Chapter XV: The Legacy of Slavery

The most essential element in nationality is unity. This unity can be based on race, on language, on religion, on a long tradition held in common, or on several or all of these.

In the past century the United States has to some extent lost its unity of religion, of race, and of language. In the same period it has acquired a number of unassimilable elements brought in as cheap and docile labor to develop its industries or else allowed to enter through the false humanitarianism of the so-called Victorian Era. It had been forgotten that a cheap man makes a cheap job.

In the South manual labor was performed by the Negroes, but in the North, where there were no slaves, manual labor was chiefly performed by Americans, and it still is in the districts where there are no aliens. The moment that cheap alien labor was introduced to build railroads or dig canals, such labor became distasteful to the native American, because it was done by lowly foreigners whom they despised.

Among the various outland elements now in the United States which threaten in different degrees our national unity, the most important is the Negro. Unlike the other alien elements the blacks were brought into the country against their will. They brought with them no persisting language, religion, or other cultural attribute, but accepted these elements from their masters.

At the time of the first census (1790) the Negroes numbered 757,208, being 19.3 per cent of the total population. They were naturally mostly in the Southern States. In 1860 the Negroes numbered 4,441,830 and constituted 14.1 per cent of the population. They were still in the South. In 1930 the Negroes numbered 11,891,143 and constituted 9.69 per cent of the population, but there had been a distinct migration from the agricultural districts of the South to the large cities of the North.

When, after the Civil War, the Negroes were granted the franchise the Negro problem was greatly complicated. This ill-advised measure was forced on the country by a wave of feeling aroused by the wanton murder of Lincoln. The North feared to entrust the government of the country to those who had lately been in armed rebellion, so they conferred the voting power on the Negroes and thereby greatly increased the electoral vote of the South. If the franchise had been confined to the Whites only, the influence of the "Solid South" after the Civil War would have been much less than it now is. The purpose of the measure was to make the South Republican, its actual effect was to enhance the power of the South in Congress and in the Electoral College and make that section definitely Democratic. In the words of the late Chancellor Von Bismarck this was worse than a crime--it was a blunder.

1930

_11,891,143_]

The Southerners understand how to treat the Negro--with firmness and with kindness--and the Negroes are liked below the Mason and Dixon line so so long as they keep to their proper relation to the Whites, but in the North the blocks of Negroes in the large cities, migrating from the South, have introduced new complications, which are certain to produce trouble in the future, especially if Communist propaganda makes headway among them.

In the Negro section of Harlem a further problem is arising from crosses between Negroes and Jews and Italians. These and other Mulattoes are showing a tendency toward Communism. During the World War a Communistic and racial movement was started there and a situation developed which was controlled with some difficulty, though without publicity.

The increase in the relative number of Mulattoes to Blacks is growing greater in the Northern States, as is obvious to any observer in the Negro districts of the larger cities. There can be seen many yellow and light-colored individuals, who are Negro in every other respect. Many of our dark immigrant Whites are themselves darker in color than the yellow Negroes and this enables some of these light Negroes to "pass" as Whites. This problem is one which will increase in gravity.

Evidence does not exist to show whether the number of Mulattoes being produced by primary union of Whites and Negroes is now larger than it was fifty or one hundred years ago. But evidence does exist to show that the intelligence and ability of a colored person are in pretty direct proportion to the amount of white blood he has, and that most of the positions of leadership, influence, and prominence in the Negro race are held not by real Negroes but by Mulattoes, many of whom have very little Negro blood. This is so true that to find a black Negro in a conspicuous position is a matter of comment. E.B. Reuter has calculated that a Mulatto child has a better chance than a black child to achieve prominence in the ratio of thirty-four to one.

Such a situation naturally puts a premium on white blood in the minds of Negroes, and therefore puts a prize on bastardy, discouraging any tendency to cultivate pure racial values on the part of the Blacks themselves. The black man who acquires wealth, at once wishes to show visible evidences of his affluence by acquiring a light yellow or "pink" wife, and the black girl is at a heavy discount matrimonially.

Even in adoption the same tendency is found. Child-placing societies may seek in vain to find a home for the pickaninny with black skin and curly hair, but the light-colored baby, despite other disqualifications, is eagerly adopted by darker Negro parents.

