But it has been said the Negro was not worth the struggle. Not worth the struggle when, at every call to arms in the nation's history, the black man has nobly responded, whether slave or freeman? Not worth the struggle when, in the Revolution, on Lake Erie with Perry, at Port Hudson, at Millikens Bend, in that fearful crater at Petersburg, he shed his blood freely in the nation's behalf? Not worth the struggle, when he won his way from spade to epaulet in the defense of the nation's honor?

_The freedmen fathers were neither cowards nor traitors. Nor do the sons disgrace their sires._

Who saved the Rough Riders from annihilation at Las Guasimas? Who stormed with unparalleled bravery the heights at El Caney and swept gallantly foremost in that magnificent charge up San Juan hill?

Comrades, leaders, onlookers--all with one voice have made reply: "The Negro soldier." Aye; the race has proved its worth, and the whole country, irrespective of party or section, owes it a debt, not only for its heroic service on the battle-field in times of national peril, which was its duty, but for its splendid self-control generally, under the most harassing situations, under most inexcusable assaults.

No; the faith of the party of freedom in the Negro has not been unfounded. In all these years the race has been steadily gaining wealth, education, refinement, places of responsibility and power. It might have done far more for the lasting good of all concerned, had it learned that in all things the

"... Heights are not gained by a single bound, But we built the ladder by which we rise,...

And we mount to its summit round by round."

But the prophecies of the past are far behind us. The world has passed its verdict on what has been. Mistakes must yield us profit as the problems of the future confront us. We are to look forward with hope.

And in preparation for that future,

"The riddling Sphynx puts dim things from our minds, And sets us to the questions at our doors."

As the Republican party and the Negro face the coming years, one question is of equal moment to both. What shall be the mutual relations in the future? Shall the party of freedom declare at an end its duty toward the party it made men and citizens? On the other hand, shall the Negro say: "Indebtedness ceased with our fathers; we are free to make alliance where we will"?

In view of the blood shed so freely for Republican principles by the Negro as slave and freeman; in view of the loyalty, the courage, the patriotism, the strength, and the needs of the race; in view of this country's prospective broadened domain and the millions of dusky wards to be added to the nation o'er which the American eagle hovers to-day; and in view of the principles that inhere in Republicanism, the party of freedom should find but one answer: "It is and shall be our duty to view you ever as men and citizens, to see that no chain of our forging manacles you to lower planes, that no bar is thrown by us across your pathway up the hill of progress, to help maintain your rights, to throw the weight of our influence for fair treatment, for the side of law and order and justice. The Republican party must not forget for a moment the truth of the argument that Demosthenes once made against Philip with such striking force,--"_All power is unstable that is founded on injustice._" This party cannot afford to be less than just. The Negro should not ask for more.

This duty laid upon itself on the one hand, it becomes incumbent upon the Negro to reciprocate, and the reciprocation calls for his support of the party. This should be a support, wise and open-eyed, born of appreciation and intelligence. It should be a support, steadfast and loyal, based upon faith in the party's motives and the knowledge that it has stood and still stands for all that the Negro holds most dear. It should be a support that frees itself from selfish leaders and ranting demagogues, that puts aside all mere personal gain, and seeks the good of the race as a whole that it, too, may be lifted up. And lastly, it should be a support that looks for no reward but that which comes because of true worth and ability.

Reciprocity becomes a mutual duty, for there are mutual needs. The Negro's strength is not to be ignored by the party; but the race cannot stand alone. It needs alliance with friendly power; and there is no friend like the tried friend, no party for the freedman like the party that stands upon the high, broad platform of freedom and human rights, irrespective of race, or color, or previous condition.

