end all of the educational activities of the state: beginning with the common school and reaching upward to the university itself; including the agricultural and industrial schools, and even the Negro college of agriculture. The University of Georgia is one of the oldest state colleges in America, and the ambition of its leaders is to make it one of the greatest. Mr. Hodgson drove me around the campus, which has recently been extended until it contains nearly 1,000 acres. He showed me where the new buildings are to be, the drives and the bridges. Much of it is yet a vision of the future, but it is the sort of vision that comes true. I spent a day with President Soule of the Agricultural College, on his special educational train, which covered a considerable part of the state of Georgia, stopping at scores of towns where the speakers appeared before great audiences of farmers and made practical addresses on cotton and corn and cattle-raising, and on education generally. And everywhere the practical work of these public educators was greeted with enthusiasm.

I heard from Professor Stewart of his work in organising rural high schools, in encouraging local taxation, and in bringing the work of the public schools into closer correlation with that of the university.

Seeing the educational work of states like Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, and others, one cannot but feel that the time is coming shortly when the North will be going South for new ideas and new inspiration in education.

In a brief review like this, I have been able, of course, to give only the barest outline of a very great work, and I have mentioned only a few among hundreds of leaders; the work I have described is only ill.u.s.trative of what is going on in greater or less degree everywhere in the South.

Many important developments have come from these campaigns for education.

The actual building of new school-houses and the expenditure of more money for the struggle with illiteracy is only one of many results. For the crusade for education, supplemented by the new industrial impulse in the South, has awakened a new spirit of self-help. The success with which the public was aroused in the educational campaign has inspired leaders in all lines of activity with new courage and faith. It is a spirit of youthfulness which is not afraid to attempt anything.

Much printers' ink has been expended in trying to account for the spread of the anti-saloon movement throughout the South. But there is nothing strange about it: it is, indeed, only another manifestation of the new Southern spirit, the desire to get things right in the South. And this movement will further stir men's minds, develop self-criticism, and reveal to the people their power of concerted action whether the politicians are with them or not. It is, indeed, significant that the women of the South, perhaps for the first time, have become a powerful influence in public affairs. Their organisations have helped, in some instances led, in both the educational and the anti-saloon movement. No leaders in the Virginia educational movement have been more useful than Mrs. L. R. Das.h.i.+ell and Mrs. B. B. Munford of Richmond.

Practically all the progress of the South, both industrial and educational, has been made by non-political movements and non-political leaders--often in opposition to the political leaders. Indeed, nearly every one of the hopeful movements of the South has had to capture some entrenched stronghold of the old political captains. In several states, for example, the school systems a few years ago were crippled by political domination and nepotism. Superintendents, princ.i.p.als, and teachers were frequently appointed not for their ability, but because they were good members of the party or because they were related to politicians.

_New Statesmen Against Old Politicians_

In Alabama I found prominent men attacking the fee system of payment of lesser magistrates. The evil in this system lies in the encouragement it gives to trivial litigation and the arrest of citizens for petty offences.

Let me give a single example. A Negro had another Negro arrested for "'sault and battery." Both appeared in court. The accused Negro was tried, and finally sent to the chain-gang. The justice suggested to the convicted man that if he wanted satisfaction he should turn around and have his accuser arrested; which he did, promptly accusing him of "'busive language." Another trial was held; and in the end both Negroes found themselves side by side in the chain-gang; the magistrate, the constable, the sheriff, had all drawn liberal fees, and the private contractor who hired the chain-gang, and who also "stood in" with the politicians, had obtained another cheap labourer for his work. It is a vicious circle, which has enabled the politicians and their backers to profit at every turn from the weakness and evil of both Negro and low-cla.s.s white man.

In attacking the fee system and the old, evil chain-gang system as the new leaders are doing in many parts of the South, in closing the saloons (always a bulwark of low politics), in building up a new school system free from selfish control, the new leaders are striking squarely at the roots of the old political aristocracy, undermining it and cutting it away. It is sure to fall; and in its place the South will rear a splendid new leaders.h.i.+p of constructive ability and unselfish patriotism. There will be a division on matters of vital concern, and a turning from ancient and worn-out issues to new interests and activities. When that time comes the whole nation will again profit by the genius of Southern statesmans.h.i.+p and we shall again have Southern Presidents.

Already the old type of politician sees the handwriting of fate. He knows not which way to turn. At one moment he harps more fiercely and bitterly than ever before on the issue which has maintained him so long in power, the Negro; and at the next moment he seizes frantically on some one of the new issues--education, prohibition, anti-railroad--hoping thereby to maintain himself and his old party control. But he cannot do it; every force in the South is already making for new things, for more democracy, for more nationalisation.