The religious world, the political world, and the educational world alike seem to have conspired to give all the rewards to the Negro with white blood and to make the bulk of the race feel that white blood is the greatest possible good for a Negro. Such a condonation of race mixture is an insidious and far-reaching menace to the racial and ethical standards of both races.

How much white blood now circulates in the veins of our Negroes cannot be told. It is generally considered, however, that at least one-third of all those classed as Negroes in the United States have, in fact, some white blood and the proportion is probably larger.

The "pass-for-white" does so purely by virtue of his physical characters which approximate those of his white ancestors. His intellectual and emotional traits may insidiously go back to his black ancestry, and may be brought into the White race in this way.

Mentally and emotionally the Negro is the product of thousands of years of evolution under the most stringent natural selection in the hot lands of Africa. He is notably lacking in just those qualities necessary for success in a modern Nordic industrial civilization, as for instance in self-control and in capacity for co-operation. Physically he is the product of the same circumstances. His tough skin gives him an advantage over the White in resisting some diseases. His lower vital capacity puts him at a disadvantage in others. Thus the Negro is liable to succumb to tuberculosis or pneumonia, and is less prone to cancer and skin affections. With the aid of white sanitation and hygiene, the Negro is holding his own, even gaining ground in the Northern cities where it was formerly supposed he would die out.

Natural selection, therefore, in view of the present vital statistics of the two races, can no longer be relied upon to solve the problem by a gradual elimination of the Negro in America. Comfort has been found in the fall of the ratio of the Negroes to the total population; but their absolute increase goes on just the same.

No satisfactory solution of the problem has been suggested. At present, from a study of past history, there appear to be but three possible solutions.

First, slow amalgamation with the Whites and an ever-increasing number of Mulattoes, who little by little will "pass" for Whites. This amalgamation might easily assume serious proportions in the near future, with an increase of mixed breeds all over the United States. But if the sentimental views about Negroes engendered by the Civil War can be lived down, it may be that the oncoming generation will resolutely face this Mulatto menace. Otherwise the absorption of 10 per cent Negroes and Mulattoes, to say nothing of East and South Europeans, in addition to Mexicans, Filipinos, and Japanese will produce a racial chaos such as ruined the Roman Empire.

A second solution would be deportation, which was seriously suggested a hundred years ago. At that time it might have been possible to re-transport the then slaves to Africa, and such action would have involved only a fraction of the cost of the Civil War. This was considered as a possible remedy by some of the wisest statesmen in the years immediately preceding the Civil War. Today it is not possible, because Africa, with the exception of Liberia, is under the control of white states, which certainly would not welcome such an enormous addition to their own color problem, aside from all other practical considerations.

INCREASE & DECREASE

1920-1930

Figures in each State show the percentage of increase and decrease.]

Present-day advocates of repatriation argue that lack of native population is the principal factor likely to hold back the development of some of the healthiest and most fertile parts of interior Africa. The American Negro, they say, might well carry there the education he has received in the United States, and do better for himself than he could expect to do here, especially if, through a rising race consciousness among the Whites, they show themselves less hospitable to his claims for equality.

The substantial following, gained by the Negro Garvey, who started a "Back to Africa" movement a few years ago, is cited as evidence that the Negroes in this country are not necessarily adverse to leaving it. But much more evidence will be needed before the repatriation of the Negro can be considered seriously.

As a third possibility, segregation has been suggested. This would mean the abandonment by the Whites of whole sections of the country along the Gulf of Mexico. This has actually happened in some places along the lower Mississippi River, where the numbers of the Negroes have become so overwhelming that the few remaining Whites have simply moved out and abandoned the district to them. It has happened and is happening in the West Indies. Haiti and Santo Domingo have been entirely turned over to Negroes and other examples of West Indian Islands almost abandoned to Negroes can be found.

Whatever be the final outcome, the Negro problem must be taken vigorously in hand by the Whites, without delay. States which have no laws preventing the intermarriage of white and black should adopt them. During the last quarter-century, many such bills, introduced in Northern legislatures, have been defeated by an organized pro-Negro lobby. The Christian churches in some parts of the North have also taken an unwise stand, in trying to break down the social barriers between Negro and White. This attitude goes back to the days of the abolitionists, who persuaded themselves that the Negro slave had all possible virtues and the Southern White man all possible vices. It was a primary factor in creating the tragedy of "reconstruction" after the Civil War.

