Part 1 (2/2)

The changes wrought in the South by the reconstruction measures did not last. Those measures afforded temporary relief and that was all. They did not go deep enough and besides the whites refused to cooperate with the blacks to make them a success. They failed to moderate or abate Southern opinions, race prejudice and pa.s.sions and were therefore doomed to fail as an experiment in social and political reconstruction. Social and political reconstruction in those states it seems now must come from within and by voluntary action not from without and by compulsory legislation. This is true today whatever might have been possible in this regard immediately after the overthrow of the Southern Confederacy. What was attempted then and failed would certainly fail today if it were possible to repeat the self same experiment. The repet.i.tion of such an attempt, however, being wholly outside of the range of the probable in American politics makes all speculation as to what might be its fate therefore nugatory.

After the Presidential election of 1876, the North abandoned its attempt to reconstruct the South and to keep it reconstructed according to its standard of justice and political proportion. The stream of reaction against the Negro set in strongly from that time and it has gathered volume each succeeding year since. The failure of the old master cla.s.s to seize the opportunity which had come to them a second time, following the collapse of the Rebellion, for progressive and constructive leaders.h.i.+p of their section on the race question was an egregious blunder. They set in motion instead the forces and pa.s.sions which have at length wrested the ballot from the Negro. But they themselves have not escaped the consequences of their egregious blunder, for a new cla.s.s of whites have in turn wrested from them their leaders.h.i.+p in Southern affairs. The black seeds of this blunder of the old master cla.s.s to lead their section in social justice and progress, the bitter years have ploughed deep into the life of both races. From the black seeds of their blunder black crops of race hatred and crime and misery have been reaped annually by the South along with those other crops of cotton and rice and sugar and tobacco, and sent like them to all parts of the Republic.

The process of Southern political solidification, partially suspended for a few years, resumed promptly after 1876 all of its natural functions and its one party governments. Since that time legislation hostile to the Negro has increased enormously in that section. Its old reconstructed State Const.i.tutions have been one by one revised most favorably to the whites and most unfavorably and unjustly for the blacks. For what with grandfather and understanding clauses, educational and property qualifications, partisan registration boards and election supervisors and white primaries, the great majority of the colored people have been excluded from the electorate, from any voice in the Government, while the vote of the small minority who are included in the electorate has been reduced to a nullity by their exclusion from the white primaries. The states which have thus revised their const.i.tutions have thereby effected the practical disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of their entire colored population. While they have done this they have managed at the same time to leave the ballot in the hands of every white man.

Under such unequal conditions, the white man is immune from legislation and administration unfriendly to his cla.s.s, while the black man is exposed to the aggressions of this favored cla.s.s; either directly through mobs or indirectly through hostile legislation and administration, which fix upon him the brand of a caste whose members have no rights in Southern society which white men are bound to respect. Such social injustice and political inequality as exist between the races in the South are bad for the whites as they are bad for the blacks--are very bad for their collective interests and for the National interests of the great industrial democracy of which they form a part. Is it astonis.h.i.+ng then that under such circ.u.mstances there have sprung up and flourish in the South the peonage and convict lease systems, the plantation lease and credit systems, contract labor and ”Jim Crow” laws, lynching and the inequitable distribution of the public school funds between the races? For the Southern white man, and he is not different from any other white man or black man either for that matter who possesses irresponsible power over others, regulates his conduct toward the Negro in his midst by the law of might, which allows him with a good conscience to do to the Negro whatever he wants to do, and to take from him whatever he wants to take whether life or liberty, while it forbids his victim to do what he wants to do; or to retain what belongs to him as an American citizen whether it be his life or his liberty--that is, to do so by identically the same means which white men use to retain what belongs to them under similar circ.u.mstances.

Things would undoubtedly be different for the colored people in those states had they though slight, some positive and appreciable influence at the polls. Their condition would not even then be ideal--far from it. But their hard lot as men would improve, their worth as citizens, their social and industrial value to their community, state and country would rise correspondingly in the scale of being and character, with the increased freedom, self-respect and security which in consequence would come to them as a race. Legislatures and administrative officers would begin to make some response to their claim for social justice and political rights, and the courts would begin also to lend a more attentive ear to their rights of person and property. The end of all those terrible systems which exploit and rob and oppress them and keep them poor and ignorant and weak, the sad victims of race prejudice and greed and cruelty, would grow nearer to the perfect day of the race's final deliverance as American citizens.

