This disappointment and his utter failure to secure the social equality that once seemed his, have tended to embitter the negro against the white man.
2. Whites have been embittered against blacks by the frequency in later years of the crime of the negro against white women. This horrible offence began to be common in the South some thirty-two or three years since, or perhaps a little earlier, and somewhat later it appeared in the North, where it seems to have been as common, negro population considered, as in the South. The crime was almost invariably followed by lynching, which, however, was not always for the same crime. The following is the list of lynchings in the sections, as kept by the Chicago Tribune since it began to compile them:
| 1885 | 184 |
| 1886 | 138 |
| 1887 | 122 |
| 1888 | 142 |
| 1889 | 176 |
| 1890 | 127 |
| 1891 | 192 |
| 1892 | 205 |
| 1893 | 200 |
| 1894 | 190 |
| 1895 | 171 |
| 1896 | 181 |
| 1897 | 166 |
| 1898 | 127 |
| 1899 | 107 |
| 1900 | 107 |
| 1901 | 185 |
| 1902 | 96 |
| 1903 | 104 |
| 1904 | 87 |
| 1905 | 66 |
| 1906 | 66 |
| 1907 | 68 |
| 1908 | 100 |
| 1909 | 87 |
| 1910 | 74 |
The general decrease, while population is increasing, is encouraging; but lynching itself is a horrible crime; and lynching for one crime begets lynching for another. Of the total number lynched last year, nine were whites; sixty-five were negroes, among them three women; and only twenty-two were for crimes of negroes against white women. The other crimes were murder, attempts to murder, robbery, arson, etc.
Census returns indicate that in the country at large the criminality of the negro, as compared with that of the white man, is nearly three times greater, and that the ratio of negro criminality is much higher North than South. Such returns also indicate that so far education has not lessened negro criminality,[99] but it is not known that any well-educated negro has been guilty of the crime against white women.
In the South the negro is excluded from many occupations for which the best of them are fitted, but in the North his industrial conditions are worse. Fewer occupations are open to him and the wisest members of his race are counselling him to remain in the more favorable industrial atmosphere of the South.
The dislike of negroes for whites has been increased South by the laws which separate them from whites in schools, public conveyances, etc. But it is to be remembered that these laws were intended to prevent intermarriage; they are in part the result of race antipathies. But the sound reason for them is that they tend to prevent intimacies which, at the points where the races are in closest touch with each other, might result in intermarriage. Professor E. D. Cope, of the University of Pennsylvania, one of the very highest of American authorities on the race question, in a powerful article published in 1890,[100] advocated the deportation of the negroes from the South, no matter at what cost. Otherwise he predicted eventual amalgamation, which would be the destruction of a large portion of the finest race in the world.
This little study now comes to a close. An effort has been made to sketch briefly in this chapter the difficulties the South has encountered in dealing with the negro problem, and to outline the measure of success it has achieved. However imperfectly the author may have performed his task, it must be clear to the reader that no such problem as the present was ever before presented to a self-governing people. Never was there so much need of that culture from which alone can come a high sense of duty to others. The negro must be encouraged to be self-helpful and useful to the community. If he is to do all this and remain a separate race, he must have leadership among his own people. In the Mississippi Black Belt there is now a town of some 4,000 negroes, Mound Bayou, completely organized and prospering. It may be that in the future negroes seeking among themselves the amenities of life may congregate into communities of their own, cultivating adjacent lands, as the French do in their agricultural villages. Wherever they may be, they must practise the civic virtues, honesty, and obedience to law. W. H. Councill, a negro teacher, of Huntsville, Alabama, said some years since in a magazine article: "When the gray-haired veterans who followed Lee and Jackson pass away, the negro will have lost his best friends." This is true, but it is hoped that time and culture, while not producing social equality, will allay race animosities and bring the negro other friends to take the place of the departing veterans.
The white man, with his pride of race, must more and more be made to feel that noblesse oblige. His sense of duty to others must measure up to his responsibilities and opportunities. He must accord to the negro all his rights under the laws as they exist.