The call for copy is not infrequently a call of distress. To fill a void may bring about a hasty selection of cartoon plate, by no means hastily prepared; but possibly for just such a contingency. These so selected, not seldom undo the effect of an editorial, while much masquerading as news, but in reality propaganda, may be hastily slapped into the forms around two o’clock in the morning. The Negroes, therefore, in clinging to weeklies “are wiser in their generation than the children of light.”
Happily for humanity, sentimentality destroyed slavery of the Negroes in the United States; but the result was an intense stimulation of economic slavery of whites and blacks, by the simple process of letting in from Europe masses of whites, many of whom were below the standards of numbers of American Negroes. That having been checked, the Negro laborer in every line must now measure himself against the Slav and the Latin. In physical power he is superior to the Latin; but the Latin makes up for it in greater pertinacity and orderliness of method. While the statement will probably be received with derision, the training of the slave by the Southern slave-holder and the working of the Negro by the Southerner is not at the driving pace at which the North and West move, and under that spur the Northern Negro becomes a more efficient tool. But North or South the mass has been helped more than hindered by that which a cultivated young Negro addressing one of the leading educational institutions of the United States thus described:
“The savage and the child, to rise to higher things must feel the power of a stronger hand. This is the special blessing of the American Negro and has in forty years set him centuries ahead of his Haytien brother, who has been self governing for one hundred years.”[402]
Even if he has since recanted, this was the view of William Pickens in 1903, when awarded the Ten Eyck Prize at Yale University. But if the Negro is affected by the presence of the white to the Negro’s betterment, it is only fair and just to quote a Southern opinion with regard to the reverse.
Only two years later than the award to Pickens at Yale University, a Southern scholar published “The Coming Crisis”; which despite the fact that it is written in flawless English, exhibits a symmetry of composition which is altogether admirable, and advances views held today by a vast number, not a few of whom have achieved some reputation in the discussion of them less intelligently than Mr. Pinckney in 1905, his book, nevertheless, at that date, fell absolutely flat. What Mr. Pinckney discerned before the World War others can now also see. His view of the Negro problem was not in accord with the view of the author of this study. He would have been surprised to hear that it could have been thought to be in accord with that of Abraham Lincoln, to a great degree, altho’ with some differences. But in Pinckney’s discussion the Negro is merely incidental to the subject which is to him so inspiring as to be visualized in a passage worth pondering:
“It seems probable that the history of the United States is calculated to furnish more complete and more striking illustration of the working of political principles than was ever furnished to the world before. It is an experiment on so grand a scale and interests so gigantic are at stake that enthusiasm itself is overwhelmed in the contemplation. It was too much to hope for, that such an experiment should be successful from the start. Not so lightly might the latest and greatest blessing to mankind, the gift of rational liberty, be wrested from reluctant nature. Not without thorns and blood and agony might such a crown be won. Were the reward to be more easily obtained, possibly those who won it would have proved unworthy to enjoy it. Let those remember this that fear for the fate of the Republic. So will their hearts be filled afresh with courage. So from within will well up new healing streams of hope, balm of hurt minds, refreshing, comfortable. To fall from grace is to learn the pathway of salvation and, like the prodigal son, to become a partaker of joys before unknown.”[403]
Nowhere can be found a more delicate satire, than the chapter in his book which is entitled “Salary and Sentiment—Reason and Revenue.” There is also very clear and convincing reasoning. But it is in regard to what Mr. Pinckney has to say of the presence of the Negroes in the South that reference now is had.
In opposition to the view of Wade Hampton, M. C. Butler and Carlyle McKinley, according to Mr. Pinckney:
“The States themselves must control the Negro question, or the American system is at an end. Effort on the part of the Federal Government to control or even to tamper with this matter must at all times result, as it has hitherto invariably resulted, in riot and anarchy. Thus, as far as the South is concerned, the very highest sanctions possible are by natural law attached to strict observance of the true constitutional construction. To travel the constitutional path is safety and happiness; to wander from it is instant anarchy. ... The purpose is to protect all local affairs against intrusion from without, but among those affairs first and foremost has always stood the Negro Question, in which there can be no hesitation, choice or possibility of alternative. Thus the smaller matter of the presence of the Negro is included in the larger class of matters which comprise the whole range of local interests.... The Negro is thus the (wholly unconscious) means of illustrating the necessity for constitutional self government. His presence effectually prevents the South from departing for an instant from the Constitutional pathway. Cuffy must be remembered if the Republic is to be saved.”[404]
This is in agreement with the view, that the Southern States are Democratic, because the presence of the Negro, now freed, forces them to be so.