They would begin to get for their children more and better schools and longer school terms, and for their teachers more equal pay as compared with that received by white teachers for similar service.

Such is the deplorable situation of the Negro in the South at the close of the first fifty years of his freedom. There will be no improvement in that situation to any material extent until he gets the ballot, a voice in the government of those states. He can not obtain a voice in those governments of and by himself. He must get help from some power outside of himself.

But from whom and in what direction ought he to look for it? Not certainly from the North, from the Republican Party. For they gave up long ago trying to solve the problem how to make a vote in that section count as much as a vote in the solid South. They will not again enact a Force Bill or attempt to do so or anything like it. They have during recent years made no movement to execute that clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which provides for a reduction of Southern representation in the lower Branch of Congress proportioned to the number of the disfranchised male population of those states, and they have in fact no disposition to do so. On the contrary non-interference is the ominous word which now gags the Northern people and press, its pulpit and platform and hobbles the action of the general government. Indeed, the outgoing occupant of the White House has carried the policy of non-interference to extreme limits. For he it is who laid down the rule at the beginning of his administration, and has observed it strictly for four years, that it would be unwise to make appointments of colored men to federal office in the South whenever the South objects to such appointments. In consequence of the consistent enforcement of this rule colored federal office-holders in the South are like angels' visits to that section, few and far between. The South, as we have seen, has succeeded most thoroughly in depriving the Negro in its midst of any voice in its governments and it has shut him out of state offices, and now thanks to President Taft, has at last succeeded in depriving him of holding federal office in its midst likewise.

But there yet remains to the Southern colored man a tattered and bedraggled remnant of his citizens.h.i.+p in that section, if indeed even that shall be left to him four years hence. I refer to his quadrennial appearance as a delegate in Republican National Conventions, where for a brief hour he enjoys the spotlight importance of a political supernumerary on the party stage. Since 1884, there has been an increasing inclination among Republican leaders to reduce the representation of the party's Southern wing in National Conventions to a number proportioned to the size of its vote on election day. But the leaders have not yet got their courage to the sticking point to tackle this proposition, perhaps because they have not been willing to tackle the prior one of a reduction of Southern representation in Congress, and perhaps for other good and sufficient considerations of an emergency character, they have allowed the matter to drift and to let for the time being well enough alone.

But whatever has been the motive of that party for its policy of inactivity and indecision on this question heretofore, there are not wanting signs of a change of that policy presently into one of activity and decision. It seems probable that reduction of representation of its Southern wing in its National Conventions will occupy a prominent place on the program of Republican reorganization within the next four years. That party in a half dozen Southern States has been called in derision by its enemies a ”ghost party” and a ”phantom party.” And such it is in reality.

It is dead and I do not believe that its corpse can ever be galvanized into life again. There are decomposing parts of it known as ”Regulars” and ”Lily Whites,” stricken both with the microbes of death, obscenely alive with the maggots of place-hunters. It is powerless to dissolve the solid South and to restore to that section bi-party in place of one-party governments. It is wholly incapable of attracting Southern whites in sufficient numbers to raise it to the rank of a party of opposition, or to give to it the barest chance of achieving success at the polls. Its very name is a political bugaboo and makes it a party impossibility in those states. Since 1876, rather than utilize it as a party of opposition, the Southern whites have preserved their sectional solidity and one-party governments, notwithstanding the fact that many of their more enlightened and far seeing men have felt that such a course is bad for their section as it would be bad for any group of states, North, East or West in the Union.

