Chapter XV: Part 15

"All the available statistics and the unanimous opinion of men in
a position to know the facts would seem to be proof that
education--elementary or advanced, industrial or
literary--diminishes crime among Negroes. The alarming high rate
of Negro criminality is as much a condemnation of the community
in which it exists as of the offending Negroes themselves. Having
discovered that the Negro school is, at least, one institution
which successfully combats crime, the community cannot afford to
withhold its active interest in and generous support of its Negro
school. The more money spent in making such schools responsive to
the special needs of the race, the less will have to be spent on
crime, and if it comes to a question of cost, it is cheaper in
the long run to maintain and equip schools--Negro schools,
even--than police departments, courts, jails, penitentiaries, and
reformatories; for the school, properly conducted, makes the
Negro a greater asset, while the court finds him a liability, and
nearly always leaves him a greater liability to the community."

* * * * *

Some interesting articles in various publications are: "Problems of Race Assimilation," by Arthur C. Parker, in the January number of _The American Indian Magazine_; The Cavalry Fight at Carrizal, by Louis S. Morey, in _The Journal of the United States Cavalry_ _Association_; The Present Labor Situation, in the January number of _The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences_; Physic Factors in the New American Race Situation, in _The Journal of Race Development_, by George W. Ellis; and La Independencia de Tejas y la Esclavitud, by Senor V. Salado Alvarez, in the Cuban journal _La Reforma Social_.

Other such articles in this field are: Germany's Ambition in Central Africa, by Emile Cammaerts, in the October number of _The National Review_; The Present System of Education in Uganda, in the July number of _Uganda Notes_; The Gold Coast: Some Consideration of its Structures, People, and Natural History, by A. E. Kitson, in the July number of the _Geographic Journal_.

* * * * *

The arrangements for the biennial meeting of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History have been almost completed. A majority of the members of the Executive Council desire that it be held on Wednesday, the twenty-ninth of August, and have so ordered it. The program has not yet been made up, but several persons of prominence have promised to attend and speak. Among these are Mrs. Mary Church Terrell, Dean Kelly Miller, Professor George E. Haynes, Dr. R. R. Wright, Jr., Mr. Monroe N. Work, and Dr. Thomas J. Jones. Two of the important topics will be _Some Values of Negro History_ and _The Negro in the World War_.

THE AFRICAN ORIGIN OF THE GRECIAN CIVILIZATION[401]

I imagine, ladies and gentlemen, that when you first read the subject of the address to be delivered before this society to-day, you were a bit surprised, and, I trust, a bit interested. To claim an African origin for the Grecian civilization is hardly in keeping with the historical traditions inherited from our school days. It savors of a sort of heresy and passes far beyond the limits of popular opinion. There is a peculiar unanimity among all historians to state without reservation that the greatest civilization the world has ever known was pre-eminently Aryan, but historians are not always to be relied upon. They write for their own race and times and are careful to give as little credit as possible to races and events which fall within the pale of their prejudices. I question, however, if there is to be gained any ultimate good by subverting truth and popularizing error. Indeed, I believe that if to-day our historians, authors, press and pulpit would give the public the truth as far as it is possible to attain it, to-morrow would find us filled with a new vigor and a fresh determination to conquer the wrongs and inconsistencies of human life.

The old idea of the Grecian civilization was that it sprung, like Minerva, full armed from the brow of Zeus. It seemed to have no tangible beginning. The fabled kings and heroes of the Homeric Age, with their palaces and strongholds, were said to have been humanized sun-myths; their deeds but songs woven by wandering minstrels to win their meed of bread. Yet there has always been a suspicion among scholars that this view was wrong. The more we study the moral aspects of humanity the more we become convinced that the flower and fruit of civilization are evolved according to laws as immutable as those laws governing the manifestations of physical life. Historians have written that Greece was invaded by Aryans about 1400 B.C., and that henceforth arose the wonderful civilization; but the student knows that such was an impossibility and that some vital factor has been left out of the equation. When the Aryans invaded Greece they were savages from Neolithic Europe and could not possibly have possessed the high artistic capacities and rich culture necessary for the unfolding of Ægean civilization. "Of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes."

