But these conditions are not the gravest at present. The fact of most tremendous import is that the white race in trying to settle its own quarrels has called in black, brown and yellow to do its fighting for it, with the result that black, brown and yellow will learn thereby how to fight for themselves, even against those whom they were called in to assist. The white race cannot escape from its dilemma, however. If it were to decree hereafter that wars between whites should be restricted to whites alone, then we should be given the poignant spectacle of the white race continuing to cut its own throat while the increasing masses of black, brown and yellow remained unaffected by that process, “It is to laugh,” as the cynical gods would say. Or, to use a trite Americanism, it is, “heads I win, tails you lose.” It is thumbs down for the white race in the world’s arena, and they are to be the dealers of their own death blow. Such are the consequences of conquest!
The analogies between the present situation of the white race and the situation of the Roman Empire in the fourth century of the Christian era are too many and striking to be easily ignored. Now, as then, we have “barbarians” and “super-men.” Now, as then, the super-men are such in their own estimation. Now, as then, they have, as they fondly think, a monopoly of the money power, brain power and political power of the world. Now, as then, the necessities of their own selfishness and greed, constrain and compel them to share their education and their culture with the races whom they exploit. Now, as then, in the crisis of their fortunes, they must utilize the knowledge and abilities of these barbarian folk, and now, as then, this exercising of abilities on behalf of the overlord develops abilities and ambition at an equal rate; and, having given the barbarian tiger its first taste of blood, the unleashed results can not now be restrained.
In the Roman days, as in the days of Charlemagne’s successors, those who hold the balances generally also wield the sword; and if their blood and sand determine which among the rulers shall get the prizes of victory, then these same qualities must needs urge them to take from such victors-by-proxy so much of the fruits of victory as their own needs may suggest or their own power maintain. Truly “they that take the sword shall perish by the sword.”
The White War and the Colored Races
[The following article was written in 1918 when the Great War still raged. It was written for a certain well known radical magazine; but was found to be “too radical” for publication at that time. It is given now to the Negro public partly because the underlying explanation which it offers of the root-cause of the war has not yet received treatment (even among socialistic radicals) and partly because recent events in China, India, Africa and the United States have proved the accuracy of its forecasts.]
The Nineteenth Christian Century saw the international expansion of capitalism—the economic system of the white peoples of Western Europe and America-and its establishment by force and fraud over the lands of the colored races, black and brown and yellow. The opening years of the Twentieth Century present us with the sorry spectacle of these same white nations cutting each other’s throats to determine which of them shall enjoy the property which has been acquired. For this is the real sum and substance of the original “war aims” of the belligerents; although in conformity with Christian cunning, this is one which is never frankly avowed. Instead, we are fed with the information that they are fighting for “Kultur” and “on behalf of small nationalities.” Let us look carefully at this camouflage.
The Sham of “Democracy”
In the first place, we in America need not leave our own land to seek reasons for suspecting the sincerity of democratic professions. While we are waging war to establish democracy three thousand miles away, millions of Negroes are disfranchised in our own land by the “cracker” democracies of the Southern States which are more intent upon making slaves of their black fellow-citizens than upon rescuing the French and Belgians from the similar brutalities of the German Junkers. The horrible holocaust of East St. Louis was possible only in three modern States—Russia of the Romanoffs, Turkey and the United States—and it ill becomes any one of them to point a critical finger at the others.