The Color Line: A Brief in Behalf of the Unborn

by William Benjamin Smith

Here the cards are conveniently shuffled and the terms changed from "race" to "people." The question, however, is not about "peoples" proper, but about "races." While notable differences hold among "peoples" of the same "race," yet the one race it is, the Caucasian, that is held to be superior. This one race has produced all the civilizations in question; the Mongol comes next, at a far remove. And of Caucasians, the Aryan shines like the moon amid the stars.

"Ideas and inventions were carried from one to the other; and, although intercommunication was slow, each people which participated in the ancient civilization added to the culture of the others. Proofs without number have been forth-coming which show that ideas have been disseminated as long as people have come into contact with each other and that neither race nor language nor distance limits their diffusion. As all have worked together in the development of the ancient civilizations, we must bow to the genius of all, whatever race they may represent: Hamitic, Semitic, Aryan or Mongol."

But to all in equal measure? Or to some in far higher measure? That is the question. We must not think of the Senate, where all states vote alike; but of the House of Representatives, where "Little Rhody" vanishes by the side of New York or Texas. Even if all races did contribute to the sum total, which is far from true, there is an immense difference between contributions that may vary from a penny to a pound. The English language "bows to the genius" of all, from the Teuton to the Mongol; but the former element is vital, the latter is inappreciable.

We have quoted these paragraphs in full and for several reasons: We would represent our opponent as correctly as possible; they are a fair sample of his argumentation; and, especially, as argument they are to us incomprehensible—hence we would not attempt to condense them. Possibly our readers may understand them better. So far as we can make out, the savant has deceived himself by conjuring with the words "people" and "race." The question was, whether the Caucasian, "the white race," the great civilization-building race, in any or in all of its "peoples," is superior to the "races" African, Australian, and the like, that have produced no civilizations? If not, "why, then, did the white race alone develop a civilization which is sweeping the whole world, etc.?" To this, his own question, these paragraphs contain no element of answer, much less answer itself. They seem to forget all about "races," and turn aside to slightly varying "peoples" of the same "white race." They ask (in effect): Does the civilization of the Greek indicate that he was superior to the West African? And they reply (in effect) that the Hellenic culture was very composite—part Doric, part Æolic, part Ionian, with a sprinkling from the Nile and the Euphrates. Surely this is not argument; it is hardly the simulacrum of argument. Such a mingling of bloods of varying virtues and tendencies is now actually going on in our midst; but they are all of the same "white race," neither physiologically nor psychologically very far apart; and such a mingling may very well make for higher evolution. When it is affirmed that our "ancestors" "were in no way superior to Hottentots and Guinea Negroes" (the long phrase is a mere euphemism) "at the same period," "during the dawn of history," we protest earnestly. The affirmation assumes everything in dispute. The evidence is all against it. Their language, their mythology, the fact that they were of the White race which "did alone develop a civilization," the fact that they took fire immediately when touched by the torch of culture, their bodies and particularly their skulls—all cry aloud against this complacent assumption. More than a "few thousand years" ago the Sumerians had observed the precession of the equinoxes; at "the dawn of history" in Germany, Augustus cried vainly to Varus, "Give me back my legions." Arminius in no way superior to a Sudanese! The Babylonian legislators and astronomers "in no way superior" to the cannibals of the Niger!

"Did no other races develop a culture of equal value?" (p. 304). He shrinks from a positive yea or nay, but holds "that the civilizations of ancient Peru and of Central America may well be compared with the ancient civilization of the Old World," "that the general status of their culture was nearly equally high." Herewith this great savant seems to place himself beyond the pale of argument. Does any one believe that Greek or Roman civilization would have gone down without a blow at the mere breath of Pizarro or Cortés? And where are the Peruvian or Aztec Homer and Thales, Apelles and Euclid, Cicero, Vergil, and Trajan? On this there is no need to dwell longer.

"What then is the difference between the civilization of the Old World and that of the New World? It is only a difference in time. The one reached a certain stage three thousand or four thousand years sooner than the other" (p. 304).

This is mere assertion. There is not the shadow of evidence that the Peruvian or Mexican would ever have approached the Greco-Roman civilization, either in four thousand or in forty thousand years. What has been done in the last four hundred years, under the stimulus of Spanish contact? We cannot have the slightest interest, logical, sentimental, or other, in depreciating or in anywise underrating the New World civilizations. For how could it possibly affect the question of Caucasian and Negro, even if it were found that the bud of Cuzco and Anahuac was fairer than the flower of Rome or Athens? And why might it not have been? We are very far from regarding either Aristides or Marcus Aurelius as perfect. It is only as a mere matter of fact that we call the American superiority or equality so seriously in question. Admire as you will, appraise as high as you will, the art and the astronomy of Tezcuco, the social organization, the agriculture, and the engineering of the amautas, it seems impossible even for the enthusiasm of a Carli, combined with the race pride of an Ixtlilxochitl and a Garcilaso, to discover in the culture of the Yncas or of the Aztecs or even of the Toltecs any principle or augury of progress. To us it is difficult in the extreme to detect any hope of higher development where despotism was absolute, where free agency was outlawed, and where the object of war was to procure human sacrifices. We hold that by every token these civilizations had culminated, that they were already as elaborated and petrified as the Chinese, and that the centuries to come would have witnessed no marked advance, but rather a retrogression. It should be added that the physical inferiority of these peoples was notable. The Peruvian and Aztec stature ranged from five feet to five and one-half feet. Now this is very close to the border line of the Dwarfs—who, according to Sir William Flower, include such races as do not exceed five feet three inches. The Ynca skull is better than others of South America, yet it has but a low facial angle.

Dr. Boas thinks four thousand years but a trifle in the history of a race—but a watch in the night. Perhaps it is. He thinks the mere fact that a race is forty centuries behind does not argue that it is less gifted. May be not. We have often wondered whether the bee might not yet overtake the man. Theoretically all forms of life are still in the race, which cannot end while the planet is habitable. Practically, however, four thousand years is eternity. A race that is more than a hundred generations behind is not worth considering. The reflections in the paragraph under consideration all strike wide of the mark.

It is next urged (p. 304) "that civilization originated among few of its [the White race's] members," and "that the cognate tribes" might not have developed so swiftly but for help from the others. True, the Germans (e.g.) profited greatly from contact with Greco-Romans, but for whom they might now be savages. But they profited because they were of the same stock; they were of nature to profit. The Greek applied the torch, but the German material was inflammable; else it would never have burned. When the same torch has been applied to other materials, they have not caught fire.

The next paragraph (p. 305) itself raises these questions: "But why did these tribes so easily assimilate the culture that was offered them, while at present we see primitive people dwindle away and become degraded before the approach of civilization, instead of being elevated by it? Is not this a proof of a higher organization of the inhabitants of Europe?" We have just rendered answer simple, natural, satisfactory. But none such can be accepted! "I believe the reasons for this fact are not far to seek and do not necessarily lie in a greater ability of the races of Europe and Asia. First of all, these people were alike in appearance to civilized man of their times."