Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/141

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THE NEGRO
123

What I have quoted above demonstrates this fact. That is not altogether a bad thing, for to rid ourselves of what is criminal, we must first recognize beyond peradventure the source of the crime. With respect to the negro, this has been done. Again, to rid ourselves of disease and unsanitary conditions, we must first recognize the disease and the class of people who are giving rise to it, and whether it be curable or incurable. With respect to the negro, this has been done. Finally, to sustain a high standard of morals and refined ethics, we must rid ourselves of the source of the immorality, of the cause of our retrogradation in good conduct. With respect to the negro, this evidently remains for us to do. Suppression has never been known to eliminate or eradicate vice, or crime, therefore, we must, for the sake of mankind, resort to other means.

We have through our experience, the safest of all teachers, come to know thoroughly the mental density of the negro; his ignorance and superstition; his mendacity; his innate predisposition for every class of crime in the calendar; his bestiality and animal sensuality, and his savage and cannibalistic history,— a diagnosis has been made, every educated physician appreciates what is next to be done in the case. In the next following chapter this diagnosis will be discussed, and something will be said of the treatment that has thus far been instituted, and more about the latter will be said in my final chapter.