Speaking of the two foremost Grecian states, Herodotus writes as follows: "These are the Lacedæmonians and Athenians, the former of Doric, the latter of Ionic blood. And, indeed, these two nations had held from very early times the most distinguished place in Greece, the one being Pelasgic, the other a Hellenic people, and the one having never quitted its original seas, while the other had been excessively migratory." "The Hellenes," wrote Professor Boughton in the _Arena_ some years ago, "were the Aryans first to be brought into contact with these sunburnt Hamites, who, let it be remembered, though classed as whites, were probably as strongly Nigritic as are the Afro-Americans." "Greek art is not [Greek: autochthonus]," said Thiersch some fifty years ago, "but we derived from the Pelasgians, who, being blood relations of the Egyptians, undoubtedly brought the knowledge from Egypt." "The aptitude for art among all nations of antiquity," remarked Count de Gobineau a few years later, "was derived from an amalgamation with black races. The Egyptians, Assyrians and Etruscans were nothing but half-breeds, mulattoes." In the year 1884 Alexander Winchell, the famous American geologist, upset Americans with an article appearing in the _North American Review_. From it I quote the following: "The Pelasgic empire was at its meridian as early as 2500 B.C. This people came from the islands of the Ægean, and more remotely from Asia Minor. They were originally a branch of the sunburnt Hamitic stock that laid the basis of civilization in Canaan and Mesopotamia, destined later to be Semitized. Danaus and his daughters--that is, the fugitive 'shepherds' from Egypt--sought refuge among their Hamitic kindred in the Peloponnesus about 1700 B.C. Three hundred years before this these Pelasgians had learned the art of weaving from Aryan immigrants. In time they occupied the whole of Greece and Thessaly. Before 200 B.C. they established themselves in Italy. Thus do we get a conception of a vast Hamitic empire existing in prehistoric times, whose several nationalities were centered in Mesopotamia, Canaan, Egypt, Northwestern Africa, Iberia, Greece, Italy, Sicily, Sardinia and Central Europe--an intellectual ethnic family, the first of the Adamites to emerge into historic light, but with the records of its achievements buried in gloom almost as dense as that which covers the ruder populations that the Hamites everywhere displaced. To this family, chiefly, are to be traced the dark complexions of the nations and tribes still dwelling around the shores of the Mediterranean."

It was to be expected that such statements as the foregoing would throw the scholastic world into a ferment. There was a scramble to bolster up the cause of Aryanism and to preserve this one civilization, at least, to the credit of the Caucasian race. Homer was scanned with a patience unknown to college students and the classic myths were refined in the alembics of master minds. Yet there were some who cared for truth more than for racial glory and among them was Dr. Schlieman. Armed with a spade he went to the classic lands and brought to light a real Troy; at Tiryns and Mycenæ he laid to view the palaces and tombs and treasures of Homeric kings. His message back to scholars who waited tensely for his verdict was, "It looks to me like the civilization of an African people." A new world opened to archeologists and the Ægean became the Mecca of the world. Traces of this prehistoric civilization began to make their appearance far beyond the limits of Greece itself. From Cyprus and Palestine to Sicily and Southern Italy, and even to the coasts of Spain, the colonial and industrial enterprise of the Myceneans has left its mark throughout the Mediterranean basin. The heretics were vindicated. "Whether they like it or not," declared Sir Arthur Evans before the London Hellenic Society a short time ago, "classical students must consider origins. The Grecians whom we discern in the new dawn were not the pale-skinned northerners, but essentially the dark-haired, brown-complexioned race." Perhaps Sir Arthur's words will carry weight with you when I remark that his wonderful discoveries in classical lands have brought him the honor of election last year as president of the British Association, the most notable assemblage of scholars in the world. I might further mention that Professor Sergi, of the University of Rome, has founded a new study of the origin of European civilization upon the remarkable archeological finds, entitled "The Mediterranean Race." From this masterly work I choose the following: "Until recent years the Greeks and Romans were regarded as Aryans, and then as Aryanized peoples; the great discoveries in the Mediterranean have overturned all these views. To-day, although a few belated supporters of Aryanism still remain, it is becoming clear that the most ancient civilization of the Mediterranean is not of Aryan origin. The Aryans were savages when they invaded Europe; they destroyed in part the superior civilization of the Neolithic populations, and could not have created the Græco-Latin civilization. The primitive populations of Europe originated in Africa and the basin of the Mediterranean was the chief center of movement when the African migrations reached the center and north of Europe."

What, then, are some of those discoveries which have so completely destroyed the ethnic fetish of the Caucasian race? The greatest and most conclusive of them all was the discovery of the palace of Minos by Sir Arthur Evans. In 1894 this scientist undertook a series of exploration campaigns in central and eastern Crete; it has so happened that some years previous he had been hunting out ancient engraved stones at Athens and came upon some three or four-sided seals showing on each of their faces groups of hieroglyphics and linear signs distinct from the Egyptian and Hittite, but evidently representing some form of script. Upon inquiry Sir Arthur learned that these seals had been found in Crete, and to Crete he went. The legends of the famous labyrinth and palace of Minos came back to him and were refreshed by the gossipy peasants, who repeated the tales that had come down as ancestral memories. In wandering around the site of his proposed labors Sir Arthur noticed some ruined walls, the great gypsum blocks of which were engraved with curious symbolic characters, crowning the southern slope of a hill known as Kephala, overlooking the ancient site of Knossos, the city of Minos. It was the prelude to the discovery of the ruins of a palace, the most wonderful archeological find of modern times.

Who was Minos? In the myths that have come down to us he was a sort of an Abraham, a friend of God, and often appears as almost identical with his native Zeus. He was the founder and ruler of the royal city of Knossos, the Cretan Moses, who every nine years repaired to the famous cave of Zeus whether on the Cretan Ida or on Dicta, and received from the god of the mountain the laws for his people. He was powerful and great and extended his dominions far and wide over the Ægean Isles and coast lands, and even Athens paid to him its tribute of men and maidens. To him is attributed the founding of the great Minoan civilization.

