Unfettered: A Novel

by Sutton E. Griggs

THE PROBLEM OF THE OTHER MAN.

With our racial organization thus laboring to prepare the race to meet the highest requirements of civilization, the subjective phase of the problem is provided for, and we may now direct our attention to extrinsic factors, the forces without, that must be reckoned with.

In the midst of the study of our problem, our racial organization must bear in mind the fact that the Southern white man has his problem. He is the lineal descendant of the builders of our civilization. We are heirs thereof by adoption; the Southern white man by birth. It must be assumed that the instincts that make possible our civilization are more deeply written in his nature than in that of the Negro. To him primarily, therefore, is committed the task of preserving in the Southland characteristic Americanism. Thus while benefiting by the many noble traits which the Negro brings, the Southern white man must yet resist whatever Africanizing tendencies that anywhere show themselves. Such is the Southern white man's problem.

There are Negroes that can meet every test of civilization, while there are others upon whom residence in America has wrought but feebly. The Southern white man closes the door in the face of the prepared Negro, holding that to do otherwise would mean the influx of an uncontrollable mass of the unprepared. He also states that coercive methods are necessary to preserve in the South the Anglo-Saxon flavor to our civilization.

The virile elements in all communities are in duty bound to draw the weaker ones up to themselves, but indiscriminate repression and coercion are not the proper means to be employed in these modern times. The weak are to be elevated through the superior forces known to mind and morals.

It is far better for the South and for the nation that the shortcomings of the Negro be conquered by excellencies, than that they should be left as a constantly rising flood tide destined to over-leap all walls whatsoever, carrying devastation that many generations will be taxed to repair. The white man of the South must be aided in his work by the people of the whole land. In view of what is required of them, the white people of the South ought, perhaps, to be more highly and more generally educated than those of any other section of the country, whereas the percentage of illiteracy among them is greater than it is in any other section.

Our racial organization must encourage the philanthropists of the world to remember the white people of the South in the distribution of their wealth for benevolent purposes. When education is more general in the South and the white people are conscious that as an aggregation they represent a higher degree of power, they will feel the more inclined to abandon the policy of force, and proceed with the work of intellectually assimilating the Negroes whom they have hitherto thrust out. When thus equipped the good and strong in the South will coalesce and rule by the sheer force of superior worth, which is the only method countenanced by truly civilized peoples.

Recognizing the fact that, in the interests of a composite American civilization, it is desirable that the Negro be imbued with many of the qualities of the white man, care should be taken that the Negro population be so diffused throughout the country, that no section of the white race shall have more work of this character than it can well perform. Our racial organization shall therefore establish an emigration bureau, that shall drain off unduly congested regions and locate Negroes in more desirable localities. This lightening of the burdens of some places, coupled with the program of more extended education, will aid the Southern white man to do what the world expects of him, namely, preserve his own strong parts and impart strength to, not repress, the weak.

Thus less and less grow the essential elements of the problem as the great bulk of the Negroes measure up to the standard of the ideal citizen and the Southern white man is the better prepared to shoulder the responsibility that attaches to the post of seniority in the civilization under which we live.