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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/15210-8.txt b/15210-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c6f3fab --- /dev/null +++ b/15210-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7820 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Darkwater, by W. E. B. Du Bois + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Darkwater + Voices From Within The Veil + +Author: W. E. B. Du Bois + +Release Date: February 28, 2005 [EBook #15210] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DARKWATER *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Audrey Longhurst, and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +DARKWATER + +Voices from within the Veil + +W.E.B. DU BOIS + + + + +Originally published in 1920 by Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York. + + + + +AD NINAM + +May 12, 1896 + + + + +POSTSCRIPT + + +These are the things of which men think, who live: of their own selves +and the dwelling place of their fathers; of their neighbors; of work and +service; of rule and reason and women and children; of Beauty and Death +and War. To this thinking I have only to add a point of view: I have +been in the world, but not of it. I have seen the human drama from a +veiled corner, where all the outer tragedy and comedy have reproduced +themselves in microcosm within. From this inner torment of souls the +human scene without has interpreted itself to me in unusual and even +illuminating ways. For this reason, and this alone, I venture to write +again on themes on which great souls have already said greater words, in +the hope that I may strike here and there a half-tone, newer even if +slighter, up from the heart of my problem and the problems of my people. + +Between the sterner flights of logic, I have sought to set some little +alightings of what may be poetry. They are tributes to Beauty, unworthy +to stand alone; yet perversely, in my mind, now at the end, I know not +whether I mean the Thought for the Fancy--or the Fancy for the Thought, +or why the book trails off to playing, rather than standing strong on +unanswering fact. But this is alway--is it not?--the Riddle of Life. + +Many of my words appear here transformed from other publications and I +thank the _Atlantic_, the _Independent_, the _Crisis_, and the _Journal +of Race Development_ for letting me use them again. + +W.E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS. +New York, 1919. + + + + +Contents + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + POSTSCRIPT ix + _Credo_ 1 + +I. THE SHADOW OF YEARS 3 + _A Litany at Atlanta_ 14 + +II. THE SOULS OF WHITE FOLK 17 + _The Riddle of the Sphinx_ 30 + +III. THE HANDS OF ETHIOPIA 32 + _The Princess of the Hither Isles_ 43 + +IV. OF WORK AND WEALTH 47 + _The Second Coming_ 60 + +V. "THE SERVANT IN THE HOUSE" 63 + _Jesus Christ in Texas_ 70 + +VI. OF THE RULING OF MEN 78 + _The Call_ 93 + +VII. THE DAMNATION OF WOMEN 95 + _Children of the Moon_ 109 + +VIII. THE IMMORTAL CHILD 114 + _Almighty Death_ 128 + +IX. OF BEAUTY AND DEATH 130 + _The Prayers of God_ 145 + +X. THE COMET 149 + _A Hymn to the Peoples_ 161 + + + + + + + + +_Credo_ + + +I believe in God, who made of one blood all nations that on earth do +dwell. I believe that all men, black and brown and white, are brothers, +varying through time and opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but +differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and the +possibility of infinite development. + +Especially do I believe in the Negro Race: in the beauty of its genius, +the sweetness of its soul, and its strength in that meekness which shall +yet inherit this turbulent earth. + +I believe in Pride of race and lineage and self: in pride of self so +deep as to scorn injustice to other selves; in pride of lineage so great +as to despise no man's father; in pride of race so chivalrous as neither +to offer bastardy to the weak nor beg wedlock of the strong, knowing +that men may be brothers in Christ, even though they be not +brothers-in-law. + +I believe in Service--humble, reverent service, from the blackening of +boots to the whitening of souls; for Work is Heaven, Idleness Hell, and +Wage is the "Well done!" of the Master, who summoned all them that labor +and are heavy laden, making no distinction between the black, sweating +cotton hands of Georgia and the first families of Virginia, since all +distinction not based on deed is devilish and not divine. + +I believe in the Devil and his angels, who wantonly work to narrow the +opportunity of struggling human beings, especially if they be black; who +spit in the faces of the fallen, strike them that cannot strike again, +believe the worst and work to prove it, hating the image which their +Maker stamped on a brother's soul. + +I believe in the Prince of Peace. I believe that War is Murder. I +believe that armies and navies are at bottom the tinsel and braggadocio +of oppression and wrong, and I believe that the wicked conquest of +weaker and darker nations by nations whiter and stronger but foreshadows +the death of that strength. + +I believe in Liberty for all men: the space to stretch their arms and +their souls, the right to breathe and the right to vote, the freedom to +choose their friends, enjoy the sunshine, and ride on the railroads, +uncursed by color; thinking, dreaming, working as they will in a kingdom +of beauty and love. + +I believe in the Training of Children, black even as white; the leading +out of little souls into the green pastures and beside the still waters, +not for pelf or peace, but for life lit by some large vision of beauty +and goodness and truth; lest we forget, and the sons of the fathers, +like Esau, for mere meat barter their birthright in a mighty nation. + +Finally, I believe in Patience--patience with the weakness of the Weak +and the strength of the Strong, the prejudice of the Ignorant and the +ignorance of the Blind; patience with the tardy triumph of Joy and the +mad chastening of Sorrow. + + + + +I + +THE SHADOW OF YEARS + + +I was born by a golden river and in the shadow of two great hills, five +years after the Emancipation Proclamation. The house was quaint, with +clapboards running up and down, neatly trimmed, and there were five +rooms, a tiny porch, a rosy front yard, and unbelievably delicious +strawberries in the rear. A South Carolinian, lately come to the +Berkshire Hills, owned all this--tall, thin, and black, with golden +earrings, and given to religious trances. We were his transient tenants +for the time. + +My own people were part of a great clan. Fully two hundred years before, +Tom Burghardt had come through the western pass from the Hudson with his +Dutch captor, "Coenraet Burghardt," sullen in his slavery and achieving +his freedom by volunteering for the Revolution at a time of sudden +alarm. His wife was a little, black, Bantu woman, who never became +reconciled to this strange land; she clasped her knees and rocked and +crooned: + + "Do bana coba--gene me, gene me! + Ben d'nuli, ben d'le--" + +Tom died about 1787, but of him came many sons, and one, Jack, who +helped in the War of 1812. Of Jack and his wife, Violet, was born a +mighty family, splendidly named: Harlow and Ira, Cloë, Lucinda, Maria, +and Othello! I dimly remember my grandfather, Othello,--or "Uncle +Tallow,"--a brown man, strong-voiced and redolent with tobacco, who sat +stiffly in a great high chair because his hip was broken. He was +probably a bit lazy and given to wassail. At any rate, grandmother had a +shrewish tongue and often berated him. This grandmother was Sarah--"Aunt +Sally"--a stern, tall, Dutch-African woman, beak-nosed, but +beautiful-eyed and golden-skinned. Ten or more children were theirs, of +whom the youngest was Mary, my mother. + +Mother was dark shining bronze, with a tiny ripple in her black hair, +black-eyed, with a heavy, kind face. She gave one the impression of +infinite patience, but a curious determination was concealed in her +softness. The family were small farmers on Egremont Plain, between Great +Barrington and Sheffield, Massachusetts. The bits of land were too small +to support the great families born on them and we were always poor. I +never remember being cold or hungry, but I do remember that shoes and +coal, and sometimes flour, caused mother moments of anxious thought in +winter, and a new suit was an event! + +At about the time of my birth economic pressure was transmuting the +family generally from farmers to "hired" help. Some revolted and +migrated westward, others went cityward as cooks and barbers. Mother +worked for some years at house service in Great Barrington, and after a +disappointed love episode with a cousin, who went to California, she met +and married Alfred Du Bois and went to town to live by the golden river +where I was born. + +Alfred, my father, must have seemed a splendid vision in that little +valley under the shelter of those mighty hills. He was small and +beautiful of face and feature, just tinted with the sun, his curly hair +chiefly revealing his kinship to Africa. In nature he was a +dreamer,--romantic, indolent, kind, unreliable. He had in him the making +of a poet, an adventurer, or a Beloved Vagabond, according to the life +that closed round him; and that life gave him all too little. His +father, Alexander Du Bois, cloaked under a stern, austere demeanor a +passionate revolt against the world. He, too, was small, but squarish. I +remember him as I saw him first, in his home in New Bedford,--white hair +close-cropped; a seamed, hard face, but high in tone, with a gray eye +that could twinkle or glare. + +Long years before him Louis XIV drove two Huguenots, Jacques and Louis +Du Bois, into wild Ulster County, New York. One of them in the third or +fourth generation had a descendant, Dr. James Du Bois, a gay, rich +bachelor, who made his money in the Bahamas, where he and the Gilberts +had plantations. There he took a beautiful little mulatto slave as his +mistress, and two sons were born: Alexander in 1803 and John, later. +They were fine, straight, clear-eyed boys, white enough to "pass." He +brought them to America and put Alexander in the celebrated Cheshire +School, in Connecticut. Here he often visited him, but one last time, +fell dead. He left no will, and his relations made short shrift of these +sons. They gathered in the property, apprenticed grandfather to a +shoemaker; then dropped him. + +Grandfather took his bitter dose like a thoroughbred. Wild as was his +inner revolt against this treatment, he uttered no word against the +thieves and made no plea. He tried his fortunes here and in Haiti, +where, during his short, restless sojourn, my own father was born. +Eventually, grandfather became chief steward on the passenger boat +between New York and New Haven; later he was a small merchant in +Springfield; and finally he retired and ended his days at New Bedford. +Always he held his head high, took no insults, made few friends. He was +not a "Negro"; he was a man! Yet the current was too strong even for +him. Then even more than now a colored man had colored friends or none +at all, lived in a colored world or lived alone. A few fine, strong, +black men gained the heart of this silent, bitter man in New York and +New Haven. If he had scant sympathy with their social clannishness, he +was with them in fighting discrimination. So, when the white +Episcopalians of Trinity Parish, New Haven, showed plainly that they no +longer wanted black Folks as fellow Christians, he led the revolt which +resulted in St. Luke's Parish, and was for years its senior warden. He +lies dead in the Grove Street Cemetery, beside Jehudi Ashmun. + +Beneath his sternness was a very human man. Slyly he wrote +poetry,--stilted, pleading things from a soul astray. He loved women in +his masterful way, marrying three beautiful wives in succession and +clinging to each with a certain desperate, even if unsympathetic, +affection. As a father he was, naturally, a failure,--hard, domineering, +unyielding. His four children reacted characteristically: one was until +past middle life a thin spinster, the mental image of her father; one +died; one passed over into the white world and her children's children +are now white, with no knowledge of their Negro blood; the fourth, my +father, bent before grandfather, but did not break--better if he had. He +yielded and flared back, asked forgiveness and forgot why, became the +harshly-held favorite, who ran away and rioted and roamed and loved and +married my brown mother. + +So with some circumstance having finally gotten myself born, with a +flood of Negro blood, a strain of French, a bit of Dutch, but, thank +God! no "Anglo-Saxon," I come to the days of my childhood. + +They were very happy. Early we moved back to Grandfather Burghardt's +home,--I barely remember its stone fireplace, big kitchen, and +delightful woodshed. Then this house passed to other branches of the +clan and we moved to rented quarters in town,--to one delectable place +"upstairs," with a wide yard full of shrubbery, and a brook; to another +house abutting a railroad, with infinite interests and astonishing +playmates; and finally back to the quiet street on which I was +born,--down a long lane and in a homely, cozy cottage, with a +living-room, a tiny sitting-room, a pantry, and two attic bedrooms. Here +mother and I lived until she died, in 1884, for father early began his +restless wanderings. I last remember urgent letters for us to come to +New Milford, where he had started a barber shop. Later he became a +preacher. But mother no longer trusted his dreams, and he soon faded out +of our lives into silence. + +From the age of five until I was sixteen I went to a school on the same +grounds,--down a lane, into a widened yard, with a big choke-cherry tree +and two buildings, wood and brick. Here I got acquainted with my world, +and soon had my criterions of judgment. + +Wealth had no particular lure. On the other hand, the shadow of wealth +was about us. That river of my birth was golden because of the woolen +and paper waste that soiled it. The gold was theirs, not ours; but the +gleam and glint was for all. To me it was all in order and I took it +philosophically. I cordially despised the poor Irish and South Germans, +who slaved in the mills, and annexed the rich and well-to-do as my +natural companions. Of such is the kingdom of snobs! + +Most of our townfolk were, naturally, the well-to-do, shading downward, +but seldom reaching poverty. As playmate of the children I saw the homes +of nearly every one, except a few immigrant New Yorkers, of whom none of +us approved. The homes I saw impressed me, but did not overwhelm me. +Many were bigger than mine, with newer and shinier things, but they did +not seem to differ in kind. I think I probably surprised my hosts more +than they me, for I was easily at home and perfectly happy and they +looked to me just like ordinary people, while my brown face and frizzled +hair must have seemed strange to them. + +Yet I was very much one of them. I was a center and sometimes the leader +of the town gang of boys. We were noisy, but never very bad,--and, +indeed, my mother's quiet influence came in here, as I realize now. She +did not try to make me perfect. To her I was already perfect. She simply +warned me of a few things, especially saloons. In my town the saloon was +the open door to hell. The best families had their drunkards and the +worst had little else. + +Very gradually,--I cannot now distinguish the steps, though here and +there I remember a jump or a jolt--but very gradually I found myself +assuming quite placidly that I was different from other children. At +first I think I connected the difference with a manifest ability to get +my lessons rather better than most and to recite with a certain happy, +almost taunting, glibness, which brought frowns here and there. Then, +slowly, I realized that some folks, a few, even several, actually +considered my brown skin a misfortune; once or twice I became painfully +aware that some human beings even thought it a crime. I was not for a +moment daunted,--although, of course, there were some days of secret +tears--rather I was spurred to tireless effort. If they beat me at +anything, I was grimly determined to make them sweat for it! Once I +remember challenging a great, hard farmer-boy to battle, when I knew he +could whip me; and he did. But ever after, he was polite. + +As time flew I felt not so much disowned and rejected as rather drawn up +into higher spaces and made part of a mightier mission. At times I +almost pitied my pale companions, who were not of the Lord's anointed +and who saw in their dreams no splendid quests of golden fleeces. + +Even in the matter of girls my peculiar phantasy asserted itself. +Naturally, it was in our town voted bad form for boys of twelve and +fourteen to show any evident weakness for girls. We tolerated them +loftily, and now and then they played in our games, when I joined in +quite as naturally as the rest. It was when strangers came, or summer +boarders, or when the oldest girls grew up that my sharp senses noted +little hesitancies in public and searchings for possible public opinion. +Then I flamed! I lifted my chin and strode off to the mountains, where I +viewed the world at my feet and strained my eyes across the shadow of +the hills. + +I was graduated from high school at sixteen, and I talked of "Wendell +Phillips." This was my first sweet taste of the world's applause. There +were flowers and upturned faces, music and marching, and there was my +mother's smile. She was lame, then, and a bit drawn, but very happy. It +was her great day and that very year she lay down with a sigh of content +and has not yet awakened. I felt a certain gladness to see her, at last, +at peace, for she had worried all her life. Of my own loss I had then +little realization. That came only with the after-years. Now it was the +choking gladness and solemn feel of wings! At last, I was going beyond +the hills and into the world that beckoned steadily. + +There came a little pause,--a singular pause. I was given to understand +that I was almost too young for the world. Harvard was the goal of my +dreams, but my white friends hesitated and my colored friends were +silent. Harvard was a mighty conjure-word in that hill town, and even +the mill owners' sons had aimed lower. Finally it was tactfully +explained that the place for me was in the South among my people. A +scholarship had been already arranged at Fisk, and my summer earnings +would pay the fare. My relatives grumbled, but after a twinge I felt a +strange delight! I forgot, or did not thoroughly realize, the curious +irony by which I was not looked upon as a real citizen of my birth-town, +with a future and a career, and instead was being sent to a far land +among strangers who were regarded as (and in truth were) "mine own +people." + +Ah! the wonder of that journey, with its faint spice of adventure, as I +entered the land of slaves; the never-to-be-forgotten marvel of that +first supper at Fisk with the world "colored" and opposite two of the +most beautiful beings God ever revealed to the eyes of seventeen. I +promptly lost my appetite, but I was deliriously happy! + +As I peer back through the shadow of my years, seeing not too clearly, +but through the thickening veil of wish and after-thought, I seem to +view my life divided into four distinct parts: the Age of Miracles, the +Days of Disillusion, the Discipline of Work and Play, and the Second +Miracle Age. + +The Age of Miracles began with Fisk and ended with Germany. I was +bursting with the joy of living. I seemed to ride in conquering might. I +was captain of my soul and master of fate! I _willed_ to do! It was +done. I _wished!_ The wish came true. + +Now and then out of the void flashed the great sword of hate to remind +me of the battle. I remember once, in Nashville, brushing by accident +against a white woman on the street. Politely and eagerly I raised my +hat to apologize. That was thirty-five years ago. From that day to this +I have never knowingly raised my hat to a Southern white woman. + +I suspect that beneath all of my seeming triumphs there were many +failures and disappointments, but the realities loomed so large that +they swept away even the memory of other dreams and wishes. Consider, +for a moment, how miraculous it all was to a boy of seventeen, just +escaped from a narrow valley: I willed and lo! my people came dancing +about me,--riotous in color, gay in laughter, full of sympathy, need, +and pleading; darkly delicious girls--"colored" girls--sat beside me and +actually talked to me while I gazed in tongue-tied silence or babbled in +boastful dreams. Boys with my own experiences and out of my own world, +who knew and understood, wrought out with me great remedies. I studied +eagerly under teachers who bent in subtle sympathy, feeling themselves +some shadow of the Veil and lifting it gently that we darker souls might +peer through to other worlds. + +I willed and lo! I was walking beneath the elms of Harvard,--the name of +allurement, the college of my youngest, wildest visions! I needed money; +scholarships and prizes fell into my lap,--not all I wanted or strove +for, but all I needed to keep in school. Commencement came and standing +before governor, president, and grave, gowned men, I told them certain +astonishing truths, waving my arms and breathing fast! They applauded +with what now seems to me uncalled-for fervor, but then! I walked home +on pink clouds of glory! I asked for a fellowship and got it. I +announced my plan of studying in Germany, but Harvard had no more +fellowships for me. A