Remembering that the white race in America is nine times as numerous as the black race, we conclude that it would be desirable to encourage amalgamation of the two races only in case the average of mulattoes is superior to the average of the whites. No one can seriously maintain that this supposition is true. Biologically, therefore, there is no reason to think that an increase in the number of mulattoes is desirable.
There is a curious argument in circulation, which points out that mulattoes are almost always the offspring of Negro mothers and white fathers, not of Negro fathers and white mothers. Therefore, it is said, production of mulattoes does not mean at all a decrease in the number of white births, but merely substitutes a number of mulatto births for an equivalent number of pure Negro births. It is therefore alleged that the production of mulattoes is in the long run a benefit, elevating the Negro race without impairing the white race.
But this argument assumes that most mulatto births are illegitimate,—a condition which eugenists do not sanction, because it tends to disintegrate the family. Rather than such a condition, the legitimate production of pure-blood Negroes is preferable, even though they be inferior in individual ability to the illegitimate mulattoes offered as a substitute. There are not at the present time enough desirable white fathers in the country. If desirable ones are set aside to produce mulattoes, it would be a great loss to the nation; while if the mulattoes are the offspring of eugenically undesirable white fathers, then the product is not likely to be anything America wants.
From whatever standpoint we take, we see nothing good to be said for miscegenation.[141] We have discussed the problem as a particular one between the blacks and whites but the argument will hold good when applied to any two races between which the differences are so marked that one may be considered decidedly inferior to the other.
Society,—white society,—long ago reached the instinctive conclusion, which seems to us a correct one, that it must put a ban on intermarriage between two such races. It has given expression to this feeling by passing laws to prohibit miscegenation in 22 states, while six other states prohibit it in their constitutions. There are thus 22 states which have attempted legally to prevent intermarriage of the white and black race. While in 20 states there is no law on the subject, it is needless to say that popular feeling about it is almost uniform, and that the legislators of New England for instance would refuse to give their daughters in marriage to Negroes, even though they might the day before have voted down a proposed law to prohibit intermarriage on the ground that it was an expression of race prejudice.
In a majority of the states which have no legislation of this kind, bills have been introduced during the last two or three years, and have been defeated through the energetic interference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, an organization of which Oswald Garrison Villard is chairman of the Board of Directors and W. E. B. DuBois, a brilliant mulatto, is Director of Publicity and Research. As this association represents a very large part of the more intelligent Negro public opinion, its attitude deserves careful consideration. It is set forth summarily in a letter[142] which was addressed to legislators in various states, as follows:
"The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People earnestly protests against the bill forbidding intermarriage between the races, not because the Association advocates intermarriage, which it does not, but primarily because whenever such laws have been enacted they have become a menace to the whole institution of matrimony, leading directly to concubinage, bastardy, and the degradation of the Negro woman. No man-made law can stop the union of the races. If intermarriage be wrong, its prevention is best left to public opinion and to nature, which wreaks its own fearful punishments on those who transgress its laws and sin against it. We oppose the proposed statute in the language of William Lloyd Garrison in 1843, in his successful campaign for the repeal of a similar law in Massachusetts: 'Because it is not the province, and does not belong to the power of any legislative assembly, in a republican government, to decide on the complexional affinity of those who choose to be united together in wedlock; and it may as rationally decree that corpulent and lean, tall and short, strong and weak persons shall not be married to each other as that there must be an agreement in the complexion of the parties.'
"We oppose it for the physical reason that to prohibit such intermarriage would be publicly to acknowledge that black blood is a physical taint, something no self-respecting colored man and woman can be asked to admit. We oppose it for the moral reason that all such laws leave the colored girl absolutely helpless before the lust of the white man, without the power to compel the seducer to marry. The statistics of intermarriage in those states where it is permitted show this happens so infrequently as to make the whole matter of legislation unnecessary. Both races are practically in complete agreement on this question, for colored people marry colored people, and white marry whites, the exceptions being few. We earnestly urge upon you an unfavorable report on this bill."
Legislation on the subject of marriage is clearly inside the province of government. That such an argument as is quoted from William Lloyd Garrison can still be circulated in the United States and apparently carry weight, is sufficient cause for one to feel pessimistic over the spread of the scientific spirit in this nation. Suffice it to say that on this point the National Association is a century behind the times.
The following policy seems to us to be in accordance with modern science, and yet meet all the legitimate arguments of the National Association. We will state our attitude as definitely as possible: