Part 23 (2/2)
The race problem of America is not at all simple. It is more than a problem of immigration. The problem of the European immigrant is one part of it. There is also the problem of the relation of the American people to the yellow races at our back door, and the problem of the negro, who is here through no fault of his own, but who, because he is here, must be brought into friendly and helpful relation with the rest of the nation.
345. =The Problem of the European Immigrant.=--The problem of the European immigrant is one of a.s.similation. It is difficult because the alien comes in such large numbers, brings with him a different race heritage, and settles usually among his own people, where American influence reaches him only at second hand. Environment may be expected to change him gradually, the education of his children will modify the coming generation, but it will be a slow task to make him over into an American in ideals and modes of thinking, as well as in industrial efficiency, and in the process the native American is likely to suffer loss in the contact, with a net lowering of standards in the life of the American people. To see the danger is not to despair of escaping it. To understand the danger is the first step in providing a safeguard, and to this end exact knowledge of the situation should be a part of the teaching of the schools. To seek a solution of the problem is the second step. The main agency is education, but this does not mean entirely education in the schools. Education through social contact is the princ.i.p.al means of a.s.similating the adult; for this purpose it is desirable that some means be found for the better distribution of the immigrant, and as immigration is a national problem, it is proper for the national government to attack that particular phase of it. Then it belongs to voluntary agencies, like settlements, churches, and philanthropic and educational societies to give instruction in the essentials of language, civics, industrial training, and character building. For the children the school provides such education, but voluntary agencies may well supplement its secular training with more definite and thorough instruction in morals and religion. It cannot be expected that the immigrant problem will settle itself; at least, a purposeful policy wisely and persistently carried out will accomplish far better and quicker results. Nor is it an insoluble problem; it is not even necessary that we should severely check immigration. But there is need of intelligent and co-operative action to distribute, educate, and find a suitable place for the immigrant, that he may make good, and to devise a restrictive policy that will effectually debar the most undesirable, and will hold back the vast stream of recent years until those already here have been taken care of.
346. =The Problem of the Asiatic Immigrant.=--The problem of the Asiatic immigrant is quite different. It is a problem of race conflict rather than of race a.s.similation. The student of human society cannot minimize the importance of race heredity. In the case of the European it holds a subordinate place, because the difference between his heritage and that of the American is comparatively slight. But the Asiatic belongs to a different race, and the century-long training of an entirely different environment makes it improbable that the Asiatic and the American can ever a.s.similate. Each can learn from the other and co-operate to mutual advantage, but race amalgamation, or even a fusion of customs of thought and social ideals is altogether unlikely.
It is therefore not to the advantage of either American or Asiatic that much Asiatic immigration into the United States should take place. To agree to this is not to be hostile to or scornful of the yellow man. The higher cla.s.ses are fully as intelligent and capable of as much energy and achievement as the American, but the vast ma.s.s of those who would come here if immigration were unrestricted are undesirable, because of their low industrial and moral standards, their tenacity of old habits, and with all the rest because of their immense numbers, that would overrun all the western part of the United States. When the Chinese Exclusion Act pa.s.sed Congress in 1882, the Chinese alone were coming at the rate of nearly forty thousand a year, and that number might have been increased tenfold by this time, to say nothing of j.a.panese and Hindoos. While, therefore, the United States must treat Asiatics with consideration and live up to its treaty obligations, it seems the wise policy to refuse to admit the Asiatic ma.s.ses to American residence.
A part of the Asiatic problem, however, is the political relation of the United States and the Asiatic Powers, especially in the Pacific.
This is less intimately vital, but is important in view of the rapidly growing tendency of both China and j.a.pan to expand in trade and political ambitions. This is a problem of political rather than social science, but since the welfare of both races is concerned, and of other peoples of the Pacific Islands, it needs the intelligent consideration of all students. It is desirable to understand one another, to treat one another fairly and generously, and to find means, if possible, of co-operation rather than conflict, where the interests of one impinge upon another. All mediating influences, like Christian missions, are to be welcomed as helping to extend mutual understanding and to soften race prejudices and animosities.
347. =The Negro Problem.=--Not a few persons look upon the negro problem as the most serious social question in America. Whatever its relative merits, as compared with other problems, it is sufficiently serious to call for careful study and an attempt at solution. The negro race in America numbers approximately ten millions, twice as many as at the close of the Civil War. The negro was thrust upon America by the cupidity of the foreign slave-trader, and perpetuated by the difficulty of getting along without him. His presence has been in some ways beneficial to himself and to the whites among whom he settled, but it has been impossible for two races so diverse to live on a plane of equality, and the burden of education upon the South has been so heavy and the race qualities of the negro so discouraging, that progress in the solution of the negro problem has been slow.