friend, however, told me of the Slater Fund and +how the Board was looking for colored men worth educating. No thought of +modest hesitation occurred to me. I rushed at the chance. + +The trustees of the Slater Fund excused themselves politely. They +acknowledged that they had in the past looked for colored boys of +ability to educate, but, being unsuccessful, they had stopped searching. +I went at them hammer and tongs! I plied them with testimonials and +mid-year and final marks. I intimated plainly, impudently, that they +were "stalling"! In vain did the chairman, Ex-President Hayes, explain +and excuse. I took no excuses and brushed explanations aside. I wonder +now that he did not brush me aside, too, as a conceited meddler, but +instead he smiled and surrendered. + +I crossed the ocean in a trance. Always I seemed to be saying, "It is +not real; I must be dreaming!" I can live it again--the little, Dutch +ship--the blue waters--the smell of new-mown hay--Holland and the Rhine. +I saw the Wartburg and Berlin; I made the Harzreise and climbed the +Brocken; I saw the Hansa towns and the cities and dorfs of South +Germany; I saw the Alps at Berne, the Cathedral at Milan, Florence, +Rome, Venice, Vienna, and Pesth; I looked on the boundaries of Russia; +and I sat in Paris and London. + +On mountain and valley, in home and school, I met men and women as I had +never met them before. Slowly they became, not white folks, but folks. +The unity beneath all life clutched me. I was not less fanatically a +Negro, but "Negro" meant a greater, broader sense of humanity and +world-fellowship. I felt myself standing, not against the world, but +simply against American narrowness and color prejudice, with the +greater, finer world at my back urging me on. + +I builded great castles in Spain and lived therein. I dreamed and loved +and wandered and sang; then, after two long years, I dropped suddenly +back into "nigger"-hating America! + +My Days of Disillusion were not disappointing enough to discourage me. I +was still upheld by that fund of infinite faith, although dimly about me +I saw the shadow of disaster. I began to realize how much of what I had +called Will and Ability was sheer Luck! _Suppose_ my good mother had +preferred a steady income from my child labor rather than bank on the +precarious dividend of my higher training? _Suppose_ that pompous old +village judge, whose dignity we often ruffled and whose apples we stole, +had had his way and sent me while a child to a "reform" school to learn +a "trade"? _Suppose_ Principal Hosmer had been born with no faith in +"darkies," and instead of giving me Greek and Latin had taught me +carpentry and the making of tin pans? _Suppose_ I had missed a Harvard +scholarship? _Suppose_ the Slater Board had then, as now, distinct ideas +as to where the education of Negroes should stop? Suppose _and_ suppose! +As I sat down calmly on flat earth and looked at my life a certain great +fear seized me. Was I the masterful captain or the pawn of laughing +sprites? Who was I to fight a world of color prejudice? I raise my hat +to myself when I remember that, even with these thoughts, I did not +hesitate or waver; but just went doggedly to work, and therein lay +whatever salvation I have achieved. + +First came the task of earning a living. I was not nice or hard to +please. I just got down on my knees and begged for work, anything and +anywhere. I wrote to Hampton, Tuskegee, and a dozen other places. They +politely declined, with many regrets. The trustees of a backwoods +Tennessee town considered me, but were eventually afraid. Then, +suddenly, Wilberforce offered to let me teach Latin and Greek at $750 a +year. I was overjoyed! + +I did not know anything about Latin and Greek, but I did know of +Wilberforce. The breath of that great name had swept the water and +dropped into southern Ohio, where Southerners had taken their cure at +Tawawa Springs and where white Methodists had planted a school; then +came the little bishop, Daniel Payne, who made it a school of the +African Methodists. This was the school that called me, and when +re-considered offers from Tuskegee and Jefferson City followed, I +refused; I was so thankful for that first offer. + +I went to Wilberforce with high ideals. I wanted to help to build a +great university. I was willing to work night as well as day. I taught +Latin, Greek, English, and German. I helped in the discipline, took part +in the social life, begged to be allowed to lecture on sociology, and +began to write books. But I found myself against a stone wall. Nothing +stirred before my impatient pounding! Or if it stirred, it soon slept +again. + +Of course, I was too impatient! The snarl of years was not to be undone +in days. I set at solving the problem before I knew it. Wilberforce was +a colored church-school. In it were mingled the problems of +poorly-prepared pupils, an inadequately-equipped plant, the natural +politics of bishoprics, and the provincial reactions of a country town +loaded with traditions. It was my first introduction to a Negro world, +and I was at once marvelously inspired and deeply depressed. I was +inspired with the children,--had I not rubbed against the children of +the world and did I not find here the same eagerness, the same joy of +life, the same brains as in New England, France, and Germany? But, on +the other hand, the ropes and myths and knots and hindrances; the +thundering waves of the white world beyond beating us back; the scalding +breakers of this inner world,--its currents and back eddies--its +meanness and smallness--its sorrow and tragedy--its screaming farce! + +In all this I was as one bound hand and foot. Struggle, work, fight as I +would, I seemed to get nowhere and accomplish nothing. I had all the +wild intolerance of youth, and no experience in human tangles. For the +first time in my life I realized that there were limits to my will to +do. The Day of Miracles was past, and a long, gray road of dogged work +lay ahead. + +I had, naturally, my triumphs here and there. I defied the bishops in +the matter of public extemporaneous prayer and they yielded. I bearded +the poor, hunted president in his den, and yet was re-elected to my +position. I was slowly winning a way, but quickly losing faith in the +value of the way won. Was this the place to begin my life work? Was this +the work which I was best fitted to do? What business had I, anyhow, to +teach Greek when I had studied men? I grew sure that I had made a +mistake. So I determined to leave Wilberforce and try elsewhere. Thus, +the third period of my life began. + +First, in 1896, I married--a slip of a girl, beautifully dark-eyed +and thorough and good as a German housewife. Then I accepted a job to +make a study of Negroes in Philadelphia for the University of +Pennsylvania,--one year at six hundred dollars. How did I dare these +two things? I do not know. Yet they spelled salvation. To remain at +Wilberforce without doing my ideals meant spiritual death. Both my +wife and I were homeless. I dared a home and a temporary job. But it +was a different daring from the days of my first youth. I was ready +to admit that the best of men might fail. I meant still to be captain +of my soul, but I realized that even captains are not omnipotent in +uncharted and angry seas. + +I essayed a thorough piece of work in Philadelphia. I labored morning, +noon, and night. Nobody ever reads that fat volume on "The Philadelphia +Negro," but they treat it with respect, and that consoles me. The +colored people of Philadelphia received me with no open arms. They had a +natural dislike to being studied like a strange species. I met again and +in different guise those curious cross-currents and inner social +whirlings of my own people. They set me to groping. I concluded that I +did not know so much as I might about my own people, and when President +Bumstead invited me to Atlanta University the next year to teach +sociology and study the American Negro, I accepted gladly, at a salary +of twelve hundred dollars. + +My real life work was done at Atlanta for thirteen years, from my +twenty-ninth to my forty-second birthday. They were years of great +spiritual upturning, of the making and unmaking of ideals, of hard work +and hard play. Here I found myself. I lost most of my mannerisms. I grew +more broadly human, made my closest and most holy friendships, and +studied human beings. I became widely-acquainted with the real condition +of my people. I realized the terrific odds which faced them. At +Wilberforce I was their captious critic. In Philadelphia I was their +cold and scientific investigator, with microscope and probe. It took but +a few years of Atlanta to bring me to hot and indignant defense. I saw +the race-hatred of the whites as I had never dreamed of it +before,--naked and unashamed! The faint discrimination of my hopes and +intangible dislikes paled into nothing before this great, red monster +of cruel oppression. I held back with more difficulty each day my +mounting indignation against injustice and misrepresentation. + +With all this came the strengthening and hardening of my own character. +The billows of birth, love, and death swept over me. I saw life through +all its paradox and contradiction of streaming eyes and mad merriment. I +emerged into full manhood, with the ruins of some ideals about me, but +with others planted above the stars; scarred and a bit grim, but hugging +to my soul the divine gift of laughter and withal determined, even unto +stubbornness, to fight the good fight. + +At last, forbear and waver as I would, I faced the great Decision. My +life's last and greatest door stood ajar. What with all my dreaming, +studying, and teaching was I going to _do_ in this fierce fight? Despite +all my youthful conceit and bumptiousness, I found developed beneath it +all a reticence and new fear of forwardness, which sprang from searching +criticisms of motive and high ideals of efficiency; but contrary to my +dream of racial solidarity and notwithstanding my deep desire to serve +and follow and think, rather than to lead and inspire and decide, I +found myself suddenly the leader of a great wing of people fighting +against another and greater wing. + +Nor could any effort of mine keep this fight from sinking to the +personal plane. Heaven knows I tried. That first meeting of a knot of +enthusiasts, at Niagara Falls, had all the earnestness of self-devotion. +At the second meeting, at Harper's Ferry, it arose to the solemnity of a +holy crusade and yet without and to the cold, hard stare of the world it +seemed merely the envy of fools against a great man, Booker Washington. + +Of the movement I was willy-nilly leader. I hated the role. For the +first time I faced criticism and _cared_. Every ideal and habit of my +life was cruelly misjudged. I who had always overstriven to give credit +for good work, who had never consciously stooped to envy was accused by +honest colored people of every sort of small and petty jealousy, while +white people said I was ashamed of my race and wanted to be white! And +this of me, whose one life fanaticism had been belief in my Negro blood! + +Away back in the little years of my boyhood I had sold the Springfield +_Republican_ and written for Mr. Fortune's _Globe_. I dreamed of being +an editor myself some day. I am an editor. In the great, slashing days +of college life I dreamed of a strong organization to fight the battles +of the Negro race. The National Association for the Advancement of +Colored People is such a body, and it grows daily. In the dark days at +Wilberforce I planned a time when I could speak freely to my people and +of them, interpreting between two worlds. I am speaking now. In the +study at Atlanta I grew to fear lest my radical beliefs should so hurt +the college that either my silence or the institution's ruin would +result. Powers and principalities have not yet curbed my tongue and +Atlanta still lives. + +It all came--this new Age of Miracles--because a few persons in 1909 +determined to celebrate Lincoln's Birthday properly by calling for the +final emancipation of the American Negro. I came at their call. My +salary even for a year was not assured, but it was the "Voice without +reply." The result has been the National Association for the Advancement +of Colored People and _The Crisis_ and this book, which I am finishing +on my Fiftieth Birthday. + +Last year I looked death in the face and found its lineaments not +unkind. But it was not my time. Yet in nature some time soon and in the +fullness of days I shall die, quietly, I trust, with my face turned +South and eastward; and, dreaming or dreamless, I shall, I am sure, +enjoy death as I have enjoyed life. + + + + + +_A Litany at Atlanta_ + +O Silent God, Thou whose voice afar in mist and mystery hath left our +ears an-hungered in these fearful days-- + +_Hear us, good Lord!_ + +Listen to us, Thy children: our faces dark with doubt are made a mockery +in Thy Sanctuary. With uplifted hands we front Thy Heaven, O God, +crying: + +_We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!_ + +We are not better than our fellows, Lord; we are but weak and human men. +When our devils do deviltry, curse Thou the doer and the deed,--curse +them as we curse them, do to them all and more than ever they have done +to innocence and weakness, to womanhood and home. + +_Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!_ + +And yet, whose is the deeper guilt? Who made these devils? Who nursed +them in crime and fed them on injustice? Who ravished and debauched +their mothers and their grandmothers? Who bought and sold their crime +and waxed fat and rich on public iniquity? + +_Thou knowest, good God!_ + +Is this Thy Justice, O Father, that guile be easier than innocence and +the innocent be crucified for the guilt of the untouched guilty? + +_Justice, O Judge of men!_ + +Wherefore do we pray? Is not the God of the Fathers dead? Have not seers +seen in Heaven's halls Thine hearsed and lifeless form stark amidst the +black and rolling smoke of sin, where all along bow bitter forms of +endless dead? + +_Awake, Thou that sleepest!_ + +Thou art not dead, but flown afar, up hills of endless light, through +blazing corridors of suns, where worlds do swing of good and gentle men, +of women strong and free--far from the cozenage, black hypocrisy, and +chaste prostitution of this shameful speck of dust! + +_Turn again, O Lord; leave us not to perish in our sin!_ + +From lust of body and lust of blood,-- + +_Great God, deliver us!_ + +From lust of power and lust of gold,-- + +_Great God, deliver us!_ + +From the leagued lying of despot and of brute,-- + +_Great God, deliver us!_ + +A city lay in travail, God our Lord, and from her loins sprang twin +Murder and Black Hate. Red was the midnight; clang, crack, and cry of +death and fury filled the air and trembled underneath the stars where +church spires pointed silently to Thee. And all this was to sate the +greed of greedy men who hide behind the veil of vengeance! + +_Bend us Thine ear, O Lord!_ + +In the pale, still morning we looked upon the deed. We stopped our ears +and held our leaping hands, but they--did they not wag their heads and +leer and cry with bloody jaws: _Cease from Crime!_ The word was mockery, +for thus they train a hundred crimes while we do cure one. + +_Turn again our captivity, O Lord!_ + +Behold this maimed and broken thing, dear God; it was an humble black +man, who toiled and sweat to save a bit from the pittance paid him. They +told him: _Work and Rise!_ He worked. Did this man sin? Nay, but someone +told how someone said another did--one whom he had never seen nor known. +Yet for that man's crime this man lieth maimed and murdered, his wife +naked to shame, his children to poverty and evil. + +_Hear us, O heavenly Father!_ + +Doth not this justice of hell stink in Thy nostrils, O God? How long +shall the mounting flood of innocent blood roar in Thine ears and pound +in our hearts for vengeance? Pile the pale frenzy of blood-crazed +brutes, who do such deeds, high on Thine Altar, Jehovah Jireh, and burn +it in hell forever and forever! + +_Forgive us, good Lord; we know not what we say!_ + +Bewildered we are and passion-tossed, mad with the madness of a mobbed +and mocked and murdered people; straining at the armposts of Thy throne, +we raise our shackled hands and charge Thee, God, by the bones of our +stolen fathers, by the tears of our dead mothers, by the very blood of +Thy crucified Christ: What meaneth this? Tell us the plan; give us the +sign! + +_Keep not Thou silent, O God!_ + +Sit not longer blind, Lord God, deaf to our prayer and dumb to our dumb +suffering. Surely Thou, too, art not white, O Lord, a pale, bloodless, +heartless thing! + +_Ah! Christ of all the Pities!_ + +Forgive the thought! Forgive these wild, blasphemous words! Thou art +still the God of our black fathers and in Thy Soul's Soul sit some soft +darkenings of the evening, some shadowings of the velvet night. + +But whisper--speak--call, great God, for Thy silence is white terror to +our hearts! The way, O God, show us the way and point us the path! + +Whither? North is greed and South is blood; within, the coward, and +without, the liar. Whither? To death? + +_Amen! Welcome, dark sleep!_ + +Whither? To life? But not this life, dear God, not this. Let the cup +pass from us, tempt us not beyond our strength, for there is that +clamoring and clawing within, to whose voice we would not listen, yet +shudder lest we must,--and it is red. Ah! God! It is a red and awful +shape. + +_Selah!_ + +In yonder East trembles a star. + +_Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the Lord!_ + +Thy Will, O Lord, be done! + +_Kyrie Eleison!_ + +Lord, we have done these pleading, wavering words. + +_We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!_ + +We bow our heads and hearken soft to the sobbing of women and little +children. + +_We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!_ + +Our voices sink in silence and in night. + +_Hear us, good Lord!_ + +In night, O God of a godless land! + +_Amen!_ + +In silence, O Silent God. + +_Selah!_ + + + + + +II + +THE SOULS OF WHITE FOLK + + +High in the tower, where I sit above the loud complaining of the human +sea, I know many souls that toss and whirl and pass, but none there are +that intrigue me more than the Souls of White Folk. + +Of them I am singularly clairvoyant. I see in and through them. I view +them from unusual points of vantage. Not as a foreigner do I come, for I +am native, not foreign, bone of their thought and flesh of their +language. Mine is not the knowledge of the traveler or the colonial +composite of dear memories, words and wonder. Nor yet is my knowledge +that which servants have of masters, or mass of class, or capitalist of +artisan. Rather I see these souls undressed and from the back and side. +I see the working of their entrails. I know their thoughts and they know +that I know. This knowledge makes them now embarrassed, now furious. +They deny my right to live and be and call me misbirth! My word is to +them mere bitterness and my soul, pessimism. And yet as they preach and +strut and shout and threaten, crouching as they clutch at rags of facts +and fancies to hide their nakedness, they go twisting, flying by my +tired eyes and I see them ever stripped,--ugly, human. + +The discovery of personal whiteness among the world's peoples is a very +modern thing,--a nineteenth and twentieth century matter, indeed. The +ancient world would have laughed at such a distinction. The Middle Age +regarded skin color with mild curiosity; and even up into the eighteenth +century we were hammering our national manikins into one, great, +Universal Man, with fine frenzy which ignored color and race even more +than birth. Today we have changed all that, and the world in a sudden, +emotional conversion has discovered that it is white and by that token, +wonderful! + +This assumption that of all the hues of God whiteness alone is +inherently and obviously better than brownness or tan leads to curious +acts; even the sweeter souls of the dominant world as they discourse +with me on weather, weal, and woe are continually playing above their +actual words an obligato of tune and tone, saying: + +"My poor, un-white thing! Weep not nor rage. I know, too well, that the +curse of God lies heavy on you. Why? That is not for me to say, but be +brave! Do your work in your lowly sphere, praying the good Lord that +into heaven above, where all is love, you may, one day, be born--white!" + +I do not laugh. I am quite straight-faced as I ask soberly: + +"But what on earth is whiteness that one should so desire it?" Then +always, somehow, some way, silently but clearly, I am given to +understand that whiteness is the ownership of the earth forever and +ever, Amen! + +Now what is the effect on a man or a nation when it comes passionately +to believe such an extraordinary dictum as this? That nations are coming +to believe it is manifest daily. Wave on wave, each with increasing +virulence, is dashing this new religion of whiteness on the shores of +our time. Its first effects are funny: the strut of the Southerner, the +arrogance of the Englishman amuck, the whoop of the hoodlum who +vicariously leads your mob. Next it appears dampening generous +enthusiasm in what we once counted glorious; to free the slave is +discovered to be tolerable only in so far as it freed his master! Do we +sense somnolent writhings in black Africa or angry groans in India or +triumphant banzais in Japan? "To your tents, O Israel!" These nations +are not white! + +After the more comic manifestations and the chilling of generous +enthusiasm come subtler, darker