I will not have time today to review the mass of archeological data which the discoveries of this civilization have produced. They consist of cyclopean ruins of cities and strongholds, tombs, vases, statues, votive bronzes, and exquisitely engraved gems and intaglios. That which is most valuable in establishing the claim of the African origin of the Grecian civilization is the discovery of the frescoes on the palace walls. These opened up a new epoch in painting and are of the utmost interest to the world. The colors are almost as brilliant as when laid down more than three thousand years ago. Among these frescoes are numerous representations of the race whose civilization they represent. It was a race neither Aryan nor Semitic, but African. The portraitures follow the Egyptian precedent and for the first time the mysterious Minoan and Mycenean people rise before us. The tint of the flesh is of a deep reddish brown and the limbs finely moulded. The profile of the face is pure and almost classically Greek. The hair is black and curling and the lips somewhat full, giving the entire physiognomy a distinct African cast. In the women's quarters the frescoes show them to be much fairer, the difference in complexion being due, probably, to the seclusion of harem life. But in their countenances, too, remain those distinguishable features which link with the African race.

You will pardon me, I trust, if occasion is taken here to impress upon you the value of genuine archeological evidence. Historians may write anything to reflect their vanity or their prejudices, but when the remains of ancient civilizations rise out of the dust and sands and give the lie to their assertions there is nothing more to be said. Egypt, Mesopotamia, Phoenecia, Greece, and Rome, have all been claimed for the Aryan, but the spade has unearthed stone that bears sentient witness to the fact that Africa has been the pioneer in the field of civilization. We wonder, then, why the historians continue to ignore these remains and persist in continuing falsehood. There can be but one answer and that is racial vanity prefers falsehood to truth and prejudice demands suppression rather than expression.

Yet these frescoes of Crete need not be such a surprise to scholars and public after all. The very classics themselves have more than hinted of the great part played by Africa in the development of Grecian civilization. Let us revert to the myths and trace the descent of Minos and his progeny. You will recollect that the ancient heroes of Greece were divided into the older and younger branches, the former belonging to the house of Inachus, distinctly Hamitic, while the latter belonged to the race of Japotus, distinctly a mixture.

The Pelasgic races of the south traced their descent from Inachus, the river god and son of Oceanus. The son of Inachus, Phoroneus, lived in the Peloponnesus and founded the town of Argos. He was succeeded by his son, Pelasgus, from whom the aforementioned races of the south derived their name. Io, the divine sister of Phoroneus, had the good fortune, or perhaps misfortune, to attract the attention of the all-loving Zeus and as a consequence incurred the enmity of Hera. She is transformed into a beautiful heifer by Zeus, but a gadfly sent by Hera torments her until she is driven mad and starts upon those famous wanderings which became the subject of many of the most celebrated stories of antiquity. Æschylus reviews her roamings in his great tragedy, "Prometheus Bound," and makes Io to arrive at Mount Caucasus to which the fire-bringer is chained. It is here that Prometheus delivers to her the oracle given him by his mother, Themis, Titan-born. He directs her to Canobos, a city on the Nile, and tells her that there Zeus will restore her mind.

"and thou shalt bear a child
Of Zeus begotten, Epaphos, 'Touchborn,'
Swarthy of hue."

Aryan parents do not usually bear black children and to show that Æschylus was thoroughly cognizant of the ethnical relationship here implied, permit me to quote from "The Suppliants," another of his tragedies. The Suppliants were the fifty daughters of Danaus, the Shepherds of Egypt, and they described themselves as, "We, of swart sunburnt race," "our race that sprang from Epaphos," and when they appear before the Argive king, claiming his country as their ancestral home, their color causes him to question their claims in the following words:

"Nay, stranger, what ye tell is past belief
For me to hear, that ye from Argos spring;
For ye to Libyan women are most like,
And nowise to our native maidens here.
Such race might Neilos breed, and Kyprian mould,
Like yours, is stamped by skilled artificers
On women's features; and I hear that those
Of India travel upon camels borne,
Swift as the horse, yet trained as sumpter-mules,
E'en those who as the Æthiops' neighbors dwell.
And had ye borne the bow, I should have guessed,
Undoubting, ye were of the Amazon tribe."

No, Æschylus made no mistake. He meant just what he wrote and the discoveries of the wonderful Minoan civilization have proven that the swarthy touch-born son of Zeus and Io was the incarnation of the African element that raised Greece to the very pinnacle of civilization. Minos is in direct descent from Epaphos and from the latter's prolific progeny we note such names as Agenor, Cadmus, Europa, Ægyptus, Danaus, Perseus, Menelaus, husband of the famous Helen, Hercules, and Agamemnon, chosen by the Greeks to lead them against Troy.