Just at this point let me refer in pa.s.sing to sundry causes which are affecting adversely the Negro's status as a citizen, and are contributing by their collateral pressure to force him into a sort of political and industrial blind alley of our American civilization. The Southern propaganda against the Negro is advancing apace in the North by many dark and devious ways and by many subtle and potent means. Northern capital and enterprise, which are exploiting the South industrially, a.s.similate very readily the Southern view of the Negro, who must be kept at the bottom of the white man's labor system and civilization. Intermarriage of Northern men and women with Southern men and women helps tremendously the propagation of the Southern view and solution of the race problem. The annual meeting and mingling at the National Capital in social intercourse of the wealth and fas.h.i.+on and leaders.h.i.+p of both sections exerts a powerful influence in accenting points of agreement rather than points of difference between them. The feeling has risen throughout the North that the white people of the country can not afford either in terms of business or of politics to quarrel among themselves over the rights and wrongs of another race, which in consequence of the injustices and inequalities suffered by it at their hands, is being pushed brutally to the wall. The whites of both sections make themselves believe, as a sort of salve to their conscience, I suppose, that the Negro in their midst is an alien race, is a non-a.s.similable element in the body politic, whose ejectment or isolation the health of that body and the race purity of the whites render necessary. Since ejectment is impracticable as involving too huge a displacement of or amputation from the productive labor of the South, isolation remains the only alternative. The whites of course will do what they can without injuring themselves or corrupting their race ideals, or affronting their race prejudices to alleviate the inevitably hard lot of this unfortunate people. But in what may be done for them there must be a care not to mix with it any foolish sentiment of human liberty and brotherhood lest it give offense to the South and so interrupt the flow of that beautiful and brotherly affection which is increasingly making the Southern whites and the Northern whites one people in the bonds of an indissoluble friends.h.i.+p and union. Non-interference is the ominous word which has cast its dark spell over the North and has turned its once warm and active sympathy into cold indifference and cruel apathy.

We had better look at the situation of the Negro in the United States to-day without blinking the facts, see it clear and see it straight. The present outlook for that race is gloomy and depressing, and this gloom and depression are nation-wide. Until the Negro gets in the South some measurable freedom in the use of the ballot, the present agencies at work for his advancement, like industrial and the higher education and the acquisition of property, and organized agitation in the North for his rights can do little to rescue him from the deep pit into which American race prejudice has pushed and penned him. The colored American child has a poorer chance to rise in the scale of being to-day than had the colored American child of a generation ago. He has a poorer chance in the South in spite of his increased educational opportunities and accomplishments, and he has a poorer chance in the North. For as the condition of the race grows worse and its citizens.h.i.+p deteriorates politically and civilly in the South, it will communicate to that part of it resident in the North something of its own sad lot, legal and industrial limitations and contracting prospects and opportunities. This is the inevitable fate of a ballotless race or cla.s.s in an industrial democracy like ours. Such is the fate which awaits the American Negro unless he can manage to get the right to vote in the South. And this fate he can not escape so long as he remains a ballotless man--with no weapon of defense against the white man's race prejudice, which is regnant in his home and church and government and press and mills and shops and trades and schools. It is as impossible for the Negro to escape from his blind alley without the ballot as it is for some foolish fly, imprisoned on a window pane, to find its way to freedom through it. There is no escape for the fly until its restless activities discover the right direction, and, to change the figure, there is none for the Negro out of his slough of despond until he can lay hold of the ballot. Wanting the ballot no amount of education and wealth in the South and of agitation in the North will of themselves be able to make Southern Governments responsive to the needs and the rights of the Negro as laborer and citizen. But until they are made to respond to his claim for social justice and civil rights he will continue in the future as he is to-day the helpless victim of the peonage and convict lease systems, of the plantation lease and credit systems, of contract labor and ”Jim Crow” laws, of lynching and the inequitable distribution of the public school funds between the races. I can not repeat too often that such monstrous depression of a part of Southern labor is not less bad for the whites than it is for the blacks. Nothing else can possibly come of it in the future than has come of it in the past but evil to the South, arrested development and a backward civilization. For the whites cannot advance in law and order, in private and public morals, in wealth and in industrial intelligence and efficiency with the speed commensurate with their social and sectional opportunity if they persist in wasting so much of their individual and collective energies in keeping the Negro down at the bottom of their social and political fabric without regard to his merits and abilities.

Low water mark has been reached in the ebb tide of Negro citizens.h.i.+p in the South. Once upon a time, the race was represented in Congress, but today the tribe of the Negro Congressmen is extinct and has long been extinct. A few years ago it had its representatives on the Republican National Committee, but today the tribe of the Negro National Committeemen is extinct. The year 1912 may be memorable among other things for witnessing the last appearance as a power in Republican National Conventions of the Southern Negro delegate. The place which once knew him in those quadrennial gatherings of the Warwicks of the party will soon know him there no more forever. For,

”The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And G.o.d fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.”