But having said this, I would be false to the race and my own convictions did I not pause to give the warning that, after all, neither parties nor politics alone can save the Negro. He needs to make a new start in his civil and political career. He must pay less attention to politics and more to business, to industry, to education, to the building up of a strong and sturdy manhood everywhere--to the assimilation generally of all that goes to demand the world's respect and consideration. He must lop off, as so many _incubi_, the professional Negro office-seeker, the professional Negro office-holder, and the Negro politician who aspires to lead the race, for the revenue that is in it. The best men, the wisest, the most unselfish, and above all, the men of the most profound integrity and uprightness, must take the helm or retrogression will be the inevitable result. Politics followed as an end has been the curse of the race. Under it problems have multiplied, and under it the masses have remained longer than they should in the lower stages of development. Only in the hands of men of noble mold, and used only as a _means_ to an end, can politics accomplish the highest good for all the race.

The Negro can keep all this in view and yet yield loyal support to the party that set him free.

Let the party of freedom and the freedmen recognize and observe these duties as reciprocal, and a force may be created, having its basis on undying principles, that will pave the way for the ultimate success of the highest aspirations of each--a force that will stretch southward and westward bearing, wherever Old Glory floats, the promise to the oppressed: Freedom, equality, prosperity. And though men may apostatize, this mutual righteous cause shall live to sway for unnumbered years the fortunes of this grand Republic, for the God who reared the continents above the seas and peopled them with nations, who gave these nations freedom of conscience and will, and who has watched their rise and fall from the dawn of creation, still guides the destinies of races and of parties, and standeth

"... within the shadow, Keeping watch above his own."

THE TEACHINGS OF HISTORY CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO RACE PROBLEMS IN AMERICA[26]

BY NATHAN F. MOSSELL, A. M., M. D.

_Surgeon-in-Chief, Frederick Douglass Hospital, Philadelphia, Pa._

[Note 26: From _Howard's American Magazine_.]

Those who are familiar with history will testify that the blacks were a fundamental element in the civilized races of antiquity, as also of the primitive races of southern Europe. In fact, all history is pregnant with traces of the Negro element. The world will ever look with wonder and amazement upon the marks of ancient culture in the valley of the Nile, and we may continue to look as far back as records and inscriptions lend us light, only to find the black man, above all others, leading in the ancient arts and sciences.

History places the earliest civilization in Egypt. The ruling tribes among the people were called the Hamites, the "sunburnt race," according to Dr. Winchell. Says Professor J. Boughton: "The wanderings of these people since prehistoric history began has not been confined to the American continent. In Paleolithic times the black man roamed all over the fairer portions of the Old World; Europe, as well as Asia and Africa, acknowledged his sway. No white man had, so far, appeared to dispute his authority in the vine-clad valleys of France or Germany, or upon the classic hills of Greece or Rome. The black man preceded all others, and carried Paleolithic culture to its very height."

The history of all the lands has been but the history of succeeding races; more often, however, by fusion of different racial types and by the mingling of various tribes and peoples, have been evolved new races, superior to any of the original types. Greece and Rome, the study of history will tell you, had their race and social problems.

Inter-marriage at last settled the question. The ethnology of Spain tells the same story. There is not a nation on the globe of pure ethnic character. From the ethnic standpoint, the blood of the black race is everywhere apparent. Ask the Frenchman, the Italian, the Spaniard, whence comes his dark skin and hair; it surely does not come from the Aryan blonde. Ethnology alone can give the answer. In considering the future of our racial problems, it is fitting that we shall recall these facts of history to know the Negro's past place in the world's annals.

American slavery, the most accursed institution the world has ever known, did more to degrade the master than the slave, a truth most often overlooked. It is here I take strong exception to the literal interpretation of the injunction, "Whosoever will smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also," and "If any man take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also." Not so; but, on the contrary, we should resist evil with our energy. The tyrant who smites you on one cheek is only made more of a brute by permitting him to continue in the practise by smiting you on the other. It is our moral duty, therefore, to resist him, and not more for our own sake than for his. The brutalizing influence of slavery upon the master class is the curse of the Southern States to-day, and has much more to do with the difficulties of solving the race problems than does the ignorance of the blacks. The Government is not guiltless in this matter of interpretation of the scriptural injunction. In the matter of State rights, Southern election laws, and mob violence, our Government has turned the other cheek also. What has been the result? Why the tyrants continue to become more and more brutal, until they are not only running black men out, but they have recently, at the muzzle of the shot gun, forced their own kith and kin, men to the manor born, to leave the States. I have no hesitancy in proclaiming that this brutality is a legacy left us by slavery, against which we have to contend, making itself felt in the organized mob and in disregard of constituted authority.

