The Southern South Part 19

All the suggestions that have been discussed above may be roughly cla.s.sified into remedies of push and remedies of pull, and this cla.s.sification corresponds to the points of view of the two dominant cla.s.ses of Southern Whites. In studying the books, the articles and the fugitive utterances on this subject, in talking with men who see the thing at first hand, in noting the complaints of the Negroes and the Whites alike, it is plain that there is in the South a strong negro-hating element, larger than people like to admit, which appeals to drastic statutes, to unequal judicial punishments, to violence outside of the law; in a word, to "keeping the n.i.g.g.e.r down." Alongside it the thinking cla.s.s of Southern people (which appears to be gaining ground) seeks the elevation of both races, and especially of that one which needs it most.

Meanwhile the Negro sits moodily by, waiting for the superior race to decide whether he shall be sent to the calaboose or to school.

The Southern problem is thus brought down in its last a.n.a.lysis to the simple question whether the two races can permanently live apart and yet together. That depends, in the first place, on the capacity of the Negro to improve far enough to take away the reproach now heaped upon him; and in the second place in the willingness of the Whites to accept the deficiencies of the negro character as a part of the natural conditions of the land, like the sterility of parts of the Southern soil, and to leave him the opportunity to make the most of himself.

The three fundamental duties of the white man, according to Judge Hammond, of Atlanta, are to see "that his own best interest lies in the cultivation of friendly relations with the negro.... To treat the negro with absolute fairness and justice ... advising him and counseling him about the important affairs of his everyday life." These duties lie upon the white man because, as Thomas Nelson Page states it: "Unless the whites lift the Negroes up, the Negroes will drag them down."

n.o.body, white or black, North or South, is able to point out any single positive means by which the two races are both to have their full development and yet to live in peace. Every positive and quick-acting remedy when examined is found invalid. Violence of language or of behavior of both sides does nothing whatever to remove the real difficulties. The agencies of uplift are slow and uncertain and n.o.body can positively predict that they will do the work. The South, with all its magnificent resources, is far behind the other sections of the Union, both in wealth and productive power. It can only take its proper place in the Union by raising the average character and energy of its people--of all its people--for it cannot be done by improving either race while the other remains stationary.

In a word, the remedy is patience. Dark as things look in the South, it is subject to mighty forces. In many ways the strongest influence for peace and concord in the South is simply self-interest. The most intelligent and thoughtful men in the South see clearly that unless the people can be made to improve, the section will always lag behind. Side by side with this force is the spirit of humanity, of practical Christianity, which forbids that millions of people shall be cut off from the agencies of evangelization. The South is behind no other part of the country in a sense of the greatness of moral forces.

From every point of view, the obvious thing for the South is to make the best of its condition and not the worst, to give opportunities of uplift to all those who can appropriate them, to raise the negro race to as high a point as it is capable of occupying. This is a long, hard process, full of disappointment and perhaps of bitterness. The problem is not soluble in the sense that anyone can foresee a wholly peaceful and contented community divided into two camps; but the races can live alongside, and cooperate, though one be superior to the other. That superiority only throws the greater responsibility on the upper race. n.o.body has ever given better advice to the South than Senator John Sharp Williams--"In the face of this great problem it would be well that wise men think more, that good men pray more, and that all men talk less and curse less." In that spirit the problem will be solved, because it will be manfully confronted.