LIVING UNDER TYRANNY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 53, 4 March 1926, Page 8

LIVING UNDER TYRANNY.

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION? AMERICA'S PaOBLEM. THE NEGRO DIFFICULTY. (By STEVIE.) The presence of some twelve millions of negroes in the United States presents a problem that has attracted the attention of students from all countries, and is admitted on all sides to be a position which menaces seriously the racial intesrity of the white citizen. The total is now held to be, including half castes, some twelve millions out ot a total population of 105.700,000—0r about on negro to eight whites. The distribution is unequal—being one per cent in Massachusets, 60 per cent in the State of Mississippi, while m 1904 87.4 per cent of the negroes lived m the thirteen southern States, and onethird of them were in Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama. A perusal of 'The Negro Year 800k r, gives an impression of the great progress made by the American negroes since their t-mancipatior. by the Civil War of 1860-1575. By the end of the former year pearly half a million negroes were free in the States, and a few years later many oi them were possessed of some property. A. review of the position revealed that by 1900 188,000 so-called farms .were owned by negroes, and 560 negro families were working on plots of land which they either owned or rented, of an average size of thirty acres. Backward in Education. The education of the negroes is still far less advanced than the whites, which in the Southern States is defective, while illiteracy is much higher in the south than the Northern States. Before the- Civil War some of the northern colleges were open to the coloured men. Oberlin University in Ohio being unrestricted of race and sex in 1535; while the Universities of I-mt-oln in Pennsylvania were established in 1854, and that of (Wilberforcc) in 1856, while after the peace the number of negro universities increased to fifteen in number. Of the institutions for technical instruction the most famous are Hampton in Virginia and Tuskegee in Alabama. The latter institution is situated on the main negro belt, 30 miles east of the capital town (Montgomery). It was founded in 18S1 by Booker T. Washington, who received" his education at the Hampton Institute in Chesapeke Bay. Himself a half caste, he had distinction as a fine orator, and probably was the most able man of colour that the United States has produced. Despite unfavourable conditions under which the majority of negroes live and work, their success has been remarkable and their eagerness for education very marked. In a census of 1312 college trained negro students published in 1903, 53.4 per cent were teachers, IC.S per cent clergy, 6.3 per cent doctors and 4.7 per cent lawyers: while the census of 1910 records a* total of 779, embracing the legal profession. Negroes point with pride to men of their race who have distinguished themselves in literature and the arts —Dv Bois as an assayist, P. L. Dunbar and J. Weldon Johnson as poets, Tanner and Bannister as artists. In statesmanship, their great leader Booker Washington, lias certainly wielded more influence in the Southern States than any public 'man since Jefferson Da.ies. i Political Standing. ! The Federal Parliament, shortly after ! the Civil War, by amendments to the : American Constitution, conferred on the negroes full citizenship of the United States and passed measures to secure to : them a full enjoyment of their rights. 1 From 1565 to 1875 the negroes were i politically predominent in the Southern States, attaining such positions as president of the State Senates and Lieutenant Governors of the States, speakers of State Assemblies and holding many offices. However, since 1576 they have lost their votes and their political influence. This position was brought about by the action of the Southern States, who, in order to control the freed negroes, enacted a series of vagrancy acts and other measures, which, to a great extent nullified the benefits secured by the negroes under the constitution. The Northern States, viewing these regulations as an attempt to re-establish i slavery under a new name, passed "The ! Reconstruction Act" in 1567, and undertook the direct control of the south. Under this act the Southern States were governed by officials sent from the North, whose proceedings were legalised by the negro majorities in the legislatures, and who were maintained in power by earrisons of Federal troops. The conduct of these officials gave rise j to the well-known political slang expres- ! ficn, "Carpet-bag politicians/ for these i men brought nothing into the country I with them but their handbags—but l departed often with much gain. They I piled up public debts and misappro- . ' priated the money, while it is possible ; that the failure of the system was also ; contributed to by the hostility of the , Southern whites. •! Lord Bryee's verdict of the state of : : affairs is scathing. He declared that [ "such a saturnalia of robbery and job- | bery has seldom been seen in any civil- ' ised country, and certainly never before I under the forms of free" government.' 1 ; In the profits of this corruption the i negroes took their share. l Disfranchising ■■'■■> Black. ; This appalling .-.;. affairs, how J ever, led to the revolui.on of 1576, and -. the withdrawal of the Federal troops ir . 1577 when the Southern whites wen I permitted by the North to regain contro f oi the country. i After that date the numerical majoriu * or negroes was defeated by fraudulent i manipulation of the elections. Negroe' ■ were kept away from the polls by bully r ing and cajolery and by the provision o o improper ballot boxes. The denial of the vote to the near. s has been attended with the eerioiv y drawback that it has hampered the faii administration of justice, and al«o bi r various pretexts the rights of the he»n r by the amendments of the Federal Con II stitntion have been violated. Lynch Law. a !;:■> most prolific cause of race hatred ainl what, under any circumstances inlihorrent anil barbarous, j< lynchVnu: that haunting terror in negro "life was lirst resorted to in the Lack country where primitive conditions demanded • : quick and effective punishment. Not j originally directed against the negr\ ;. i it became, however, when employed : i ajrfiinst the black man. in amnv jnj stances horrifying in the form it ;i?----,1 sumed. :- i The story of lynching is one of the '• i most deplorable in the history of the " j southern States. To quote from a re--1 cent pamphlet, ''Black Spots on the

