In 1999 America still remained the land of model hotels. In the 19th century the fame of Americans for maintaining the best conducted and most palatial hostelries was already world-wide. Our city palace-hotels had no rivals in the world worthy of the name. In the twentieth century their enviable fame in this line continued to increase. Chicago and Manhattan still maintained their ancient rivalry in the hotel business. Many of the palace hotels of 1999 had walls built with opaque, rock face glass in the most attractive styles of architecture. From a distance they resembled fairy palaces. Marble and brick were occasionally employed in construction but glass came into high favor as being imperishable as well as highly ornamental. The old saying that “those who live in glass houses should not throw stones,” answered very well in the 19th century, when glass houses, such as conservatories, were exceedingly fragile structures. In the 20th century no structures could be more durable than these hotels with glass walls, built with blocks of great thickness and in every color of the prism. They were fire-proof for the simple reason that no one had any use for fire in any hotel or public building in 1999. Electricity was employed to the exclusion of all other agencies for heating and lighting, as well as for motive power.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Negro Question Settled.
Negroes in 1999 are transferred to their new reservation and permanent home in the State of Venezuela. The animosities between whites and blacks still existed in 1925. The negro a very costly importation. Never ought to have left Africa. In 1960 government lands are bought for the black race and their home in Venezuela becomes a prosperous and a happy one. The satisfactory solution of a vexed problem.
In 1999 the negro problem no longer troubled the North American States. The absorption of the Central and South American Republics into the great American Union, had at last vouchsafed the earnestly prayed for outlet for the troublesome Ethiopians. The man who was guilty of making the first importation of negroes into the American Republic can never hope to rest comfortably in the great hereafter. The negro during the last half of the nineteenth century proved a black cloud in social and political America. A stupendous war was waged in his behalf. Years after the close of the war he still remained a source of bitter hatred and constant bloodshed. South of Mason and Dixon’s line the war of the Literally a “Burning Question.” races raged furiously for nearly sixty years after the close of the Civil War in 1865. The whites despised, while the blacks detested. In 1899 Negroism was in fact, as well as in metaphor, a burning question. In 1925 mention was still frequently made of the burning of the negro Sam Hose, near Palmetto, in Georgia. Whenever the slightest pretext offered itself, negroes were lynched or burned alive at the stake. On the other hand these cruelties upon their race were naturally resented by the blacks, who lost no opportunity to make reprisals.
The negro proved a very costly luxury, a profound study in black, during the last half of the nineteenth century. Mainly on his account a Titanic struggle was waged in the sixties, a continent was torn asunder, 800,000 men killed and a debt of $7,100,000,000 saddled on America, and in the opening days of the twentieth century, the negro was still a thorn in the nation’s side. A Study in Black. The negro found his way into America only after the mild race of Indians discovered by Columbus had been exterminated under the lash and torch of the Spaniard. When the harmless and gentle race of beings who inhabited the isles of the Caribbean sea had vanished before Spanish tyranny, then all eyes turned to Africa as the base of supplies for menials, hewers of wood and drawers of water. The docile nature of the negro rendered him available for purposes of serfdom. He proved submissive and obedient, which are qualities of excellence in the relations existing between master and slave. The negro, without doubt, is gifted with a high order of intelligence and is capable of appreciating all the advantages of a superior education. It is doubtful, however, if the race will ever become prominent in the field of art and sciences. With his amiable and submissive tendencies the negro is menial in his qualifications. For long centuries past he has been “a servant of servants” in his native land and his position Not Very Fierce, Only Humble. still remains unchanged. Had he the fierce and indomitable love of freedom which characterizes the North American Indian, the chains of slavery never would have blotted the fair name of America. His introduction into this hemisphere has proved a colossal blunder, a misfortune alike to both races.
History will applaud the wisdom of American statesmanship that emancipated the slave. No matter what may be his shortcomings—or how inferior his position in the scale of civilization, slavery of the negro cannot for one moment be tolerated under the great American flag, the emblem of freedom for all peoples of this earth. The flag, however, cannot guarantee his social status. From this point of view, the fact cannot be denied that the presence of the negro in North America is undesirable. In communities where his vote preponderates there will always be friction with the whites. Whites will never submit to the dictation of the black element. The swarthy son of Ham was never permitted in the twentieth century to dominate. The high white forehead cannot be ruled by the low black one. Not in centuries could this be accomplished, in fact, never.
The unquenchable hatred existing in the South found expression in frequent lynchings of negroes, burnings and other barbarities. These acts of violence were deplorable, and even in 1950 the burning of Sam Hose in 1899 at Newman, Georgia, was constantly referred to. In justice, however, to the South, it must be said, that these lynchings were perpetrated as measures of self-defense.
The races could not assimilate. Miscegenation was regarded in the twentieth century, as well as in the nineteenth, as an unpardonable crime.