In these days of imperialism and territorial expansion, when there is, likewise, much discussion on the subject of inferior races, it is fitting that we should place ourselves aright upon the question of suffrage and rights of franchise. William Lloyd Garrison, Jr., says: "Whosoever laments the scope of suffrage, and talks of disfranchising men on account of ignorance or poverty, has as little comprehension of the meaning of self-government as a blind man has of the colors of the rainbow. I declare my belief that we are suffering, not from a too extended ballot, but from one too limited and unrepresentative. We enunciate a principle of government, and then deny it in practise. If experience has established anything, it is that the interest of one class is never safe in the hands of another. There is no class so poor or ignorant in a republic that it does not know its own suffering and needs better than the wealthy or educated classes. By the rule of justice, it has the same right precisely to give it legal expression.

That expression is bound to come, and it is wiser to have it come through the ballot-box than through mobs and violence, born of a feeling of despair and misery." Those States in the South which are passing laws restricting suffrage, to promote the selfish ends of a class, are sowing to the wind and will surely reap the whirlwind. In a republican government, supposed to be ruled by the popular vote, a people's liberty has practically been taken when the right to vote is denied them. In such States, personal liberty, the right to testify in courts of law, the right to hold, buy, and sell real estate, and, in fact, all other rights, become mere privileges, held at the option of others. People are no longer free when the rights of franchise have been annulled. Slavery is truly re-enacted in those States which have succeeded in disfranchising the Negro.

I have neither patience nor respect for those among us who are truckling to the prejudice of our enemies by giving credence to the lie that the ballot was placed in the black man's hand too soon. Lowell was right when he said: "The right to vote makes a safety-valve of every voter, and the best way to teach a man to vote is to give him a chance to practise. It is cheaper in the long run to lift men up than to hold them down; the ballot in their hands is less dangerous to society than a sense of wrong in their heads." The so-called Negro domination of the reconstruction period has no record of misrule such as exists in most of the Southern States to-day. It is our privilege (an oppressed people, who know by bitter experience whereof we speak) to give this government timely warnings as to its duties toward the inhabitants of our newly acquired territory.

I have no confidence in the Government's ability to ameliorate the race conflicts of the South through the course recently outlined by the President of this nation in speeches of flattery and encomiums upon the dead and living heroes of the Southern Confederacy. This policy of conciliation was repeatedly attempted before the war, with the results that the slave influence continued to spread further north and west. It was proved then, as it ever shall be, that no nation can succeed by making a compact with the devil. One must tremble for this country's future when they read upon the statute-books of the Southern States these diabolical laws against social purity, against the civil and political rights of our citizens. It is hoped that the coming Congress will rise to a sense of our impending danger, and see to it that the strong arm of the Government is brought forward to protect each and every citizen in his civil and political rights. Until this is done, we are by no means prepared to add nine millions more of a dark race to those with which we now have to deal. There are those already high in the nation's council who predict that the result of our present war[27]

will be a _curse_ instead of a _blessing_, that the nation's incapacity to deal justly with our recently liberated slaves proves our inability to deal with nine millions more of untutored and so-called inferior people.

[Note 27: War with Spain.]

The final conclusion of the whole matter may be forecasted thus: The Negro element in this country is permanent and indestructible. So great are the numbers of the Negroes, and so intimate their relations with the white people, that it is safe to say without fear of contradiction that the status of the Negro element will determine in a large degree the future of the white. Let this truth once be learned. Let the thoughtful people of the nation cease trying to deceive themselves. The inevitable teachings of history will not be reversed. The blood of these varied races will finally be mingled until race distinctions will ultimately be obliterated. The docile nature of the Negro race, his intimate domestic and other relations with the whites, make this conclusion inevitable.