If I should conclude at this point my thesis would be complete and conclusive, but there are other subjects which demand some attention. I cannot pass in silence the supposed testimony to the presence of the fair type in Greece, and to its superiority over the darker population, furnished by the Homeric poems. This supposed testimony has precipitated wordy wars as terrible, though perhaps less sanguinary, as those which were engaged in by the gods and heroes themselves. The fault, however, lies with the translators rather than with the epics. From the work of these industrious authors we get the idea that golden hair and blue eyes were so common that there was little chance of any other sort of people lingering around. The truth of the matter is that these translators, like historians, have permitted their prejudices to warp their accuracy. There is not in the entire writings of Homer an adjective or description applying to any of the principals that even suggests a single one of them having blue eyes and golden hair. Indeed, it is quite the reverse. Athena is [Greek: glaukôpis]; [Greek: glaukos] means blue like the sea and the unclouded sky; the olive is [Greek: glaukos] also, and Athena is guardian of the olive. [Greek: Glaukôpis] means that her eyes are brilliant and terrible. Apollo in Homer is [Greek: chrusaoros], that is to say, bearing a golden sword; while [Greek: xanthos], which has been mistranslated to mean fair, means reddish brown and brown, Artemis is [Greek: chruseê], golden, that is to say, brilliant, but never fair. Neptune is [Greek: kuanochaitês], that is to say, bluish, blackish, like the dark and deep waves of the ocean. Eos, the dawn, is [Greek: chrusothronos, rododaktulos, krokopeplos], because the color of the dawn is golden, rosy and red. Neither Hera nor Kalypsos is fair from the descriptive adjectives. Achilles is [Greek: xanthos] which, as was said before, means reddish brown and brown. Agamemnon is also [Greek: xanthos] and remember, if you please, that he is in direct descent from Epaphos, the swarthy ancestor of the Pelasgic houses.

So you see that even our translators are not to be trusted. Professor Sergi made an extensive investigation of the supposed testimony to the presence of the fair type in Greece and his conclusions are as follows: "In Homer none of the individuals are fair in the ethnographic sense of the word. I could bring forth a wealth of facts to show that what I have just stated regarding the anthropological characters of the Homeric gods and heroes may also be said, and with more reason, of the types of Greek and Roman statuary which, though in the case of the divinities they may be conventionalized, do not in the slightest degree recall the features of a northern race." Hence the blue-eyed and golden-haired gods and goddesses who grace the canvases of our art galleries and theater curtains are but pigmentary creations from the minds of artists who visualize the peculiarities of their own race just as the Jewish Madonna is depicted as a Spanish, Dutch, German, English, Italian, Russian, Scandinavian, and even as an African mother by the different nationalities in turn.

Another idea which seems to be rapidly taking hold upon the scholastic mind is that the Iliad and Odyssey are in reality Minoan epics made over, if you please, to fit the later Grecian epochs. While the Homer we know professedly commemorates the deeds of Achaean heroes, everything about them is non-Hellenic. The whole picture of the civilization, including home life, dress, religious worship, and architecture, is Minoan and Mycenean. Warriors' weapons are of bronze when the age to which we attribute Homer was an iron age. The combatants use huge body shields when, as a matter of fact, such shields had been obsolete long previous to 1200 B.C. The form of worship, hymns and invocations to deities, and the use of certain sacrificial forms were all adaptations from the Mycenean ritual. The arrangements of the palaces and courts as narrated in the epics were counterparts of the Minoan and Mycenean palaces and had long since passed out of existence. Among the discoveries in Crete have been found pictorial scenes exactly as described in Homer, and the artistic representations upon the shield of Achilles and upon the shield of Hercules, as described by Hesiod, have been duplicated among the ruins of Crete. Upon intaglios recovered we find combatants striking at each other's throats and you will recollect that Achilles does just this thing in his fight with Hector. I might continue these coincidences indefinitely, but I believe that the point I desire to make is sufficiently clear to merit your attention. The great Grecian epics are epics of an African people and Helen, the cause of the Trojan war, must henceforth be conceived as a beautiful brown skin girl.

In the press and periodicals of our country we read that the classics are doomed and about to pass out of our lives, but the classics can never die. I sometimes dream of a magical time when the sun and moon will be larger than now and the sky more blue and nearer to the world. The days will be longer than these days and when labor is over and there falls the great flood of light before moonrise, minds now dulled with harsh labor and commercialism will listen to those who love them as they tell stories of ages past, stories that will make them tingle with pleasure and joy. Nor will these story tellers forget the classics. They will hear the surge of the ocean in Homer and march with his heroes to the plains of Troy; they will wander with Ulysses and help him slay the suitors who betrayed the hospitality of the faithful Penelope; they will escape from Priam's burning city with Æneas, weep over Dido's love, and help him to found a nation beside the Tiber. And the translators who shall again bring into life the dead tongues will not let prejudice cloud their brains or truth make bitter their tongues. The heroes of Homer shall, like the Prince of Morocco, wear the livery of the burnished sun and be knit by binding ties to the blood of Afric's clime from whence civilization took its primal rise.

Permit me now, ladies and gentlemen, to show definitely the debt which Greece owes to the Minoan and Mycenean civilizations. Crete, as I have said before, appears to be the center from which the Mediterranean culture radiated. It is the "Mid-Sea Land," a kind of half-way house between three continents, and its geographical position makes it the logical cradle of European civilization. It is near the mainland of Greece, opposite the mouths of the Nile and in easy communication with Asia Minor, with which it was actually connected in late geological times. As I mentioned before, the civilization expanded in every direction and at the time of the conquest it had firm hold upon Greece, appearing at Mycenæ, Tiryns, Thebes, Orochomenos, and other places. That some vanguard of Aryan immigrants came into contact with this culture at its climax is plain from the evidence furnished by Homer. That they mingled with the inhabitants is certain. The later onrush about 1200 B.C. destroyed in part the civilization found there, but fortunately there was not utter destruction. These rude people realized the difference between their savagery and their enemies' culture. They, too, merged with the inhabitants and formed the Grecian people of historic times. This amalgamation is clearly apparent in the Greeks to-day and because of it Count de Gobineau has called their ancestors half-breeds and mulattoes. Note, also, if you will, that Greek genius burned brightest in those parts of Greece where the Minoan elements were most thoroughly planted.

