The Dominion SATURDAY, AUGUST 9, 1919. AMERICA'S GREAT RACE PROBLEM

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 269, 9 August 1919, Page 6

The Dominion SATURDAY, AUGUST 9, 1919. AMERICA'S GREAT RACE PROBLEM

The race riots which have recently occurred in the United States show how deep is the gulf which still separates black from white in the great republic of the Western world. The negro problem has baffled all the chorts of American statesmen, and no real solution is vet in sight.' It is an evil- legacy i'roin' the old slave days. The negroes'who wore bought or stolen from Africa before the Civil War have, increased and multiplied until they now. form a.very considerable section of the population. Some of the Southern States contain more black peoplc-than white, and-in some of the counties the former are three times as numerous as the latter. The two races exist side by side, but the barriers that separate them arc all-the time growing stronger. Some primitive peoples die out when brought into close contact with European civilisation; but not so the negroes. It has been suggested .that' the United States might solve its race problem by sending the blacks back to Africa, but their number has become so great that this solution is generally regarded as impracticable. There is .no possibility of the fusion of black and white, and the general belief seems to. be that segregation is the best way' of preventing a serious and permanent conflict between the two races. This is not the solution contemplated by those who fought the Civil War for the emancipation, of the slaves. - Their efforts to convert the negro into a white man'in everything but colour failed to a very large extent, and when the passions aroused by the war had subsided the majority of Americans began to take a different view of the problem. In. an article in the II ibbert Journal Dr>. P. A. Bruce states that,it is no%. generally'-acknow-ledged that if the policy of the" leaders of the emancipation movement-, which-was social as well as political, had. been "carried into permanent effect, .the Southern States .to-day would lie simply ;i i group of mongrel communities, their social character debased by universal miscegenation,, .and their political discredited by chronic tumult. Every germ of prosperity, in. its larger aspects, would have been destroyed: and this, too, for .in indefinite period."' Dn. .Bruce contends that the prosperity of the Southern.Stater, is flue to the...failure of the .statesmanship of the reconstruction period, and holds that experience has-justified the policy of segregation. .This policy has. been carried out with ever-incfens-ing strictness- until at .the- present time-"the-negroes of the Southern States, in •■their--religious .'orgnnisationsc in their schbolsj-'.in their.'resi 1 ; do'ntia) areas,. >n places of. amusement, in public ■conveyances,'., and finally in business and in the professions, stand almost as much apart from the white people as if .they made up a community occupying a d'ffrvent country." ■-■

The question ofracial superiority or inferiority has been much dis- ' cussed by scientist:}. Anthropoloi .gists are divided in opinion as to whether race-mixture, has. .eoocLre''suits or.bad. 'and. ..as' to the possibility or desirability. of breaking- ; clown tho barriers which 'divide the different types of humanity. ' ■History shows'that, the in.tcnVn.iieliiig ol some .races has.had a beneficial, effect; but/there, seem -to be; certain' types whose, mixture. is-followed -by deterioration. ■■'Bit. & A;'(X\M, of Boston, in dealing with this subject, points, to. the, great contributions to hinian culture and progress" made'by-the-('!rocks, tho Jews, the Romans, .the Normans, the' Frank's,! the_ Anglo-Saxons, and .'the Celts. Hiile, other .races, .such.as. the Hottentots, the Malays,' and the ■ Mon-. gol-Slavs of South-Eastern Europe are either static or retrogressive. On these-, and other facts and theories he bases the, conclusion that, every 'people should' jealously guard the '-purity "of its stock, by stringent. r'eguldtioQs restricting Iheimniigra..' tion of, peoples of low race-values-. Science is not yet able to .tell us all that race. and : breed mean, and until we know nvrc .than we do at present'tliciwiscst course is to preserve our racial purity. Mit. Marett, Reader v in Social Anthropology in. the University of Oxford, remarks that wc : 'cannot yef say what is the best type to breed from ei'en if we, confine .our- attention to one country. If, on the other hand, we look further afield, and study the results of race-mixture, we encounter fresh .puzzles.. That 'the half-breed is an unsatisfactory person may be true: and yet, until the conditions of his upbringing are. somehow discounted, the race problem remains exactly where, it was. It may.be true. Ma. Mahett. adds, that miscegenation increases human fertility: but until it has been shown that the increase of fertility docs not merely result in flooding the world with inferior types, we arc no nearer to a solution. It is said that the negroes of the Southern States arc reverting slowlv but surely to a phvsical type that closely resembles the general tyne of their African ancestors. If this is true, it, goes a long way to justify the policy of sen-egadon in the United States. Every nation and race, has a right to nrcscrvo its individuality and to.'be'true to its type, and it can do so without injustice or-ill-will to' other" nations or races.