Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/26

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But these will be mentioned merely for illustration, since the purpose here is to discuss only those distinctions which have been expressed in constitutions, statutes, and judicial decisions. Mr. Ray Stannard Baker in his "Following the Colour Line,"[1] has admirably depicted actual race relations in the United States. He has gone in person out upon the cotton plantations of the Lower South; into the Negro districts of cities in the South, East, and North; into schools, churches, and court rooms; and has described how the Negro lives, what he does, what he thinks about himself and about the white man, and what the white man thinks about him. By studying the race distinctions he describes from the other standpoint suggested—that is, by tracing their gradual crystallization into statutes and judicial decisions, a better understanding may be had of race distinctions in general.


ALL RACE ELEMENTS INCLUDED

Attention will be directed not only to the Negro but to other races in the United States—the Mongolian in the Far West and the Indian in the Southwest. Of course, by far the largest race element after the Caucasian is the Negro with its 8,833,994 people of whom eighty-four and seven-tenths per cent. are in the thirteen States of the South. But it will be found that in those sections where the Indians have existed or still exist in appreciable numbers and come into association with the Caucasian—that is, where they do not still maintain their tribal relations—race distinctions have separated these two races. This is equally true of the Japanese and Chinese in the Pacific