Under such unequal conditions, the white man is immune from legislation and administration unfriendly to his class, while the black man is exposed to the aggressions of this favored class; either directly through mobs or indirectly through hostile legislation and administration, which fix upon him the brand of a caste whose members have no rights in Southern society which white men are bound to respect. Such social injustice and political inequality as exist between the races in the South are bad for the whites as they are bad for the blacks—are very bad for their collective interests and for the National interests of the great industrial democracy of which they form a part. Is it astonishing then that under such circumstances there have sprung up and flourish in the South the peonage and convict lease systems, the plantation lease and credit systems, contract labor and “Jim Crow” laws, lynching and the inequitable distribution of the public school funds between the races? For the Southern white man, and he is not different from any other white man or black man either for that matter who possesses irresponsible power over others, regulates his conduct toward the Negro in his midst by the law of might, which allows him with a good conscience to do to the Negro whatever he wants to do, and to take from him whatever he wants to take whether life or liberty, while it forbids his victim to do what he wants to do; or to retain what belongs to him as an American citizen whether it be his life or his liberty—that is, to do so by identically the same means which white men use to retain what belongs to them under similar circumstances.
Things would undoubtedly be different for the colored people in those states had they though slight, some positive and appreciable influence at the polls. Their condition would not even then be ideal—far from it. But their hard lot as men would improve, their worth as citizens, their social and industrial value to their community, state and country would rise correspondingly in the scale of being and character, with the increased freedom, self-respect and security which in consequence would come to them as a race. Legislatures and administrative officers would begin to make some response to their claim for social justice and political rights, and the courts would begin also to lend a more attentive ear to their rights of person and property. The end of all those terrible systems which exploit and rob and oppress them and keep them poor and ignorant and weak, the sad victims of race prejudice and greed and cruelty, would grow nearer to the perfect day of the race’s final deliverance as American citizens. They would begin to get for their children more and better schools and longer school terms, and for their teachers more equal pay as compared with that received by white teachers for similar service.
Such is the deplorable situation of the Negro in the South at the close of the first fifty years of his freedom. There will be no improvement in that situation to any material extent until he gets the ballot, a voice in the government of those states. He can not obtain a voice in those governments of and by himself. He must get help from some power outside of himself. But from whom and in what direction ought he to look for it? Not certainly from the North, from the Republican Party. For they gave up long ago trying to solve the problem how to make a vote in that section count as much as a vote in the solid South. They will not again enact a Force Bill or attempt to do so or anything like it. They have during recent years made no movement to execute that clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which provides for a reduction of Southern representation in the lower Branch of Congress proportioned to the number of the disfranchised male population of those states, and they have in fact no disposition to do so. On the contrary non-interference is the ominous word which now gags the Northern people and press, its pulpit and platform and hobbles the action of the general government. Indeed, the outgoing occupant of the White House has carried the policy of non-interference to extreme limits. For he it is who laid down the rule at the beginning of his administration, and has observed it strictly for four years, that it would be unwise to make appointments of colored men to federal office in the South whenever the South objects to such appointments. In consequence of the consistent enforcement of this rule colored federal office-holders in the South are like angels’ visits to that section, few and far between. The South, as we have seen, has succeeded most thoroughly in depriving the Negro in its midst of any voice in its governments and it has shut him out of state offices, and now thanks to President Taft, has at last succeeded in depriving him of holding federal office in its midst likewise.
But there yet remains to the Southern colored man a tattered and bedraggled remnant of his citizenship in that section, if indeed even that shall be left to him four years hence. I refer to his quadrennial appearance as a delegate in Republican National Conventions, where for a brief hour he enjoys the spotlight importance of a political supernumerary on the party stage. Since 1884, there has been an increasing inclination among Republican leaders to reduce the representation of the party’s Southern wing in National Conventions to a number proportioned to the size of its vote on election day. But the leaders have not yet got their courage to the sticking point to tackle this proposition, perhaps because they have not been willing to tackle the prior one of a reduction of Southern representation in Congress, and perhaps for other good and sufficient considerations of an emergency character, they have allowed the matter to drift and to let for the time being well enough alone.
But whatever has been the motive of that party for its policy of inactivity and indecision on this question heretofore, there are not wanting signs of a change of that policy presently into one of activity and decision. It seems probable that reduction of representation of its Southern wing in its National Conventions will occupy a prominent place on the program of Republican reorganization within the next four years. That party in a half dozen Southern States has been called in derision by its enemies a “ghost party” and a “phantom party.” And such it is in reality. It is dead and I do not believe that its corpse can ever be galvanized into life again. There are decomposing parts of it known as “Regulars” and “Lily Whites,” stricken both with the microbes of death, obscenely alive with the maggots of place-hunters. It is powerless to dissolve the solid South and to restore to that section bi-party in place of one-party governments. It is wholly incapable of attracting Southern whites in sufficient numbers to raise it to the rank of a party of opposition, or to give to it the barest chance of achieving success at the polls. Its very name is a political bugaboo and makes it a party impossibility in those states. Since 1876, rather than utilize it as a party of opposition, the Southern whites have preserved their sectional solidity and one-party governments, notwithstanding the fact that many of their more enlightened and far seeing men have felt that such a course is bad for their section as it would be bad for any group of states, North, East or West in the Union.