deeds. Everything considered, the title +to the universe claimed by White Folk is faulty. It ought, at least, to +look plausible. How easy, then, by emphasis and omission to make +children believe that every great soul the world ever saw was a white +man's soul; that every great thought the world ever knew was a white +man's thought; that every great deed the world ever did was a white +man's deed; that every great dream the world ever sang was a white man's +dream. In fine, that if from the world were dropped everything that +could not fairly be attributed to White Folk, the world would, if +anything, be even greater, truer, better than now. And if all this be a +lie, is it not a lie in a great cause? + +Here it is that the comedy verges to tragedy. The first minor note is +struck, all unconsciously, by those worthy souls in whom consciousness +of high descent brings burning desire to spread the gift abroad,--the +obligation of nobility to the ignoble. Such sense of duty assumes two +things: a real possession of the heritage and its frank appreciation by +the humble-born. So long, then, as humble black folk, voluble with +thanks, receive barrels of old clothes from lordly and generous whites, +there is much mental peace and moral satisfaction. But when the black +man begins to dispute the white man's title to certain alleged bequests +of the Fathers in wage and position, authority and training; and when +his attitude toward charity is sullen anger rather than humble jollity; +when he insists on his human right to swagger and swear and waste,--then +the spell is suddenly broken and the philanthropist is ready to believe +that Negroes are impudent, that the South is right, and that Japan wants +to fight America. + +After this the descent to Hell is easy. On the pale, white faces which +the great billows whirl upward to my tower I see again and again, often +and still more often, a writing of human hatred, a deep and passionate +hatred, vast by the very vagueness of its expressions. Down through the +green waters, on the bottom of the world, where men move to and fro, I +have seen a man--an educated gentleman--grow livid with anger because a +little, silent, black woman was sitting by herself in a Pullman car. He +was a white man. I have seen a great, grown man curse a little child, +who had wandered into the wrong waiting-room, searching for its mother: +"Here, you damned black--" He was white. In Central Park I have seen the +upper lip of a quiet, peaceful man curl back in a tigerish snarl of rage +because black folk rode by in a motor car. He was a white man. We have +seen, you and I, city after city drunk and furious with ungovernable +lust of blood; mad with murder, destroying, killing, and cursing; +torturing human victims because somebody accused of crime happened to be +of the same color as the mob's innocent victims and because that color +was not white! We have seen,--Merciful God! in these wild days and in +the name of Civilization, Justice, and Motherhood,--what have we not +seen, right here in America, of orgy, cruelty, barbarism, and murder +done to men and women of Negro descent. + +Up through the foam of green and weltering waters wells this great mass +of hatred, in wilder, fiercer violence, until I look down and know that +today to the millions of my people no misfortune could happen,--of death +and pestilence, failure and defeat--that would not make the hearts of +millions of their fellows beat with fierce, vindictive joy! Do you doubt +it? Ask your own soul what it would say if the next census were to +report that half of black America was dead and the other half dying. + +Unfortunate? Unfortunate. But where is the misfortune? Mine? Am I, in my +blackness, the sole sufferer? I suffer. And yet, somehow, above the +suffering, above the shackled anger that beats the bars, above the hurt +that crazes there surges in me a vast pity,--pity for a people +imprisoned and enthralled, hampered and made miserable for such a cause, +for such a phantasy! + +Conceive this nation, of all human peoples, engaged in a crusade to +make the "World Safe for Democracy"! Can you imagine the United States +protesting against Turkish atrocities in Armenia, while the Turks are +silent about mobs in Chicago and St. Louis; what is Louvain compared +with Memphis, Waco, Washington, Dyersburg, and Estill Springs? In short, +what is the black man but America's Belgium, and how could America +condemn in Germany that which she commits, just as brutally, within her +own borders? + +A true and worthy ideal frees and uplifts a people; a false ideal +imprisons and lowers. Say to men, earnestly and repeatedly: "Honesty is +best, knowledge is power; do unto others as you would be done by." Say +this and act it and the nation must move toward it, if not to it. But +say to a people: "The one virtue is to be white," and the people rush to +the inevitable conclusion, "Kill the 'nigger'!" + +Is not this the record of present America? Is not this its headlong +progress? Are we not coming more and more, day by day, to making the +statement "I am white," the one fundamental tenet of our practical +morality? Only when this basic, iron rule is involved is our defense of +right nation-wide and prompt. Murder may swagger, theft may rule and +prostitution may flourish and the nation gives but spasmodic, +intermittent and lukewarm attention. But let the murderer be black or +the thief brown or the violator of womanhood have a drop of Negro blood, +and the righteousness of the indignation sweeps the world. Nor would +this fact make the indignation less justifiable did not we all know that +it was blackness that was condemned and not crime. + +In the awful cataclysm of World War, where from beating, slandering, and +murdering us the white world turned temporarily aside to kill each +other, we of the Darker Peoples looked on in mild amaze. + +Among some of us, I doubt not, this sudden descent of Europe into hell +brought unbounded surprise; to others, over wide area, it brought the +_Schaden Freude_ of the bitterly hurt; but most of us, I judge, looked +on silently and sorrowfully, in sober thought, seeing sadly the prophecy +of our own souls. + +Here is a civilization that has boasted much. Neither Roman nor Arab, +Greek nor Egyptian, Persian nor Mongol ever took himself and his own +perfectness with such disconcerting seriousness as the modern white man. +We whose shame, humiliation, and deep insult his aggrandizement so often +involved were never deceived. We looked at him clearly, with world-old +eyes, and saw simply a human thing, weak and pitiable and cruel, even as +we are and were. + +These super-men and world-mastering demi-gods listened, however, to no +low tongues of ours, even when we pointed silently to their feet of +clay. Perhaps we, as folk of simpler soul and more primitive type, have +been most struck in the welter of recent years by the utter failure of +white religion. We have curled our lips in something like contempt as we +have witnessed glib apology and weary explanation. Nothing of the sort +deceived us. A nation's religion is its life, and as such white +Christianity is a miserable failure. + +Nor would we be unfair in this criticism: We know that we, too, have +failed, as you have, and have rejected many a Buddha, even as you have +denied Christ; but we acknowledge our human frailty, while you, claiming +super-humanity, scoff endlessly at our shortcomings. + +The number of white individuals who are practising with even reasonable +approximation the democracy and unselfishness of Jesus Christ is so +small and unimportant as to be fit subject for jest in Sunday +supplements and in _Punch_, _Life_, _Le Rire_, and _Fliegende Blätter_. +In her foreign mission work the extraordinary self-deception of white +religion is epitomized: solemnly the white world sends five million +dollars worth of missionary propaganda to Africa each year and in the +same twelve months adds twenty-five million dollars worth of the vilest +gin manufactured. Peace to the augurs of Rome! + +We may, however, grant without argument that religious ideals have +always far outrun their very human devotees. Let us, then, turn to more +mundane matters of honor and fairness. The world today is trade. The +world has turned shopkeeper; history is economic history; living is +earning a living. Is it necessary to ask how much of high emprise and +honorable conduct has been found here? Something, to be sure. The +establishment of world credit systems is built on splendid and +realizable faith in fellow-men. But it is, after all, so low and +elementary a step that sometimes it looks merely like honor among +thieves, for the revelations of highway robbery and low cheating in the +business world and in all its great modern centers have raised in the +hearts of all true men in our day an exceeding great cry for revolution +in our basic methods and conceptions of industry and commerce. + +We do not, for a moment, forget the robbery of other times and races +when trade was a most uncertain gamble; but was there not a certain +honesty and frankness in the evil that argued a saner morality? There +are more merchants today, surer deliveries, and wider well-being, but +are there not, also, bigger thieves, deeper injustice, and more +calloused selfishness in well-being? Be that as it may,--certainly the +nicer sense of honor that has risen ever and again in groups of +forward-thinking men has been curiously and broadly blunted. Consider +our chiefest industry,--fighting. Laboriously the Middle Ages built its +rules of fairness--equal armament, equal notice, equal conditions. What +do we see today? Machine-guns against assegais; conquest sugared with +religion; mutilation and rape masquerading as culture,--all this, with +vast applause at the superiority of white over black soldiers! + +War is horrible! This the dark world knows to its awful cost. But has +it just become horrible, in these last days, when under essentially +equal conditions, equal armament, and equal waste of wealth white men +are fighting white men, with surgeons and nurses hovering near? + +Think of the wars through which we have lived in the last decade: in +German Africa, in British Nigeria, in French and Spanish Morocco, in +China, in Persia, in the Balkans, in Tripoli, in Mexico, and in a dozen +lesser places--were not these horrible, too? Mind you, there were for +most of these wars no Red Cross funds. + +Behold little Belgium and her pitiable plight, but has the world +forgotten Congo? What Belgium now suffers is not half, not even a tenth, +of what she has done to black Congo since Stanley's great dream of 1880. +Down the dark forests of inmost Africa sailed this modern Sir Galahad, +in the name of "the noble-minded men of several nations," to introduce +commerce and civilization. What came of it? "Rubber and murder, slavery +in its worst form," wrote