[318] Johnston, The Negro in the New World, p. 413.
[319] Ibid. p. 415.
[320] Ibid. p. 413.
[321] Ibid. p. X.
[322] Ibid. p. 476.
[323] Ibid. p. 477.
CHAPTER XIII
The American Historical Association founded about 1889 has accomplished a great work in purifying the sources from which history has been drawn. It has stimulated the study of history and has afforded the field and opportunity for effort. By the Act of Incorporation it shall report annually its proceedings and the condition of historical study in America, to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, who shall communicate to Congress the whole of such reports or such portion thereof as he shall see fit.
In the year 1909, the President of the Association, invited, from certain selected individuals, papers on the Negro question limited to 1800 words, for one of the sessions of the Association. This was a limitation which every white person accepting should have scrupulously observed and no one should have accepted who was not willing to exert himself seriously. Yet the tendency of not a few whites to allow themselves always a little playfulness whenever discussing this subject seems ineradicable. To the one colored scholar, who accepted the invitation, the occasion afforded an opportunity not to be permitted to slip by unimproved, and with admirable nerve, he selected the darkest decade discernible in the consideration of the subject, as disclosed in the history of the United States, and addressed himself to a discussion of “Reconstruction and Its Benefits,” in a paper of about 10,000 words.
In the disregard which he thereby showed of the terms of his invitation he was justified by his color and his brains and the merit of his work won for him the widest dissemination of his view. Like Sir Harry Johnston’s more elaborate book it is polemical; but superior in taste and style, being free from the little querelous snarls with which the Englishman garnished his treatise; for if there were sneers in DuBois’s exposition they were couched in language which passes muster among well bred people; while the fact that he was in reality an advocate, with a brief to maintain, accorded him license for such.