If you should inquire the source of the Minoan civilization I would first call your attention to the fact that Herodotus attributed much of the Grecian civilization to Egypt, and secondly to the opinion expressed by Sir Arthur Evans in his presidential address before the British Association last fall. "My own recent investigations," said he, "have more and more brought home to me the all pervading community between Minoan Crete and the land of Pharaohs. When we realize the great indebtedness of the succeeding classical culture of Greece to its Minoan predecessor the full significance of this conclusion will be understood. Ancient Egypt itself can no longer be regarded as something apart from general human history. Its influences are seen to lie about the very cradle of our civilization. The first quickening impulse came to Crete from the Egyptian and not from the Oriental side." Herodotus has been called the father of lies, but at this late date we again see him vindicated in a conclusion reached by the greatest living authority upon classical archeology.

Before closing I wish again to enforce the fact that the ferment creating the wonderful Grecian civilization was preeminently the ferment of African blood. Take all the archeological facts of the last fifty years and read them up or down, across or diagonally, inside and out, and this fact rises into your mind like a Banquo that will not down. Historians may distort truth and rob the African race of its historical position, but facts are everywhere throwing open the secret closets of nations and exposing ethnic skeletons that laugh and jest at our racial vanities. The Aryan savages of Europe came down upon Greece, found there a great civilization, merged with the inhabitants and builded a greater. The all but savage European of the Dark Ages knew nothing of culture save what had been taught him by the Roman legions, the heirs of the Mediterranean civilization. This little was almost forgotten until religious fanaticism started the Crusades and brought them into contact with the civilized refinement of the Arabians, Moors and Saracens, likewise peoples in whose veins flowed the fiery ferment of African blood. If, as Sir Arthur Evans declares, classical students must consider origins and admit the ancient Grecians of African descent, so must they go a bit further and admit the Renaissance to have sprung because of contact between feudal Europe and African Mohammedanism. Again we must admit, no matter how bitter the taste, that the mixed race has always been the great race--the pure race always the stagnant race. One potent reason for the possible downfall of European civilization to-day is the fact that the Aryan element has proven incapable of the mighty trust. It has forgotten the everlasting lesson of history that mergence of distinct types means the perpetuation of nationalism. The sole tenet of Europe has been the domination of the world by the Caucasian and suddenly it discovers that the term Caucasian is too narrow to include both Saxon and Teuton. Hence a war for the extermination of both.

The end of the world is not near and the dream of a millennium is equidistant. The sum of all that is past is but a prelude of that which is to come. It has taken the brute a myriad of years for his gaze to reach beyond them. Civilization is a mixture of dictions and contradictions and none of us to-day is sure that we know just what it means. Through all there yet remain:

"Those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain light of all our day,--
Are yet the master-light of all our seeing,--
Upholds us, cherish and have powers to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of Eternal Silence."

I close with the hope of a time when earthly values will be measured with a justice now deemed divine. It is then that Africa and her sun-browned children will be saluted. In that day men will gladly listen with open minds when she tells how in the deep and dark pre-historic night she made a stairway of the stars so that she might climb and light her torch from the altar fires of heaven, and how she has held its blaze aloft in the hall of ages to brighten the wavering footsteps of earthly nations.

FOOTNOTES:

[401] This address was delivered before the Omaha Philosophical Society, April 1, 1917.

THE JOURNAL

OF

NEGRO HISTORY

VOL. II--OCTOBER, 1917--NO. 4

SOME HISTORICAL ERRORS OF JAMES FORD RHODES

While on a visit to Cleveland, Ohio, some time ago, the guest of my good friend George A. Myers, my attention was called to Rhodes' History of the United States. This was due, no doubt, to the fact that Mr. Myers had been in correspondence with Mr. Rhodes relative to certain points in the career of the late M. A. Hanna, brought out by Mr. Rhodes, which, in the opinion of Mr. Myers, were not accurate. In glancing over one of the volumes, I came across the chapters giving information about what took place in the State of Mississippi during the period of Reconstruction. I detected so many statements and representations which to my own knowledge were absolutely groundless that I decided to read carefully the entire work. I regret to say that, so far as the Reconstruction period is concerned, it is not only inaccurate and unreliable but it is the most biased, partisan and prejudiced historical work I have ever read. In his preface to volume six, the author was frank enough to use the following language: "Nineteen years' almost exclusive devotion to the study of one period of American history has had the tendency to narrow my field of vision." Without doing the slightest violence to the truth, he could have appropriately added these words: "And since the sources of my information touching the Reconstruction period were partial, partisan and prejudiced, my field of vision has not only been narrowed, but my mind has been poisoned, my judgment has been warped, my decisions and deductions have been biased and my opinions have been so influenced that my alleged facts have not only been exaggerated, but my comments, arguments, inferences and deductions based upon them, can have very little if any value for historical purposes."