Although the situation is depressing, it is far from hopeless, I think, since the rise of the new Progressive party. For that party will be able to do in the South what the Republican Party has proved itself incapable of doing, namely, of attracting to itself Southern white men in sufficient numbers to make of it a formidable party of opposition in Southern affairs. It will not encounter the ancient distrust, the inveterate hatred and contempt which the Republican Party arouses in those states, and which have paralyzed its usefulness and reduced it as a party of opposition to the zero point in Southern politics.

It is a notorious fact that the Southern whites as a cla.s.s will not affiliate with any political organization on terms of equality with the blacks--that is, they may be educated to accept the Negro as a voter but nothing can induce them to accept him as a leader. White and black party following with white leaders.h.i.+p is therefore the only feasible proposition, which stands any show of success as a party of opposition in that section under existing conditions. Such a proposition, the Republican Party is incapable of making for reasons already pointed out, and the Democratic Party for other and obvious reasons is precluded from offering.

And yet if relief is ever to come to the Negro in the South, it must come to him by the way of an opposition party, which will put an end to the political solidity of that section by introducing into it bi-party in place of its one-party governments.

This, I take it, is the meaning of Colonel Roosevelt's action at Chicago last August relative to the representation of Southern colored men in the Bull Moose Convention, which launched the Progressive Party, and for which he was widely commended and as widely censured by white and colored people alike in all parts of the country. Some of the white people who commended his action did so undoubtedly in the belief that the leader of the new party gave thereby his approval to the Southern solution of the race problem. This group is made up, speaking generally, of Southern Bourbons and Northern Doughfaces. Their interpretation of the ex-President's action is a total misapprehension of his far seeing and statesmanlike purpose, and of the tremendous consequences for good which it holds for both races at the South, and for the people of the whole nation likewise--tremendous consequences for good which are as surely enfolded within the great man's purpose as the fertilizing principle is contained within the egg.

Many of those on the other hand, who censured him did so because, obsessed by their hate or dread of him, they failed to eliminate their imaginary tyrant or dictator, their fixed idea of the man from consideration of the immense value and far-seeing statesmans.h.i.+p of his act. To such men it was but another example of the brutal and colossal selfishness of the Third-Term Candidate. For did he not welcome to his Convention colored men as delegates from states where the colored vote counts, and reject certain other colored men as delegates from states where the colored vote does not count? Now this view of Colonel Roosevelt's action seems to me to miss the mark quite as widely as did that of our Southern Bourbons and Northern Doughfaces.

That the founder of the new political party, as a practical man, should discriminate between colored men with a vote and colored men without a vote seems to me to be altogether natural, to grow, in fact, out of the necessities of every Democracy which is governed first by one party and then by another. That colored men with the ballot should be rated in terms of the political game higher than other colored men who have it not, violates no rule of business ethics. And politics is business, is the big business is it not, or ought it not to be the big business of all self governing peoples, who would maintain justice and freedom for themselves and transmit them unimpaired to their posterity? Colonel Roosevelt, as the leader of the new party, recognized at his full political value the Negro in states where his vote is counted, and perceived the very slight value, potential and actual, as a party a.s.set of the Negro in states where his vote is not counted. He and the Progressive Party have not engaged in the big business of American politics for their health or amus.e.m.e.nt, but for the purpose of carrying forward to success great and far reaching measures of reform, which exclude from their benefits no race or cla.s.s on account of color or s.e.x but includes all American citizens, black and white alike.

But to do this, to realize on their party promises and pledges to the people, they must have votes, not mere good will which can not translate itself into effective support on election day.

But the ex-President's action at Chicago goes deeper than this primal need of his party for votes. It reaches down to the springs of fundamental social and political changes at the South in relation to its race question, and sets in motion the healing waters of its pool of Bethesda, which will in time heal it of its sickness and cleanse it of its sins against law, justice and democracy. I do not mean to belittle in any way other agencies now at work on the solution of our terrible race problem, such as education or wealth or agitation. Not at all, for they are most important, but without the ballot they are impotent to give the relief so much needed in the South. There must be added to them this something else, this one thing needful to render them effective to save the blacks from the evil consequences of their race ignorance, and the whites from the evil consequences of their race prejudice. And this one thing needful, I believe, the Progressive Party brings to the solution of the problem, and that it formed the underlying motive and the statesmanlike purpose of the action at Chicago last August of Theodore Roosevelt.

ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKE, 1415 CORCORAN STREET N. W., WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D. C.

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