Glave in 1895. + +Harris declares that King Leopold's régime meant the death of twelve +million natives, "but what we who were behind the scenes felt most +keenly was the fact that the real catastrophe in the Congo was +desolation and murder in the larger sense. The invasion of family life, +the ruthless destruction of every social barrier, the shattering of +every tribal law, the introduction of criminal practices which struck +the chiefs of the people dumb with horror--in a word, a veritable +avalanche of filth and immorality overwhelmed the Congo tribes." + +Yet the fields of Belgium laughed, the cities were gay, art and science +flourished; the groans that helped to nourish this civilization fell on +deaf ears because the world round about was doing the same sort of thing +elsewhere on its own account. + +As we saw the dead dimly through rifts of battlesmoke and heard faintly +the cursings and accusations of blood brothers, we darker men said: This +is not Europe gone mad; this is not aberration nor insanity; this _is_ +Europe; this seeming Terrible is the real soul of white culture--back of +all culture,--stripped and visible today. This is where the world has +arrived,--these dark and awful depths and not the shining and ineffable +heights of which it boasted. Here is whither the might and energy of +modern humanity has really gone. + +But may not the world cry back at us and ask: "What better thing have +you to show? What have you done or would do better than this if you had +today the world rule? Paint with all riot of hateful colors the thin +skin of European culture,--is it not better than any culture that arose +in Africa or Asia?" + +It is. Of this there is no doubt and never has been; but why is it +better? Is it better because Europeans are better, nobler, greater, and +more gifted than other folk? It is not. Europe has never produced and +never will in our day bring forth a single human soul who cannot be +matched and over-matched in every line of human endeavor by Asia and +Africa. Run the gamut, if you will, and let us have the Europeans who in +sober truth over-match Nefertari, Mohammed, Rameses and Askia, +Confucius, Buddha, and Jesus Christ. If we could scan the calendar of +thousands of lesser men, in like comparison, the result would be the +same; but we cannot do this because of the deliberately educated +ignorance of white schools by which they remember Napoleon and forget +Sonni Ali. + +The greatness of Europe has lain in the width of the stage on which she +has played her part, the strength of the foundations on which she has +builded, and a natural, human ability no whit greater (if as great) than +that of other days and races. In other words, the deeper reasons for the +triumph of European civilization lie quite outside and beyond +Europe,--back in the universal struggles of all mankind. + +Why, then, is Europe great? Because of the foundations which the mighty +past have furnished her to build upon: the iron trade of ancient, black +Africa, the religion and empire-building of yellow Asia, the art and +science of the "dago" Mediterranean shore, east, south, and west, as +well as north. And where she has builded securely upon this great past +and learned from it she has gone forward to greater and more splendid +human triumph; but where she has ignored this past and forgotten and +sneered at it, she has shown the cloven hoof of poor, crucified +humanity,--she has played, like other empires gone, the world fool! + +If, then, European triumphs in culture have been greater, so, too, may +her failures have been greater. How great a failure and a failure in +what does the World War betoken? Was it national jealousy of the sort of +the seventeenth century? But Europe has done more to break down national +barriers than any preceding culture. Was it fear of the balance of power +in Europe? Hardly, save in the half-Asiatic problems of the Balkans. +What, then, does Hauptmann mean when he says: "Our jealous enemies +forged an iron ring about our breasts and we knew our breasts had to +expand,--that we had to split asunder this ring or else we had to cease +breathing. But Germany will not cease to breathe and so it came to pass +that the iron ring was forced apart." + +Whither is this expansion? What is that breath of life, thought to be so +indispensable to a great European nation? Manifestly it is expansion +overseas; it is colonial aggrandizement which explains, and alone +adequately explains, the World War. How many of us today fully realize +the current theory of colonial expansion, of the relation of Europe +which is white, to the world which is black and brown and yellow? +Bluntly put, that theory is this: It is the duty of white Europe to +divide up the darker world and administer it for Europe's good. + +This Europe has largely done. The European world is using black and +brown men for all the uses which men know. Slowly but surely white +culture is evolving the theory that "darkies" are born beasts of burden +for white folk. It were silly to think otherwise, cries the cultured +world, with stronger and shriller accord. The supporting arguments grow +and twist themselves in the mouths of merchant, scientist, soldier, +traveler, writer, and missionary: Darker peoples are dark in mind as +well as in body; of dark, uncertain, and imperfect descent; of frailer, +cheaper stuff; they are cowards in the face of mausers and maxims; they +have no feelings, aspirations, and loves; they are fools, illogical +idiots,--"half-devil and half-child." + +Such as they are civilization must, naturally, raise them, but soberly +and in limited ways. They are not simply dark white men. They are not +"men" in the sense that Europeans are men. To the very limited extent of +their shallow capacities lift them to be useful to whites, to raise +cotton, gather rubber, fetch ivory, dig diamonds,--and let them be paid +what men think they are worth--white men who know them to be well-nigh +worthless. + +Such degrading of men by men is as old as mankind and the invention of +no one race or people. Ever have men striven to conceive of their +victims as different from the victors, endlessly different, in soul and +blood, strength and cunning, race and lineage. It has been left, +however, to Europe and to modern days to discover the eternal world-wide +mark of meanness,--color! + +Such is the silent revolution that has gripped modern European culture +in the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its zenith came in +Boxer times: White supremacy was all but world-wide, Africa was dead, +India conquered, Japan isolated, and China prostrate, while white +America whetted her sword for mongrel Mexico and mulatto South America, +lynching her own Negroes the while. Temporary halt in this program was +made by little Japan and the white world immediately sensed the peril of +such "yellow" presumption! What sort of a world would this be if yellow +men must be treated "white"? Immediately the eventual overthrow of Japan +became a subject of deep thought and intrigue, from St. Petersburg to +San Francisco, from the Key of Heaven to the Little Brother of the Poor. + +The using of men for the benefit of masters is no new invention of +modern Europe. It is quite as old as the world. But Europe proposed to +apply it on a scale and with an elaborateness of detail of which no +former world ever dreamed. The imperial width of the thing,--the +heaven-defying audacity--makes its modern newness. + +The scheme of Europe was no sudden invention, but a way out of +long-pressing difficulties. It is plain to modern white civilization +that the subjection of the white working classes cannot much longer be +maintained. Education, political power, and increased knowledge of the +technique and meaning of the industrial process are destined to make a +more and more equitable distribution of wealth in the near future. The +day of the very rich is drawing to a close, so far as individual white +nations are concerned. But there is a loophole. There is a chance for +exploitation on an immense scale for inordinate profit, not simply to +the very rich, but to the middle class and to the laborers. This chance +lies in the exploitation of darker peoples. It is here that the golden +hand beckons. Here are no labor unions or votes or questioning onlookers +or inconvenient consciences. These men may be used down to the very +bone, and shot and maimed in "punitive" expeditions when they revolt. In +these dark lands "industrial development" may repeat in exaggerated form +every horror of the industrial history of Europe, from slavery and rape +to disease and maiming, with only one test of success,--dividends! + +This theory of human culture and its aims has worked itself through warp +and woof of our daily thought with a thoroughness that few realize. +Everything great, good, efficient, fair, and honorable is "white"; +everything mean, bad, blundering, cheating, and dishonorable is +"yellow"; a bad taste is "brown"; and the devil is "black." The changes +of this theme are continually rung in picture and story, in newspaper +heading and moving-picture, in sermon and school book, until, of course, +the King can do no wrong,--a White Man is always right and a Black Man +has no rights which a white man is bound to respect. + +There must come the necessary despisings and hatreds of these savage +half-men, this unclean _canaille_ of the world--these dogs of men. All +through the world this gospel is preaching. It has its literature, it +has its secret propaganda and above all--it pays! + +There's the rub,--it pays. Rubber, ivory, and palm-oil; tea, coffee, and +cocoa; bananas, oranges, and other fruit; cotton, gold, and +copper--they, and a hundred other things which dark and sweating bodies +hand up to the white world from pits of slime, pay and pay well, but of +all that the world gets the black world gets only the pittance that the +white world throws it disdainfully. + +Small wonder, then, that in the practical world of things-that-be there +is jealousy and strife for the possession of the labor of dark millions, +for the right to bleed and exploit the colonies of the world where this +golden stream may be had, not always for the asking, but surely for the +whipping and shooting. It was this competition for the labor of yellow, +brown, and black folks that was the cause of the World War. Other causes +have been glibly given and other contributing causes there doubtless +were, but they were subsidiary and subordinate to this vast quest of the +dark world's wealth and toil. + +Colonies, we call them, these places where "niggers" are cheap and the +earth is rich; they are those outlands where like a swarm of hungry +locusts white masters may settle to be served as kings, wield the lash +of slave-drivers, rape girls and wives, grow as rich as Croesus and send +homeward a golden stream. They