Just at this point let me refer in passing to sundry causes which are affecting adversely the Negro’s status as a citizen, and are contributing by their collateral pressure to force him into a sort of political and industrial blind alley of our American civilization. The Southern propaganda against the Negro is advancing apace in the North by many dark and devious ways and by many subtle and potent means. Northern capital and enterprise, which are exploiting the South industrially, assimilate very readily the Southern view of the Negro, who must be kept at the bottom of the white man’s labor system and civilization. Intermarriage of Northern men and women with Southern men and women helps tremendously the propagation of the Southern view and solution of the race problem. The annual meeting and mingling at the National Capital in social intercourse of the wealth and fashion and leadership of both sections exerts a powerful influence in accenting points of agreement rather than points of difference between them. The feeling has risen throughout the North that the white people of the country can not afford either in terms of business or of politics to quarrel among themselves over the rights and wrongs of another race, which in consequence of the injustices and inequalities suffered by it at their hands, is being pushed brutally to the wall. The whites of both sections make themselves believe, as a sort of salve to their conscience, I suppose, that the Negro in their midst is an alien race, is a non-assimilable element in the body politic, whose ejectment or isolation the health of that body and the race purity of the whites render necessary. Since ejectment is impracticable as involving too huge a displacement of or amputation from the productive labor of the South, isolation remains the only alternative. The whites of course will do what they can without injuring themselves or corrupting their race ideals, or affronting their race prejudices to alleviate the inevitably hard lot of this unfortunate people. But in what may be done for them there must be a care not to mix with it any foolish sentiment of human liberty and brotherhood lest it give offense to the South and so interrupt the flow of that beautiful and brotherly affection which is increasingly making the Southern whites and the Northern whites one people in the bonds of an indissoluble friendship and union. Non-interference is the ominous word which has cast its dark spell over the North and has turned its once warm and active sympathy into cold indifference and cruel apathy.
We had better look at the situation of the Negro in the United States to-day without blinking the facts, see it clear and see it straight. The present outlook for that race is gloomy and depressing, and this gloom and depression are nation-wide. Until the Negro gets in the South some measurable freedom in the use of the ballot, the present agencies at work for his advancement, like industrial and the higher education and the acquisition of property, and organized agitation in the North for his rights can do little to rescue him from the deep pit into which American race prejudice has pushed and penned him. The colored American child has a poorer chance to rise in the scale of being to-day than had the colored American child of a generation ago. He has a poorer chance in the South in spite of his increased educational opportunities and accomplishments, and he has a poorer chance in the North. For as the condition of the race grows worse and its citizenship deteriorates politically and civilly in the South, it will communicate to that part of it resident in the North something of its own sad lot, legal and industrial limitations and contracting prospects and opportunities. This is the inevitable fate of a ballotless race or class in an industrial democracy like ours. Such is the fate which awaits the American Negro unless he can manage to get the right to vote in the South. And this fate he can not escape so long as he remains a ballotless man—with no weapon of defense against the white man’s race prejudice, which is regnant in his home and church and government and press and mills and shops and trades and schools. It is as impossible for the Negro to escape from his blind alley without the ballot as it is for some foolish fly, imprisoned on a window pane, to find its way to freedom through it. There is no escape for the fly until its restless activities discover the right direction, and, to change the figure, there is none for the Negro out of his slough of despond until he can lay hold of the ballot. Wanting the ballot no amount of education and wealth in the South and of agitation in the North will of themselves be able to make Southern Governments responsive to the needs and the rights of the Negro as laborer and citizen. But until they are made to respond to his claim for social justice and civil rights he will continue in the future as he is to-day the helpless victim of the peonage and convict lease systems, of the plantation lease and credit systems, of contract labor and “Jim Crow” laws, of lynching and the inequitable distribution of the public school funds between the races. I can not repeat too often that such monstrous depression of a part of Southern labor is not less bad for the whites than it is for the blacks. Nothing else can possibly come of it in the future than has come of it in the past but evil to the South, arrested development and a backward civilization. For the whites cannot advance in law and order, in private and public morals, in wealth and in industrial intelligence and efficiency with the speed commensurate with their social and sectional opportunity if they persist in wasting so much of their individual and collective energies in keeping the Negro down at the bottom of their social and political fabric without regard to his merits and abilities.
Low water mark has been reached in the ebb tide of Negro citizenship in the South. Once upon a time, the race was represented in Congress, but today the tribe of the Negro Congressmen is extinct and has long been extinct. A few years ago it had its representatives on the Republican National Committee, but today the tribe of the Negro National Committeemen is extinct. The year 1912 may be memorable among other things for witnessing the last appearance as a power in Republican National Conventions of the Southern Negro delegate. The place which once knew him in those quadrennial gatherings of the Warwicks of the party will soon know him there no more forever. For,
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.”
Although the situation is depressing, it is far from hopeless, I think, since the rise of the new Progressive party. For that party will be able to do in the South what the Republican Party has proved itself incapable of doing, namely, of attracting to itself Southern white men in sufficient numbers to make of it a formidable party of opposition in Southern affairs. It will not encounter the ancient distrust, the inveterate hatred and contempt which the Republican Party arouses in those states, and which have paralyzed its usefulness and reduced it as a party of opposition to the zero point in Southern politics.