WHERE THE GALE BLOWS FIERCEST.
In labor, business, social and religious circles, a citizen is at liberty to avoid contact with an undesirable neighbor if he so elects. As these constitute the bulk of the activities of the American people, the normal relation of the Negroes and whites is a peaceful one. But there are points where contact is unavoidable.
We have a common political structure, common courts and common public utilities. At these points all citizens must meet and such friction as arises comes mainly from these sources. We now outline the program to be carried out by our racial organization at these points, beginning with the ballot box.
The United States is pre-eminently a political country, politics occupying a relatively large space in the public mind. With the national thought focused on politics, in that arena a man is more sorely tried, his powers put to more severe tests, his strong and his weak points more clearly developed than in any other sphere of activity. He who emerges from the galling fire of American politics unscathed, must be accorded a crown of unfading glory.
To illustrate the ordeal through which one must pass, we cite the following comment:
"In turning over the files of the American press, we read of Washington as an embezzler; of Jefferson as an atheist, an anarchist and a libertine; of Adams as a tyrant; and of Jackson as a bully, a border ruffian and an assassin. Van Buren was accused of stealing gold spoons from the 'White House.' The stock epithet applied to President Lincoln was the 'Illinois baboon.' President Johnson was habitually described as a 'drunken boor.' What was said by the newspapers of our later Presidents, from General Grant to Mr. Cleveland, is fresh in the memory of every person of mature age. How utterly insincere is all this hideous abuse may be seen in the fact that it is hushed into silence as soon as the object of it passes out of the political arena into private life. No breath of it ever lingers in the allusions that are thereafter made to him by even the bitterest of his late opponents."
The Negro has assuredly received his full measure of blows from the hand of America's master passion. When the Negro stepped into the arena to play his part he had to encounter the feeling of caste, which insisted that he was inherently disqualified to enter, the claim being set up that nature had forever decreed against him in this respect. He was met with violence, with fraud, and vituperation, with misrepresentation, with disregard for all the forms of law. The votes which he sought to cast in his own favor were boldly appropriated to the opposition. His cupidity was tempted, his every weakness exploited. His virtues were minimized and his shortcomings exaggerated and unduly paraded. This treatment of the Negro was not necessarily special. It was in keeping with the rules of American politics in which the Darwinian law of the survival of the fittest everywhere obtains.
In view of the galling fire which all participants in America who enter politics must encounter, our racial organization will be confronted with a serious task in the formulation of the political program for the Negro.
The following suggestions will afford a basis for the projecting of a policy that will enable the race to take care of itself at this, the most crucial, the really pivotal point in its battle for honorable station.