belt the earth, these places, but they +cluster in the tropics, with its darkened peoples: in Hong Kong and +Anam, in Borneo and Rhodesia, in Sierra Leone and Nigeria, in Panama and +Havana--these are the El Dorados toward which the world powers stretch +itching palms. + +Germany, at last one and united and secure on land, looked across the +seas and seeing England with sources of wealth insuring a luxury and +power which Germany could not hope to rival by the slower processes of +exploiting her own peasants and workingmen, especially with these +workers half in revolt, immediately built her navy and entered into a +desperate competition for possession of colonies of darker peoples. To +South America, to China, to Africa, to Asia Minor, she turned like a +hound quivering on the leash, impatient, suspicious, irritable, with +blood-shot eyes and dripping fangs, ready for the awful word. England +and France crouched watchfully over their bones, growling and wary, but +gnawing industriously, while the blood of the dark world whetted their +greedy appetites. In the background, shut out from the highway to the +seven seas, sat Russia and Austria, snarling and snapping at each other +and at the last Mediterranean gate to the El Dorado, where the Sick Man +enjoyed bad health, and where millions of serfs in the Balkans, Russia, +and Asia offered a feast to greed well-nigh as great as Africa. + +The fateful day came. It had to come. The cause of war is preparation +for war; and of all that Europe has done in a century there is nothing +that has equaled in energy, thought, and time her preparation for +wholesale murder. The only adequate cause of this preparation was +conquest and conquest, not in Europe, but primarily among the darker +peoples of Asia and Africa; conquest, not for assimilation and uplift, +but for commerce and degradation. For this, and this mainly, did Europe +gird herself at frightful cost for war. + +The red day dawned when the tinder was lighted in the Balkans and +Austro-Hungary seized a bit which brought her a step nearer to the +world's highway; she seized one bit and poised herself for another. Then +came that curious chorus of challenges, those leaping suspicions, raking +all causes for distrust and rivalry and hatred, but saying little of the +real and greatest cause. + +Each nation felt its deep interests involved. But how? Not, surely, in +the death of Ferdinand the Warlike; not, surely, in the old, +half-forgotten _revanche_ for Alsace-Lorraine; not even in the +neutrality of Belgium. No! But in the possession of land overseas, in +the right to colonies, the chance to levy endless tribute on the darker +world,--on coolies in China, on starving peasants in India, on black +savages in Africa, on dying South Sea Islanders, on Indians of the +Amazon--all this and nothing more. + +Even the broken reed on which we had rested high hopes of eternal +peace,--the guild of the laborers--the front of that very important +movement for human justice on which we had builded most, even this flew +like a straw before the breath of king and kaiser. Indeed, the flying +had been foreshadowed when in Germany and America "international" +Socialists had all but read yellow and black men out of the kingdom of +industrial justice. Subtly had they been bribed, but effectively: Were +they not lordly whites and should they not share in the spoils of rape? +High wages in the United States and England might be the skilfully +manipulated result of slavery in Africa and of peonage in Asia. + +With the dog-in-the-manger theory of trade, with the determination to +reap inordinate profits and to exploit the weakest to the utmost there +came a new imperialism,--the rage for one's own nation to own the earth +or, at least, a large enough portion of it to insure as big profits as +the next nation. Where sections could not be owned by one dominant +nation there came a policy of "open door," but the "door" was open to +"white people only." As to the darkest and weakest of peoples there was +but one unanimity in Europe,--that which Hen Demberg of the German +Colonial Office called the agreement with England to maintain white +"prestige" in Africa,--the doctrine of the divine right of white people +to steal. + +Thus the world market most wildly and desperately sought today is the +market where labor is cheapest and most helpless and profit is most +abundant. This labor is kept cheap and helpless because the white world +despises "darkies." If one has the temerity to suggest that these +workingmen may walk the way of white workingmen and climb by votes and +self-assertion and education to the rank of men, he is howled out of +court. They cannot do it and if they could, they shall not, for they are +the enemies of the white race and the whites shall rule forever and +forever and everywhere. Thus the hatred and despising of human beings +from whom Europe wishes to extort her luxuries has led to such jealousy +and bickering between European nations that they have fallen afoul of +each other and have fought like crazed beasts. Such is the fruit of +human hatred. + +But what of the darker world that watches? Most men belong to this +world. With Negro and Negroid, East Indian, Chinese, and Japanese they +form two-thirds of the population of the world. A belief in humanity is +a belief in colored men. If the uplift of mankind must be done by men, +then the destinies of this world will rest ultimately in the hands of +darker nations. + +What, then, is this dark world thinking? It is thinking that as wild +and awful as this shameful war was, _it is nothing to compare with that +fight for freedom which black and brown and yellow men must and will +make unless their oppression and humiliation and insult at the hands of +the White World cease. The Dark World is going to submit to its present +treatment just as long as it must and not one moment longer._ + +Let me say this again and emphasize it and leave no room for mistaken +meaning: The World War was primarily the jealous and avaricious struggle +for the largest share in exploiting darker races. As such it is and must +be but the prelude to the armed and indignant protest of these despised +and raped peoples. Today Japan is hammering on the door of justice, +China is raising her half-manacled hands to knock next, India is +writhing for the freedom to knock, Egypt is sullenly muttering, the +Negroes of South and West Africa, of the West Indies, and of the United +States are just awakening to their shameful slavery. Is, then, this war +the end of wars? Can it be the end, so long as sits enthroned, even in +the souls of those who cry peace, the despising and robbing of darker +peoples? If Europe hugs this delusion, then this is not the end of world +war,--it is but the beginning! + +We see Europe's greatest sin precisely where we found Africa's and +Asia's,--in human hatred, the despising of men; with this difference, +however: Europe has the awful lesson of the past before her, has the +splendid results of widened areas of tolerance, sympathy, and love among +men, and she faces a greater, an infinitely greater, world of men than +any preceding civilization ever faced. + +It is curious to see America, the United States, looking on herself, +first, as a sort of natural peacemaker, then as a moral protagonist in +this terrible time. No nation is less fitted for this rôle. For two or +more centuries America has marched proudly in the van of human +hatred,--making bonfires of human flesh and laughing at them hideously, +and making the insulting of millions more than a matter of +dislike,--rather a great religion, a world war-cry: Up white, down +black; to your tents, O white folk, and world war with black and +parti-colored mongrel beasts! + +Instead of standing as a great example of the success of democracy and +the possibility of human brotherhood America has taken her place as an +awful example of its pitfalls and failures, so far as black and brown +and yellow peoples are concerned. And this, too, in spite of the fact +that there has been no actual failure; the Indian is not dying out, the +Japanese and Chinese have not menaced the land, and the experiment of +Negro suffrage has resulted in the uplift of twelve million people at a +rate probably unparalleled in history. But what of this? America, Land +of Democracy, wanted to believe in the failure of democracy so far as +darker peoples were concerned. Absolutely without excuse she established +a caste system, rushed into preparation for war, and conquered tropical +colonies. She stands today shoulder to shoulder with Europe in Europe's +worst sin against civilization. She aspires to sit among the great +nations who arbitrate the fate of "lesser breeds without the law" and +she is at times heartily ashamed even of the large number of "new" white +people whom her democracy has admitted to place and power. Against this +surging forward of Irish and German, of Russian Jew, Slav and "dago" her +social bars have not availed, but against Negroes she can and does take +her unflinching and immovable stand, backed by this new public policy of +Europe. She trains her immigrants to this despising of "niggers" from +the day of their landing, and they carry and send the news back to the +submerged classes in the fatherlands. + + * * * * * + +All this I see and hear up in my tower, above the thunder of the seven +seas. From my narrowed windows I stare into the night that looms beneath +the cloud-swept stars. Eastward and westward storms are +breaking,--great, ugly whirlwinds of hatred and blood and cruelty. I +will not believe them inevitable. I will not believe that all that was +must be, that all the shameful drama of the past must be done again +today before the sunlight sweeps the silver seas. + +If I cry amid this roar of elemental forces, must my cry be in vain, +because it is but a cry,--a small and human cry amid Promethean gloom? + +Back beyond the world and swept by these wild, white faces of the awful +dead, why will this Soul of White Folk,--this modern Prometheus,--hang +bound by his own binding, tethered by a fable of the past? I hear his +mighty cry reverberating through the world, "I am white!" Well and good, +O Prometheus, divine thief! Is not the world wide enough for two colors, +for many little shinings of the sun? Why, then, devour your own vitals +if I answer even as proudly, "I am black!" + + + + + +_The Riddle of the Sphinx_ + + + Dark daughter of the lotus leaves that watch the Southern Sea! + Wan spirit of a prisoned soul a-panting to be free! + The muttered music of thy streams, the whisper of the deep, + Have kissed each other in God's name and kissed a world to sleep. + + The will of the world is a whistling wind, sweeping a cloud-swept sky, + And not from the East and not from the West knelled that + soul-waking cry, + But out of the South,--the sad, black South--it