Map," issued in 1923, a shocking indictment of wild mob-madness is made. Assaults on women, which is described as the "usual crime" and is oftej thought of as the sole cause, wa* alleged in less than one-fourth of the cases. It says of the victims that num hers were lynched for trivial offences— stealing hogs, creating disturbances, assisting men to escape, quarrel with employer, not knowing his place, etc., etc.—such charges have figured in hundreds of lynchinfrs which, according to this pamphlet, have amounted in the period between 1000-22 to 1731, of which 170 were white, and 1-V>2 coloured people. Social Outcasts. The social restrictions on the negroes has resulted in perhaps more resentment than the political disfranehisement. Under what is known as the '"Jim Crow" regulations, separate carriages are provided on the railways and separate seats on the street trams. The justification of the Jim Crow Act has been expressed by A. 11. Storrie as follows: — •"The white people of the south believe that, where two races as widely different as the white and black live together in large masses public policy requires the observance of certain regulations in the ordering of the social relations between the two." However, the rigid enforcement of the regulations has been found to be impossible, and in some cases undesirable. The exclusion of the negro from hotels may be reasonable in the case of those used for social purposes and at holiday resorts, but the adoption of this rule by ordinary hotels is a hindrance to commercial and professional men. Shortly after Booker Washington had been entertained at lunch by President Roosevelt at the President's house, some southern papers announced with glee that the great negro leader had been lefused accommodation at three hotels in Springfield, Massachusetts. In reference to the restriction on employment, a scrutiny of the conditions prevailing reveal that in some respects the door of industrial opportunity has been closed to the negro, lucrative and pleasant occupations being unobtainable, and only work of a menial kind being found for him. What is to be Done. It may be interesting to refer to the three schools of thought or main policies in reference to the great problem of how to deal with the negro. The first is "race amalgamation" or fusion, a system by which the two races might live tide by side, associated in work, but partly separate in social life, and by eifluxioii of time bo absorbed into the white population, the social barriers being gradually broken down; in short, a policy of natural drift. Race fusion, however, is scouted by the majority of Americans as simply unthinkable, having regard to the absorption of some twelve million negroes. The second policy is as the first suggestion, but with this vital difference— the white and coloured races united in work, but absolutely separate socially, with intermarriage debarred. This suggestion is supported by Booker Washington, who averred that in time, under favourable conditions, the negro would so improve himself socially, educationally and morally that much of the problem would disappear, and that they would in time inevitably secure those political privileges to which their merits entitled them. This policy was bitterly opposed by Dr. Burghart Dv Bois, a prominent negro leader, who termed it an acceptance of the doctrine of negro inferiority and a withdrawal of demands by the black man as men and American citizens. Dv Bois and his party insisted on asking of the natioii three things: (1) The right to vote; (2) Civic equality; (3) The education of youth according to ability. We will now consider for a moment the third policy—that of "segregation" —a concentration of the entire U.S.A. negro population in Africa or the West Indies—or, failing that, in some part of the United States. This scheme was favoured by Abraham Lincoln and also advocated in ISI7 by the American Colonisation Society. At first glance the transportation of some twelve million people would seem an impossible task, but that it might be accomplished is proved by the fact that from 1900 to 1010 8.793,000 immigrants were conveyed to American soil, while the Great War of 1914 has shown that a great nation can transfer people by the millions under harassing wnr conditions. Liberia, with an area of 41,000 square miles instead of its present population of 2.000.000 should be able to accommodate ten times that number, and a powerful nation like America should be able to transplant 12.000,000 people in a quarter of a century. However, any policy involving tlio departure of neproes in mass would rujn the southern planters and would be strongly opposed., and the only scheme which seems likely to develop at present 's that of small, snlf.contained agricultural neero communities within the State?, giving the negro a chance to work out his own salvation. Tlie question of entire segregation within the United States itself is now quite impracticable, as there is no unappropriated area large enough for a negro state. In conclusion, it may be said that no final solution of the question of the negro race in America seems possible at present, and it certainly appears to be a problem that will remain for gen- - orations to come.