Senator Roscoe Conkling hit this attitude off neatly when some one asked him what had happened in the Senate that day. He replied: "We have been discussing Senator Sumner's annual bill entitled 'An act to amend the act of God whereby there is a difference between white and black.'"

More necessary than legislation is a more vigorous and alert public opinion among the Whites, which will put a stop to social mixing of the two races. Social separation is the key to minimizing the evils of race mixture at the present time. Public opinion might well stop exalting the Mulatto and thereby putting its stamp of approval on miscegenation. Negroes should be encouraged to respect their own racial integrity. Finally, knowledge of methods of Birth Control now widespread among the Whites, should be made universally available to the Blacks.

Compared with the Negro, the American Indian offers no serious problem to American unity. On the entire continent north of Mexico there are only about 432,000. The 1930 census gives the Indian population of the United States as 332,397.

The distribution of these Indians is remarkably irregular. The West has the largest number; then comes the South, because of Oklahoma's 92,000, for the Gulf States have few. North Carolina, on the other hand, stands seventh in the list of States arranged according to Indian population. As against 137,000 in the West and 116,000 in the South, the North has but 78,000. These are widely scattered and often little known to the general public. New York State still has 7000 Indians, Michigan about the same number and North Dakota somewhat more; Wisconsin and Minnesota have 11,000 each, while South Dakota stands fourth on the list of all the States with its 22,000. In the West the Indian population is concentrated mainly in Arizona, New Mexico, California, Montana, and Washington, in the order named.

These Indians now represent 371 tribes, or remnants of tribes. How large their numbers were at the time of the first white settlement in North America has been a matter of interesting conjecture. Most estimates are not much above a million, but the population may have been considerably greater a few hundred years earlier. Since white occupation a few tribes have increased in numbers. Most have diminished, and some have become extinct, more frequently from the white man's diseases and from whiskey than from the results of fighting.

The densest Indian population at the time of the conquest was on the Pacific Coast, which did not come into close contact with the Whites until the last century. This Pacific Coast Indian population was also of a low scale of intelligence and culture, and remarkably broken up into distinct groups which could not understand each other. As many separate languages were spoken by the Indians of this region as by all the other Indians of the United States together. When the first mission on the West Coast was founded by the Spaniards, in 1769, the number of California Indians was computed at 220,000. This has decreased more than 90 per cent at this date.

The policy of the Catholic missionaries was to corral the Indians around the missions. The church considered itself the owner of all the land, and the Indians worked it as tenants. When the Mexican Government confiscated the property of the church, it took title to all the land. Hence the Indians, who had always lived on it, found themselves illegal trespassers, and until about 1913 they were landless, starving fugitives. At that time the government began to provide land for the Indians. While their treatment has decimated them nine times, their isolation prevented intermarriage with the Whites, so the California Indians are of relatively pure blood.

The revolt of the Pueblo Indians of Arizona and New Mexico against the Spanish in 1680-92 was the beginning of their decline. The Navajos and Apaches, on the contrary, have increased in numbers, at the same time avoiding white mixture.

The Indians of the Atlantic Coast were destroyed partly by disease, partly by war; and their remnants were pushed westward year after year by the Whites until they are mostly now west of the Mississippi, many of them being in Oklahoma. The Iroquois are an exception, and have perhaps increased in numbers. They got hold of firearms before their tribal neighbors and were able to destroy many of the latter, incorporating the remnants in their own tribe. The Sioux of the great plains are also said to have increased.

In the Gulf States, on the other hand, the Indians were largely exterminated before their remnants were moved to the Indian Territory. The Chickasaws told the French explorer, Iberville, in 1702, that in the preceding twelve years they had killed or captured for slave traders 2300 Choctaws, at a cost to themselves of 800 men.

In the Northwest and Alaska, whiskey and disease have been leading factors in the reduction of the number of the natives. With this, in many regions, went a low fertility, due partly to starvation.

Nearly all of the American Indians lived as hunters. When the Whites invaded the forests and drove off or killed the game, the Indian economic system was broken up, and they had little opportunity to meet the rapidly changing conditions.