CHAPTER XIV

WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE NEGRO--A FEW CONCLUSIONS

The deeper one delves into the problem of race, the humbler he becomes concerning his own views. Studying a black man, he discovers that he must study human nature. The best he can do, then, is to present his latest and clearest thought, knowing that newer light and deeper knowledge may modify his conclusions. It is out of such expressions of individual thought (no one man has or can have all the truth) and the kindly discussion which follows it (and why shouldn't it be kindly?) that arises finally that power of social action which we call public opinion. Together--not otherwise--we may approach the truth.

The world to-day is just beginning to meet new phases of the problem of race difference. Improved transportation and communication are yearly making the earth smaller. As Americans we are being brought every year into closer contact with black and yellow people. We are already disturbed not only by a Negro race problem, but on our Pacific coast and in Hawaii we have a j.a.panese and Chinese problem. In the Philippine Islands we have a tangle of race problems in comparison with which our Southern situation seems simple. Other nations are facing complexities equally various and difficult. England's problems in both South Africa and India are largely racial. The great issue in Australia, where Chinese labour has become a political question, is expressed in the campaign slogan: "A white Australia."

_What Is the Race Problem?_

Essentially, then, what is the race problem?

The race problem is the problem of living with human beings who are not like us, whether they are, in our estimation, our "superiors" or "inferiors," whether they have kinky hair or pigtails, whether they are slant-eyed, hook-nosed, or thick-lipped. In its essence it is the same problem, magnified, which besets every neighbourhood, even every family.

In our own country we have 10,000,000 Negroes distributed among 75,000,000 white people. They did not come here to invade us, or because they wanted to come. We brought them by force, and at a fearful and cruel sacrifice of life. We brought them, not to do them good, but selfishly, that they might be compelled to do the hard work and let us live lazily, eat richly, sleep softly. We treated them as beasts of burden. I say "we," for the North owned slaves, too, at first, and emanc.i.p.ated them (by selling them to the South) because it did not pay to keep them. Nor was the anti-slavery sentiment peculiar to the North; voices were raised against the inst.i.tution of slavery by many Southern statesmen from Jefferson down--men who knew by familiar observation of the evil of slavery, especially for the white man.

_Differences Between Southern and Northern Att.i.tudes Toward the Race Problem_

But differences are apparent in the outlook of the South and North which must be pointed out before we can arrive at any general conclusions. By understanding the reasons for race feeling we shall be the better able to judge of the remedies proposed.

In the first place, the South is still clouded with bitter memories of the war, and especially of the Reconstruction period. The North cannot understand how deep and real this feeling is, how it has been warped into the souls of even the third generation. The North, victorious, forgot; but the South, broken and defeated, remembered. Until I had been a good while in the South and talked with many people I had no idea what a social cataclysm like the Civil War really meant to those who are defeated, how long it echoes in the hearts of men and women. The Negro has indeed suffered--suffered on his way upward; but the white man, with his higher cultivation, his keener sensibilities, his memories of a departed glory, has suffered far more. I have tried, as I have listened to the stories of struggle which only the South knows, to put myself in the place of these Anglo-Saxon men and women, and I think I can understand a little at least of what it must have meant to meet defeat, loss of relatives and friends, grinding poverty, the chaos of reconstruction--and after all that to have, always at elbow-touch, the unconscious cause of all their trouble, the millions of inert, largely helpless Negroes who, imbued with a sharp sense of their rights, are attaining only slowly a corresponding appreciation of their duties and responsibilities.

The ruin of the war left the South poor, and it has provided itself slowly with educational advantages. It is a long step behind the North in the average of education among white people not less than coloured. But more than all else, perhaps, the South is in the throes of vast economic changes. It is in the transition stage between the old wasteful, semi-feudal civilisation and the sharp new city and industrial life. It is suffering the common pains of readjustment; and, being hurt, it is not wholly conscious of the real reason.

For example, many of the troubles between the races attributed to the perversity of the Negro are often only the common difficulties which arise out of the relations.h.i.+p of employer and employee. In other words, difficulties in the South are often attributed to the race problem which in the North we know as the labour problem. For the South even yet has not fully established itself on the wage system. Payment of Negroes in the country is still often a matter of old clothes, baskets from the white man's kitchen or store, with occasionally a little money, which is often looked upon as an indulgence rather than a right. No race ever yet has sprung directly from slavery into the freedom of a full-fledged wage system, no matter what the laws were. It is not insignificant of progress that the "basket habit" is coming to be looked upon as thievery, organised charity in the cities is taking the place of indiscriminate personal gifts, wages are more regularly paid and measure more accurately the value of the service rendered.

But the relations.h.i.+ps between the races still smack in no small degree, especially in matters of social contact (which are always the last to change), of the old feudal character; they are personal and sentimental.

They express themselves in the personal liking for the old "mammies," in the personal contempt for the "smart Negro."