Many of his alleged facts were so magnified and others so minimized as to make them harmonize with what the author thought the facts should be rather than what they actually were. In the first place, the very name of his work is a misnomer: "History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 _to the Final Restoration of Home Rule at the South in 1877_." I have emphasized the words "to the final restoration of home rule at the South in 1877" because those are the words that constitute the misnomer. If home rule were finally restored to the South in 1877, the natural and necessary inference to be drawn is that prior to that time those States were subjected to some other kind of rule, presumably that of foreigners and strangers, an inference which is wholly at variance with the truth. Another inference to be drawn is that those States had enjoyed home rule until the same was revolutionized or set aside by the Reconstruction Acts of Congress and that it was finally restored in 1877. If this is the inference which the writer meant to have the reader make, it is conclusive evidence of the fact that he was unpardonably and inexcusably ignorant of the subject matter about which he wrote. As that term is usually and generally understood, there never was a time when those States did not have home rule, unless we except the brief period when they were under military control, and even then the military commanders utilized home material in making appointments to office. Since the officers, however, were not elected by the people, it may be plausibly claimed that they did not have home rule. But the State governments that were organized and brought into existence under the Reconstruction Acts of Congress were the first and only governments that were genuinely republican in form. The form of government which existed in ante-bellum days was that of an aristocracy. That which has existed since what Mr. Rhodes is pleased to term the restoration of home rule is simply that of a local despotic oligarchy. The former _was_ not, and the present _is_ not, based upon the will and choice of the masses; but the former was by far the better of the two, for whatever may be truthfully said in condemnation and in derogation of the southern aristocracy of ante-bellum days, it can not be denied that they represented the wealth, the intelligence, the decency and the respectability of their respective States. While the State governments that were dominated by the aristocrats were not based upon the will of the people, as a whole, yet from an administrative point of view they were not necessarily bad. Such can not be said of those who are now the representatives of what Mr. Rhodes is pleased to term home rule.

On page 171 of his seventh volume, Mr. Rhodes says: "Some Southern men at first acted with the Republican party, but they gradually slipped away from it as the color line was drawn and reckless and corrupt financial legislation inaugurated." That thousands of white men in the South, who identified themselves with the Republican party between 1868 and 1876, subsequently left it, will not be denied, but the reasons for their action are not those given by Mr. Rhodes. In fact, there is no truth in the allegation about the drawing of the color line and very little in the one about corrupt or questionable financial legislation. The true reason why so many white men at the South left the Republican party may be stated under three heads: first, the Democratic victories of 1874 which were accepted by southern Democrats as a national repudiation of the congressional plan of Reconstruction; second, the closeness of the Presidential election of 1876 together with the supposed bargain entered into between the Hayes managers and southern Democratic members of Congress, by which the South was to be turned over to the Democrats of that section in consideration of which the said southern Democrats gave their consent to the peaceable inauguration of Hayes; third, the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States by which the doctrine of States' Rights was given new life and strength.

It is true there are some men whose party affiliations are based upon principle and convictions regardless of consequences personal to themselves. Occasionally there are found some who are even willing to be martyrs, but they are exceptions to the general rule. The average man is politically ambitious. He desires political distinction and official recognition. In determining his party affiliations, therefore, he is more than apt to cast his lot with the party through which he believes that ambition may be gratified. After the consummation of the events above referred to, the conviction became settled in the minds of white men at the South that the Democratic party in that section would be, for a generation, at least, the only channel through which it would be possible for any one to have his political ambition realized. Hence, thousands of those who had previously joined the Republican party returned to the Democratic since that party presented the only hope of their future political salvation.

Mr. Rhodes would lead one to infer that the southern white men who came into the Republican party in the South between 1868 and 1876 were not among the most intelligent, cultivated, refined and representative men of that section. As a rule, they were men who belonged to, and were identified with, what was known as the "Southern aristocracy." Such men, for instance, as Ex-Governors Orr of South Carolina, Parsons of Alabama, Reynolds of Texas, and Brown of Georgia. Also such men as Mosby, Wickham, and subsequently Mahone, Massey, Paul, Fulkerson and Riddleberger, of Virginia. General R. E. Lee was known to have leanings in the same direction, but since he was not politically ambitious, his views were not made a matter of public discussion. In addition to Ex-Governor Brown of Georgia, they included such men as General Longstreet, Joshua Hill, Bullock and many others of like caliber. Even Ben Hill was suspected by some and accused by others of leaning in the same direction. In Louisiana, not less than 25 per cent. of the best and most substantial white men of that State became identified with the Republican party under the leadership of such men as Ex-Governor Hahn and the Honorable Mr. Hunt (who was appointed Secretary of the Navy by President Garfield), Wells, Anderson and many others. General Beauregard was known, or at any rate believed, to be in sympathy with these men and the cause they represented, although he took no active part in politics. But it was in my own State of Mississippi, where I had an intimate knowledge of, and acquaintance with, the solid and substantial white men who identified themselves with the Republican party and whose leadership the newly enfranchised blacks faithfully followed. They included such men as James L. Alcorn, who was elected Governor of the State by the Republicans in 1869 and to the United States Senate by the legislature that was elected at the same time. Alcorn was one of the aristocrats of the past. He served with Mr. Lamar in the secession convention of 1861 and was a general in the Confederate Army.