The problem of the colored race is not one of a.s.similation or of conflict. In spite of an admixture of blood that affects possibly a third of the American negroes, there never will be race fusion.
a.s.similation of culture was partly accomplished in slave days, and it will go on. There is no serious conflict between white and colored, when once the question of a.s.similation is understood. The problem is one of race adjustment. Fifty years have been insufficient to perfect the relations between the two races, but since they must live together, it is desirable that they should come to understand and sympathize with each other, and as far as possible co-operate for mutual advancement. The problem is a national one, because the man of color is not confined to the South, and even more because the South alone is unable to deal adequately with the situation. The negro greatly needs efficient social education. He tends to be dirty, lazy, and improvident, as is to be expected, when left to himself. Like all countrymen--a large proportion live in the country--he is backward in ways of thinking and methods of working. He is primitive in his pa.s.sions and much given to emotion. He shows the traits of a people not far removed from savagery. It is remarkable that his white master was able to civilize him as much as he did, and it is not strange that there has been many a relapse under conditions of unprepared freedom, but it is only the more reason why negro character should be raised higher on the foundation already laid.
The task is not very different from that which is presented by the slum population of the cities of the North. The children need to be taught how to live, and then given a chance to practise the instruction in a decent environment. They need manual and industrial training fitted to their industrial environment, and every opportunity to employ their knowledge in earning a living. They need n.o.ble ideals, and these they can get only by the sympathetic, wise teaching of their superiors, whether white or black. They and their friends need patience in the upward struggle, for it will not be easy to socialize and civilize ten million persons in a decade or a century. Such inst.i.tutions as Hampton and Tuskegee are working on a correct basis in emphasizing industrial training; these schools very properly are supplemented by the right kind of elementary schools, on the one hand, and by cultural inst.i.tutions of high grade on the other, for the negro is a human being, and his nature must be cultivated on all sides, as much as if he were white.
348. =The Race Problem a Part of One Great Social Problem.=--The race problem as a whole is not peculiar to America, but is intensified here by the large mixture of all races that is taking place. It is inevitable, as the world's population s.h.i.+fts in meeting the social forces of the present age. It is complicated by race inequalities and race ambitions. It is fundamentally a problem of adjustment between races that possess a considerable measure of civilization and those that are not far removed from barbarism. It is discouraging at times, because the supposedly cultured peoples revert under stress of war or compet.i.tion or self-indulgence to the crudities of primitive barbarism, but it is a soluble problem, nevertheless. The privileged peoples need a solemn sense of the responsibility of the ”white man's burden,” which is not to cultivate the weaker man for the sake of economic exploitation, but to improve him for the weaker man's own sake, and for the sake of the world's civilization. The policy of any nation like the United States must be affected, of course, by its own interests, but the European, the Asiatic, the negro, and every race or people with which the American comes in contact ought to be regarded as a member of a world society in which the interlocking of relations.h.i.+ps is so complete that the injury of one is the injury of all, and that which is done to aid the least will react to the benefit of him who already has more.
READING REFERENCES
DEALEY: _Development of the State_, pages 300-314.
USHER: _Rise of the American People_, pages 392-404.
MECKLIN: _Democracy and Race Friction_, pages 77-122.
COMMONS: _Races and Immigrants in America_, pages 17-21, 198-238.
COOLIDGE: _Chinese Immigration_, pages 423-458, 486-496.
GULICK: _The American j.a.panese Problem_, pages 3-27, 90-196, 281-307.
CHAPTER XLIV
INTERNATIONALISM
349. =The New World Life.=--The social life that started in the family has broadened until it has circled the globe. It is possible now to speak in terms of world life. The interests of society have reached out from country to country, and from zone to zone, just as a child's interests as he grows to manhood expand from the home to the community and from the community to the nation.
The idea of the social solidarity of all peoples is still new. Ever since the original divergence of population from its home nest, when groups became strange and hostile to one another because of mountain and forest barriers, changing languages, and occasionally clas.h.i.+ng interests, the tendency of the peoples was to grow apart. But for a century past the tendency has been changing from divergence to convergence, from ignorance and distrust of one another to understanding, sympathy, and good-will, from independence and ruthlessness to interdependence and co-operation. Numerous agencies have brought this about--some physical like steam and electricity, some economic like commerce and finance, some social like travel and the interchange of ideas through the press, some moral and religious like missions and international organizations for peace. The history of a hundred years has made it plain that nations cannot live in isolation any more than individuals can, and that the tendency toward social solidarity must be the permanent tendency if society is to exist and prosper, even though civilization and peace may be temporarily set back for a generation by war.
350. =The Principle of Adaptation vs. Conflict.=--This New World life is not unnatural, though it has been slow in coming. A human being is influenced by his physical needs and desires, his cultivated habits, his acc.u.mulated interests, the customs of the people to whom he belongs, and the conditions of the environment in which he finds himself. While a savage his needs, desires, and interests are few, his habits are fixed, his relations are simple and local; but when he begins to take on civilization his needs multiply, his habits change, and his relations extend more widely. The more enlightened he becomes the greater the number of his interests and the more points of contact with other people. So with every human group. The process of social development for a time may intensify conflict, but there comes a time when it is made clear to the dullest mind that conflict must give way to mutual adaptation. No one group, not even a supernation, can have everything for itself, and for the sake of the world's comfort and peace it will be a decided social gain when that principle receives universal recognition. World federations and peace propaganda cannot be effective until that principle is accepted as a working basis for world life.
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