Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/143

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THE NEGRO
125

quadrupedal animals, in this respect. Nor should we expect anything different from this; civilization and progressive civilization are altogether meaningless to them, consequently posterity has practically no interest for them. They live in the present, and being essentially without morals, and, as a rule, being equipped far above the average man for sensual indulgences, he gives that side of his nature full sway, when no restrictions of any kind whatever are present to hinder.

Thomas says, in his above-quoted work: "He [the negro] is regarded as a creature of lascivious habits, personal vanity, mental density, and physical laziness. All who know the negro recognize, however, that the chief and overpowering element in his make-up is an imperious sexual impulse, which, aroused at the slightest incentive, sweeps aside all restraints in the pursuit of physical gratification. We may say now that this element of negro character constitutes the main incitement to the degeneracy of the race, and is the chief hindrance to its social uplifting" (pp. 176, 177). My study and questioning the average negro as he exists in the United States has convinced me that he is so bestial by nature that he holds in no regard whatever such virtue as may be present in the mothers, daughters, wives or sisters among them. They revel in lewd conversation, in erotic practices, and in unlimited sensual pursuits. Especially do they delight in encouraging the approaches of the whites among the women of their kind.

Upon the other hand, negresses, although not altogether given to making advances of this character, readily accept the sensuous embraces of white men,