THE TIME FACTOR IN THE SOUTHERN PROBLEM.
BY REV. A.H. BRADFORD, D.D.
The supreme question in English politics is the unity of the empire. The problem of the mother country is, How may the scattered colonies be joined in one body whose heart shall be London? All the other questions of the island-empire are but parts of this. This in turn is forced into prominence by the under-current of the world's aspiration for larger liberty. "The world no longer for the few, but for the many," is the watchword of an increasing number in all the nations. How to maintain the manhood of her subjects, and yet not to force the dismemberment of the empire, is the question uppermost in old England.
With us, the problem is not one of scattered colonies but of divergent people. There is in the United States the double problem of how to consolidate and preserve the interests of a nation with a long area north and south, and with the most diverse elements of population ever gathered under one flag. This is complicated by other factors. Our study is confined to those which touch what is known as the Southern question. The problems of English and American political and religious life are identical in that both are inspired by the watchword of the rising multitudes, "The world for the many."
The Southern problem is but part of the larger one of area and races. Consider a few facts. The South is peopled chiefly by two classes, native whites and native blacks. Both whites and blacks are there to remain. More whites leave the South than blacks, and the population is increasing. Emigration avoids the States chiefly inhabited by blacks. It is not probable that the exodus of whites will be very great. The population of the future will probably be of the same classes, although the proportion is rapidly changing. Native whites and native blacks, unless signs fail, will possess the land.
The Negro race is appallingly fertile. It shows no sign of decadence. It is multiplying faster than any other. The number of blacks in the United States has risen from four millions to nearly eight millions since the war. That has been entirely by natural reproduction. The increase of whites during the decade from 1870 to 1880 was twenty-nine per cent.; of blacks thirty-five per cent. If, now, we allow nine per cent. for the increase of the whites by immigration, we find that the increase of blacks over the whites by natural order is about fourteen per cent. Here, then, is a simple problem in arithmetic. If the blacks increase on an average fourteen per cent. faster than the whites, and to the South there is little immigration, how long will it be before the blacks preponderate? They will go neither to Africa, to Mexico, nor to the West Indies. They are here to stay. They are multiplying faster than their white neighbors. They are growing in consciousness of power faster than in intelligence. What is the sure result of conscious but blind power? The story of Samson answers. The problem is the new-birth of a rapidly increasing race. How long it will take may possibly be imagined from the questions which follow.
I. How long will it require for race-prejudices to go? I put that question to an intelligent colored man who had been a slave. His answer was, "Until the present generation is dead."
The conflict between classes in the South will last until they recognize that they have an identity of interests, or that they are brethren. Prejudice is neither dead nor fast dying. There is a change in the cities, but it does not reach far inland. In how many Southern States are the same privileges extended to both races in schools? in cars? in hotels? in churches? This prejudice is in the blood. Heredity and training have both fostered it. Race prejudices die slowly. For centuries the contest between Patrician and Plebeian was carried on in ancient Rome. The subject-class never affiliated with the master-class. Two or three hundred years ago a new people was introduced into the north of Ireland. The north is essentially Scottish. Its inhabitants are Protestant and phlegmatic. In the south, the religion is Romanist, and the people are mercurial. They are of the same color. They have had the same history for centuries. For nearly five hundred years, the Turk has been a disturbing factor in Europe. The Turk is Asiatic. He is surrounded by European life. How rapidly has the antipathy between races disappeared where the Turk has power? The race-lines are as distinct as if the waters of a white river and a black ran in the same channel. The Hebrews are found in all parts of the world. They are industrious, and as decent as the average man; they mingle with other people, and yet almost everywhere the prejudice against them is constant and bitter. How long before Protestant Orangemen and Catholic Irishmen will walk arm and arm in the same procession? How long before the German and Russian and Englishman will recognize the Jew as a brother? In the South, the antipathy is between black and white, between a master-class and a subject-class, between oppressed and oppressor. How long before this prejudice will disappear?