CHAPTER IV. THE PROBLEM— MUST THERE BE A RACE CONFLICT?
On
the question, I said: “As for extermination, that will never take place. First,
because 500 Negro babies are born every day. Second, because not only is the
colored man's prolificness increasing the blacks in this country, but because
members of every nationality belonging to your great race are helping him to
produce a dark population, by maintaining a sinful relation with females of his
race. Third, because blood is thicker than water, and while this statement may
be unpleasant it is nevertheless true.
The
sons and daughters, nephews and nieces, aunts and uncles, who, while belonging
to the black race, find their close kinsmen among white people will never be
exterminated.
Their
white relatives are too noble and brave to destroy the fruit of their indulgences.
Again, there are relations other than these which declare that the races are
here to remain, and after a while it will be found that, "the whites are
getting whiter, while the blacks are getting blacker”.
Since
the colored man cannot be amalgamated or exterminated, what shall be done with
him? What is the proper course to be pursued:
Can
he be colonized?
Will
you send him to the Northwest?
Or
will you by deportation place him in Africa, a country from which his
forefather came?
Shall
the Negro emigrate?
Is
the Negro a success as an immigrant?
What
does the Liberian experiment teach?
These
are questions which must be answered before a start is made for other fields.
Can this country get along without the Negro, and be as happy and as prosperous
as now?
Is
not the Negro a better subject for citizenship than the foreigner?
Does
not the fact that the Negro was born and reared here make him, necessarily,
more of a patriot and more in love with American institutions than the
foreigner, born and reared up under a monarchical form of government, coming here
only because he is poor and wants to make money.
Is
there not more of a problem around the doings of the anarchist, the socialist
and Castle Garden than there is around the black people of this country,
described by Gov. Hill, as being "untutored, superstitious and helpless
but patient, docile and ambitious”?
A
conflict there must never be. The two races, placed here together by God must
continue throughout the ages: their relation of interdependence, in peace,
recognizing as the only distinction between them, that one is in white and must
therefore, socially, associate with whites, while the other is in black and
must, necessarily, mingle with blacks. Birds of a feather,
birds of a kind, flock together.
This would make a great movie series for TV!
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