Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/196

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174
THE NEGRO

problem will become national instead of local, a burden to be borne by all of the citizens instead of by a few. Census statistics show as great or even a greater percentage of mulatto births in Northern states than in Southern. All history appears to prove that every slave-holding nation has finally absorbed its slaves by mixing the blood of master and slave. Such a solution is only to be thought of in horror by him who reveres the morality of his ancestors and prizes above earthly possessions the unblemished caste distinction of a thousand years of Europe's best culture. Even in the absence of ethical caste instinct, it would be op- posing stirpiculture to advocate the absorption of eight millions of an inferior race by fifty millions of a superior people. What other solution except segregation can be seen by those who look into the future? The present observer counts nearly as many negroes carrying a percentage of white blood as pure African. When this crossing shall have progressed to show white-skinned, cross-bred people, with the absence of caste distinctions, who may then know the pedigree of his guests, his social acquaintances, or even his own future grandchildren? "Of several measures I already see at work, all palliative, only one radical cure has been pointed out. It is the removal of the negroes to a negro territory. Not as the Creek and Cherokee Indians of Georgia were removed by force and en masse, but slowly, gently, and for the benefit of the dissatisfied negroes as well as for the betterment of the whites. Public opinion may now be against this desideratum, as it originally was against the abolition of the institution of slavery. It is a move that should win the support of every altruist,