Mr. Rhodes failed to inform his readers of the fact that the Democratic candidate for Governor against Alcorn, Judge Louis Dent, belonged to that much abused class called "carpet baggers," but who, like thousands of others of that class, both Democrats and Republicans, was a man of honor and integrity. The same was true of Tarbell, Powers, Pierce, McKee, Jeffords, Speed and others of the same type in both parties. In addition to Alcorn, there was Col. R. W. Flournoy, who also served with Mr. Lamar as a member of the secession convention and who was the Republican candidate for Congress against Mr. Lamar in 1872, also Judge Jason Niles, who served as a member of the State legislature, Judge of the Circuit Court and member of Congress. His able and brilliant son, Judge Henry Clay Niles, is now the United States District Judge for that State, having been appointed by President Harrison. He has the reputation of being one of the best and finest Judges on the Federal Bench. The State never had before and has not had since, a finer judiciary than it had under the administrations of Alcorn, Powers and Ames, the three Republican Governors. In referring to the three justices of the State Supreme Court, Mr. Rhodes made the statement that eligible material in the Republican party was so scarce that, in order to get three competent judges the Governor was obliged to select a Democrat. This is not true. Chief Justice E. G. Peyton and Associate Justice H. F. Simrall were both southern Republicans. Justice Tarbell, though a so-called "carpet bagger," was also a Republican and an able judge, who enjoyed the confidence and respect of the bench and bar. When he retired from the bench he was made Second Comptroller of the United States Treasury.

In addition to these able and brilliant men, I feel justified in naming a few others, such as R. W. Millsaps, in whose honor one of the educational institutions at Jackson was named; W. M. Compton; T. W. Hunt; J. B. Deason; W. H. Vasser; Luke Lea, who was at one time United States District Attorney; his son, A. M. Lea, who subsequently held the same office; J. L. Morphis, who was one of the first Republicans elected to Congress; Judge Hiram Cassidy, who was the recognized leader of the bar in the southern part of the State; his able and brilliant son, Hiram Cassidy, Jr.; and his law partner, Hon. J. F. Sessions. Among the circuit and chancery court judges there were such jurists as Messrs. Chandler, Davis, Hancock, Walton, Smyley, Henderson, Hill, Osgood, Walker, Millsaps, McMillan, and Drane. Moreover, there were thousands of others, such as J. N. Carpenter and James Surget, men of character, wealth and intelligence, who had no ambition for official recognition or political distinction, but who were actuated by what they honestly believed to be conducive to the best interests of their country, their State and their section. In fact, the southern white men that came into the Republican party were typical representatives of the best blood and the finest manhood of the South, than whom no better men ever lived. And yet to read what Mr. Rhodes has written, one would naturally assume that the opposite of this was true, that the Republican party in that section was under the domination of northern "carpet baggers," a few worthless southern whites and a number of dishonest and incompetent colored men. This, no doubt, is the false, deceptive and misleading picture which had been painted from the vividness of his partial, mistaken, prejudiced and diseased imagination.

That many mistakes were made during the progress of Reconstruction cannot and will not be denied. No friend and supporter of the congressional plan of Reconstruction will maintain that every thing was perfect. On the contrary, it is frankly admitted that quite a number of grave blunders were made; but they were not confined to any one party. Neither Republicans nor Democrats can justly lay claim to all that was good or truthfully charge the other with all that was bad. Of those who were selected as representatives of the two parties, the Democrats had, in point of experience and intelligence, a slight advantage over the Republicans; but in point of honesty and integrity the impartial historian will record the fact that the advantage was with the Republicans. How could either escape error? The Civil War had just come to a close; sectional animosity was bitter and intense. The Republican party was looked upon as the party of the North and, therefore, the bitter enemy of the South. The southern white men who joined the Republican party were accused of being traitors to their section and false to their own race and blood; they were called Scalawags. Through a process of intimidation, chiefly by means of social ostracism, independent thought and action on the part of southern whites, during the early period of Reconstruction, were pretty effectually prevented. Through such methods, they were quite successfully held under the subjection and control of those whose leadership they had been accustomed to follow.

Under such circumstances, the reader may ask the question, why was it and how was it that so many of the best white men of that section joined the Republican party? The answer is that, prior to the election of General Grant to the presidency in 1868, very few of them did so. It was never a question of men. It was always a question of party. Under such circumstances, thousands of white men were obliged to vote for certain Democratic candidates who were otherwise objectionable as against certain Republicans who were otherwise acceptable. In like manner, thousands of colored men were obliged to vote for certain Republican candidates who were otherwise objectionable as against certain Democrats who were otherwise acceptable. The wonder, therefore, is, not that so many, but that so few mistakes were made; not that so many, but that so few objectionable persons were elected to important and responsible positions.

After the election of Grant, however, in 1868 the feeling of intolerance somewhat subsided, resulting in a large number of accessions to the Republican party from the ranks of the best and most substantial white men of that section. But it was not until the reelection of Grant in 1872 that the feeling of political proscription, social ostracism and intolerance among the whites seemingly disappeared. It was then that white men came into, took charge of and assumed the leadership of the Republican party, in large numbers. They then had nothing to fear and nothing to lose by being identified with the Republican party when social distinctions growing out of politics ceased to be effective. The South then entered upon a new era which was destined to bring to that section wealth and prosperity with happiness and contentment among its people of both races, all living under local governments successfully controlled by the better element of native whites with the cooperation and participation to some extent of the newly enfranchised blacks.