There has been, since early times, some intermarriage between Indians and Whites, but it has not been on a sufficiently large scale to be serious. The estimate however is sometimes made that one-half of the census population of Indians has white blood. Naturally, there is no way of proving or disproving such a conjecture. Only in Oklahoma has such mixing been looked on with favor, and even there some tribes held themselves largely aloof from white miscegenation and punished with death any interbreeding of their members with Negroes. The discovery of oil on Indian tribal lands made the claim to Indian blood a lucrative one and oil revenues unfortunately covered a multitude of sins. Throughout the West in general the term "squaw man" is a bitter reproach.

Taking the country over, the Whites who have married Indians have not been of a high class. But the total number of Indians in the United States is so small that their future is probably that of being absorbed in the White race through miscegenation, unless it be for a few tribes cultivating a racial purity of their own and, with favorable economic conditions, perpetuating themselves for a long time to come.

The Mexican population is found mainly in the Southwestern States, but has also assumed relatively large proportions in such States as Colorado, Kansas, Illinois, and Michigan. The character of this immigration has been described elsewhere in these pages. It has given the United States an alien element with a high birthrate and very low standards of living, with which white laborers cannot and will not compete.

The census of 1930 found nearly a million and a half Mexicans in the United States. It was generally supposed that the number who had entered the country illegally was greater than those who came through the recognized routes. To prevent such a nullification of immigration regulations, mere registration of aliens is not sufficient, for that is likely to affect only those who have entered legally. Our entire population should be registered. The advantages of a universal system of proving identity are many, and extension of the system of registering births, on the one hand, and of registering voters, on the other, would take care of this without setting up much new and expensive machinery.

The menace of Chinese and Japanese immigration has for the present been stopped by immigration laws which exclude any one not eligible to citizenship. A proper application of this rule as established by the Supreme Court might shut off much of the immigration of Indians from Mexico.

Since the end of the World War the immigration of Filipino young men has become a disturbing problem on the Pacific Coast. The number of arrivals up to 1930 amounts to nearly 50,000. These, like the Greeks and some other European immigrant groups, bring but few women with them and therefore form a socially undesirable and racially threatening element wherever they are located.

Unlike the Puerto Ricans and Hawaiians, the Filipinos are not citizens of the United States, with rights of entry that cannot be abrogated. They are citizens of the Philippine Islands, and permitted to enter the United States only by courtesy. Congress, therefore, has full right to adopt legislation which will exclude them, and it should make immediate use of its power to protect white America from this reservoir of 10,000,000 Malays and Mongoloids now under the American flag and at present potential immigrants. If this cannot be done effectively, the United States will have no alternative but to admit that its adoption of the islands and its attempt to salvage them after Spanish misrule was a mistake. As a safeguard to its own racial welfare, it may become necessary to give the Filipino his independence, commend him to the benevolence of Providence and the League of Nations, and have nothing more to do with him.

In the same way there should be no thought of further acquisition of territory in the West Indies or in Central America. It is conceivable that the Central American countries might in a not too remote future be able to form a stable confederation and stand on their own feet more successfully than they have done during the last generation. If such a federation could include the West Indian Islands, the United States might well donate its possessions there.

Hindu immigration has so far been nothing more than a threat. The present immigration restrictions will prevent the immigration of these people, except for travel and study. Experience in many parts of the world has shown the folly of allowing white countries to be overrun by Hindus, and Americans should sympathize with the British possessions that are trying to maintain white supremacy in their own borders in this respect.

In Hawaii the United States has another possible source of undesirable immigration. The dominant element among its third of a million inhabitants is the Japanese, who have held themselves aloof from the other residents and shown little tendency to intermarry. Every Japanese child born in the islands is an American citizen, with the full right of entry to the mainland. The greater part of the rest of the population is a mongrel crowd. Chinese and native Hawaiians, until quite recently, have shown a marked tendency to intermarry. Every effort should be made to find some constitutional way by which Hawaii can be prevented from becoming a continuous source of supply of undesirable citizens of the United States.

While the list of unassimilable elements in the United States is a long one, it must be borne in mind that most of them are still small. A wise population policy promptly adopted and maintained henceforth will give the republic an opportunity to grow along sound and fruitful lines.