The two races are complements of each other and cannot be separated.

A DEFENSE OF THE NEGRO RACE[28]

BY HON. GEORGE H. WHITE

_Member of Congress from North Carolina_

[Note 28: Extracts from a speech delivered in the House of Representatives, January 29, 1901.]

_Mr. Chairman:_

I want to enter a plea for the colored man, the colored woman, the colored boy, and the colored girl of this country. I would not thus digress from the question at issue and detain the House in a discussion of the interests of this particular people at this time but for the constant and the persistent efforts of certain gentlemen upon this floor to mold and rivet public sentiment against us as a people, and to lose no opportunity to hold up the unfortunate few, who commit crimes and depredations and lead lives of infamy and shame, as other races do, as fair specimens of representatives of the entire colored race. And at no time, perhaps, during the 56th Congress were these charges and countercharges, containing, as they do, slanderous statements, more persistently magnified and pressed upon the attention of the nation than during the consideration of the recent reapportionment bill, which is now a law. As stated some days ago on this floor by me, I then sought diligently to obtain an opportunity to answer some of the statements made by gentlemen from different States, but the privilege was denied me; and I therefore must embrace this opportunity to say, out of season, perhaps, that which I was not permitted to say in season.

In the catalogue of members of Congress in this House perhaps none have been more persistent in their determination to bring the black man into disrepute and, with a labored effort, to show that he was unworthy of the right of citizenship than my colleague from North Carolina, Mr.

Kitchin. During the first session of this Congress, while the Constitutional amendment was pending in North Carolina, he labored long and hard to show that the white race was at all times and under all circumstances superior to the Negro by inheritance if not otherwise, and the excuse for his party supporting that amendment, which has since been adopted, was that an illiterate Negro was unfit to participate in making the laws of a sovereign State and the administration and execution of them; but an illiterate white man living by his side, with no more or perhaps not as much property, with no more exalted character, no higher thoughts of civilization, no more knowledge of the handicraft of government, had by birth, because he was white, inherited some peculiar qualification, clear, I presume, only in the mind of the gentleman who endeavored to impress it upon others, that entitled him to vote, though he knew nothing whatever of letters. It is true, in my opinion, that men brood over things at times which they would have exist until they delude themselves and actually, sometimes honestly, believe that such things do exist.

I would like to call the gentleman's attention to the fact that the Constitution of the United States forbids the granting of any title of nobility to any citizen thereof, and while it does not in letters forbid the inheritance of this superior caste, I believe in the fertile imagination of the gentleman promulgating it, his position is at least in conflict with the spirit of that organic law of the land. He insists and, I believe, has introduced a resolution in this House for the repeal of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution.

It would be unfair, however, for me to leave the inference upon the minds of those who hear me that all of the white people of the State of North Carolina hold views with Mr. Kitchin and think as he does. Thank God there are many noble exceptions to the example he sets, that, too, in the Democratic party; men who have never been afraid that one uneducated, poor, depressed Negro could put to flight and chase into degradation two educated, wealthy, thrifty white men. There never has been, nor ever will be, any Negro domination in that State, and no one knows it any better than the Democratic party. It is a convenient howl, however, often resorted to in order to consummate a diabolical purpose by scaring the weak and gullible whites into support of measures and men suitable to the demagogue and the ambitious office-seeker, whose craving for office overshadows and puts to flight all other considerations, fair or unfair.

As I stated on a former occasion, this young statesman has ample time to learn better and more useful knowledge than he has exhibited in many of his speeches upon this floor, and I again plead for him the statute of youth for the wild and spasmodic notions which he has endeavored to rivet upon his colleagues and this country. But I regret that Mr.

Kitchin is not alone upon this floor in these peculiar notions advanced.

I refer to another young member of Congress, hailing from the State of Alabama, Mr. Underwood.