The writer of this article has always believed it to be a misfortune to his race and to the country, if conditions be such as to make it necessary for any race or group, of which our citizenship is composed, to act in a solid body with any one political party. The writer timely called attention to this in a speech which he delivered on the floor of the House of Representatives over thirty years ago. He then made an appeal to the Democrats to change the attitude of their party towards the colored Americans. While the colored people, he said, were grateful to the Republican party for their physical emancipation, they would be equally grateful to the Democratic party for their political emancipation. While he was a Republican from choice, he personally knew of many members of his race who were Republicans, not from choice but from necessity, and that the Democratic party was responsible for the existence of that necessity. Upon economic questions there are differences of opinion among colored as well as white persons. It is an injustice to the colored race and a misfortune to the country, if they can not vote in accordance with their convictions upon such questions. No race or group can be true and independent American citizens, as all should be, when they are made to feel that the exercise and enjoyment by them of their civil and political rights are contingent upon the result of an election. It must be said to the credit of the late Grover Cleveland that he did all in his power both as Governor of New York and as President of the United States to bring about this necessary change and reform in his party. That his efforts were not crowned with success, was through no fault of his.

The newly enfranchised blacks at the South, as I have endeavored to show, had no other alternative than to act with the Republican party. That some objectionable persons should have been elected by them under such conditions, could not very well have been prevented. But the reader of Mr. Rhodes's history cannot fail to see that he believed it was a grave mistake to have given the colored men at the South the right to vote, and in order to make the alleged historical facts harmonize with his own views upon this point, he took particular pains to magnify the virtues and minimize the faults of the Democrats and to magnify the faults and minimize the virtues of the Republicans, the colored men especially. On page 97 of his fifth volume, for instance, Mr. Rhodes says: "But few Negroes were competent to perform the duties; for instance, it was said that the colored man, who for four years was Sheriff of DeSoto County, could neither read nor write. The Negro incumbent generally farmed out his office to a white deputy for a share of the revenue."

The foregoing is one of the most barefaced and glaring misrepresentations that can possibly be made. The reader will notice that the allegation is based upon "it has been said." But if Mr. Rhodes had been anxious to record only what was accurate and true, he should have, as he easily could have done, found out just what the facts were, as I have done. The facts were these. When Tate County was created the greater part of the territory composing the new county had been taken from the county of DeSoto. The then sheriff of DeSoto County lived in that section which was made a part of the new county of Tate. It thus became necessary for a new sheriff to be appointed by the Governor for DeSoto County to hold office until the election of a sheriff at the next regular election. Rev. J. J. Evans, a colored Baptist minister and a Union soldier, was thereupon appointed. Since this took place in 1873, the appointment must have been made by Governor R. C. Powers, who had been elected Lieutenant Governor on the ticket with Alcorn in 1869 and had become Governor when Alcorn went to the United States Senate in 1871. Although he was one of those who belonged to that class called "carpet baggers," Governor Powers was known to be an honest and an upright man and one who exercised great care in all of his appointments. Governor Powers never could have been induced to appoint as sheriff of any county a man who could neither read nor write.

Mr. Evans discharged the duties of his position with such entire satisfaction that he was nominated by the Republicans and elected to succeed himself at the regular election in November, 1873, for the full term of two years. In 1875 he was renominated by his party to succeed himself. Mr. Evans's administration had been so satisfactory that when the Democratic county convention met to nominate a local ticket, no nomination was made for the office of sheriff. But between the nomination and election the Democratic organization in the State saw a new light. It was decided that the State must be "_redeemed_," and that nearly all of the counties must be included in that redemption. The Democratic executive committee of DeSoto County was, therefore, directed to meet and complete the local ticket by nominating a candidate for sheriff. This was done, and the ticket as thus completed was, of course, declared elected and DeSoto County "_redeemed_."

It is a fact of which Mr. Rhodes may not be aware, that the county sheriff in Mississippi is also the county tax collector, and as such he is required to give a heavy bond. These bonds are usually given by property owners of the county, nearly all of whom are white men and Democrats. Had Mr. Evans been the man described by Mr. Rhodes, he never could have qualified for the office. It is also a fact of which Mr. Rhodes may not be aware, that the county sheriff in Mississippi as the chief executive and administrative officer of his county, is necessarily obliged, regardless of his own qualifications and fitness, to employ a number of assistants and deputies to aid him in running the office. The number of persons, with the salary or compensation of each, is fixed by law or the court and they are paid according to law out of money appropriated for that purpose. In making these appointments, it is both reasonable and natural that the appointing power would favorably consider a suggestion or recommendation from any one of the sureties. At any rate, Mr. Evans had the good sense to surround himself with honest, efficient and capable assistants. He is still living at Hernando, DeSoto County, Mississippi. As I write these lines, an autograph letter from him is before me. While it is clear that he is not a college graduate, his letter effectually disproves the allegation that he can neither read nor write. Moreover, even if his education is limited, this cannot be considered exceptional, for the sheriffs of many counties in the South today are illiterate and mentally undeveloped. I judge from the contents of Mr. Evans's letter that there is no truth in the allegation that he divided any part of his own compensation with any one or more of his assistants. He left the office with a spotless record, every dollar of the public funds that passed through his hands, and for which he was liable, having been honestly and faithfully accounted for.