screamed from + the top of the sky, + Crying: "Awake, O ancient race!" Wailing, "O woman, arise!" + And crying and sighing and crying again as a voice in the + midnight cries,-- + But the burden of white men bore her back and the white world + stifled her sighs. + + The white world's vermin and filth: + All the dirt of London, + All the scum of New York; + Valiant spoilers of women + And conquerers of unarmed men; + Shameless breeders of bastards, + Drunk with the greed of gold, + Baiting their blood-stained hooks + With cant for the souls of the simple; + Bearing the white man's burden + Of liquor and lust and lies! + + Unthankful we wince in the East, + Unthankful we wail from the westward, + Unthankfully thankful, we curse, + In the unworn wastes of the wild: + I hate them, Oh! + I hate them well, + I hate them, Christ! + As I hate hell! + If I were God, + I'd sound their knell + This day! + Who raised the fools to their glory, + But black men of Egypt and Ind, + Ethiopia's sons of the evening, + Indians and yellow Chinese, + Arabian children of morning, + And mongrels of Rome and Greece? + Ah, well! + And they that raised the boasters + Shall drag them down again,-- + Down with the theft of their thieving + And murder and mocking of men; + Down with their barter of women + And laying and lying of creeds; + Down with their cheating of childhood + And drunken orgies of war,-- + down + down + deep down, + Till the devil's strength be shorn, + Till some dim, darker David, a-hoeing of his corn, + And married maiden, mother of God, + Bid the black Christ be born! + Then shall our burden be manhood, + Be it yellow or black or white; + And poverty and justice and sorrow, + The humble, and simple and strong + Shall sing with the sons of morning + And daughters of even-song: + Black mother of the iron hills that ward the blazing sea, + Wild spirit of a storm-swept soul, a-struggling to be free, + Where 'neath the bloody finger-marks thy riven bosom quakes, + Thicken the thunders of God's Voice and lo! a world awakes! + + + + +III + +THE HANDS OF ETHIOPIA + + +"_Semper novi quid ex Africa_," cried the Roman proconsul, and he voiced +the verdict of forty centuries. Yet there are those who would write +world history and leave out of account this most marvelous of +continents. Particularly today most men assume that Africa is far afield +from the center of our burning social problems and especially from our +problem of world war. + +Always Africa is giving us something new or some metempsychosis of a +world-old thing. On its black bosom arose one of the earliest, if not +the earliest, of self-protecting civilizations, which grew so mightily +that it still furnishes superlatives to thinking and speaking men. Out +of its darker and more remote forest fastnesses came, if we may credit +many recent scientists, the first welding of iron, and we know that +agriculture and trade flourished there when Europe was a wilderness. + +Nearly every human empire that has arisen in the world, material and +spiritual, has found some of its greatest crises on this continent of +Africa, from Greece to Great Britain. As Mommsen says: "It was through +Africa that Christianity became the religion of the world." In Africa +the last flood of Germanic invasions spent itself within hearing of the +last gasp of Byzantium, and it was through Africa that Islam came to +play its great rôle of conqueror and civilizer. + +With the Renaissance and the widened world of modern thought Africa came +no less suddenly with her new-old gift. Shakespeare's "Ancient Pistol" +cries: + + A foutre for the world and worldlings base! + I speak of Africa and golden joys! + +He echoes a legend of gold from the days of Punt and Ophir to those of +Ghana, the Gold Coast, and the Rand. This thought had sent the world's +greed scurrying down the hot, mysterious coasts of Africa to the Good +Hope of gain, until for the first time a real world-commerce was born, +albeit it started as a commerce mainly in the bodies and souls of men. + +The present problem of problems is nothing more than democracy beating +itself helplessly against the color bar,--purling, seeping, seething, +foaming to burst through, ever and again overwhelming the emerging +masses of white men in its rolling backwaters and held back by those who +dream of future kingdoms of greed built on black and brown and yellow +slavery. + +The indictment of Africa against Europe is grave. For four hundred years +white Europe was the chief support of that trade in human beings which +first and last robbed black Africa of a hundred million human beings, +transformed the face of her social life, overthrew organized government, +distorted ancient industry, and snuffed out the lights of cultural +development. Today instead of removing laborers from Africa to distant +slavery, industry built on a new slavery approaches Africa to deprive +the natives of their land, to force them to toil, and to reap all the +profit for the white world. + +It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader of the essential facts +underlying these broad assertions. A recent law of the Union of South +Africa assigns nearly two hundred and fifty million acres of the best of +natives' land to a million and a half whites and leaves thirty-six +million acres of swamp and marsh for four and a half-million blacks. In +Rhodesia over ninety million acres have been practically confiscated. In +the Belgian Congo all the land was declared the property of the state. + +Slavery in all but name has been the foundation of the cocoa industry in +St. Thome and St. Principe and in the mines of the Rand. Gin has been +one of the greatest of European imports, having increased fifty per +cent. in ten years and reaching a total of at least twenty-five million +dollars a year today. Negroes of ability have been carefully gotten rid +of, deposed from authority, kept out of positions of influence, and +discredited in their people's eyes, while a caste of white overseers and +governing officials has appeared everywhere. + +Naturally, the picture is not all lurid. David Livingstone has had his +successors and Europe has given Africa something of value in the +beginning of education and industry. Yet the balance of iniquity is +desperately large; but worse than that, it has aroused no world protest. +A great Englishman, familiar with African problems for a generation, +says frankly today: "There does not exist any real international +conscience to which you can appeal." + +Moreover, that treatment shows no certain signs of abatement. Today in +England the Empire Resources Development Committee proposes to treat +African colonies as "crown estates" and by intensive scientific +exploitation of both land and labor to make these colonies pay the +English national debt after the war! German thinkers, knowing the +tremendous demand for raw material which would follow the war, had +similar plans of exploitation. "It is the clear, common sense of the +African situation," says H.G. Wells, "that while these precious regions +of raw material remain divided up between a number of competitive +European imperialisms, each resolutely set upon the exploitation of its +'possessions' to its own advantage and the disadvantage of the others, +there can be no permanent peace in the world. It is impossible." + +We, then, who fought the war against war; who in a hell of blood and +suffering held hardly our souls in leash by the vision of a world +organized for peace; who are looking for industrial democracy and for +the organization of Europe so as to avoid incentives to war,--we, least +of all, should be willing to leave the backward world as the greatest +temptation, not only to wars based on international jealousies, but to +the most horrible of wars,--which arise from the revolt of the maddened +against those who hold them in common contempt. + +Consider, my reader,--if you were today a man of some education and +knowledge, but born a Japanese or a Chinaman, an East Indian or a Negro, +what would you do and think? What would be in the present chaos your +outlook and plan for the future? Manifestly, you would want freedom for +your people,--freedom from insult, from segregation, from poverty, from +physical slavery. If the attitude of the European and American worlds is +in the future going to be based essentially upon the same policies as in +the past, then there is but one thing for the trained man of darker +blood to do and that is definitely and as openly as possible to organize +his world for war against Europe. He may have to do it by secret, +underground propaganda, as in Egypt and India and eventually in the +United States; or by open increase of armament, as in Japan; or by +desperate efforts at modernization, as in China; but he must do it. He +represents the vast majority of mankind. To surrender would be far worse +than physical death. There is no way out unless the white world gives up +such insult as its modern use of the adjective "yellow" indicates, or +its connotation of "chink" and "nigger" implies; either it gives up the +plan of color serfdom which its use of the other adjective "white" +implies, as indicating everything decent and every part of the world +worth living in,--or trouble is written in the stars! + +It is, therefore, of singular importance after disquieting delay to see +the real Pacifist appear. Both England and Germany have recently been +basing their claims to parts of black Africa on the wishes and interests +of the black inhabitants. Lloyd George has declared "the general +principle of national self-determination applicable at least to German +Africa," while Chancellor Hertling once welcomed a discussion "on the +reconstruction of the world's colonial possessions." + +The demand that an Africa for Africans shall replace the present +barbarous scramble for exploitation by individual states comes from +singularly different sources. Colored America demands that "the +conquered German colonies should not be returned to Germany, neither +should they be held by the Allies. Here is the opportunity for the +establishment of a nation that may never recur. Thousands of colored +men, sick of white arrogance and hypocrisy, see in this their race's +only salvation." + +Sir Harry H. Johnston recently said: "If we are to talk, as we do, +sentimentally but justly about restoring the nationhood of Poland, about +giving satisfaction to the separatist feeling in Ireland, and about what +is to be done for European nations who are oppressed, then we can hardly +exclude from this feeling the countries of Africa." + +Laborers, black laborers, on the Canal Zone write: "Out of this chaos +may be the great awakening of our race. There is cause for rejoicing. If +we fail to embrace this opportunity now, we fail to see how we will be +ever able to solve the race question. It is for the British Negro, the +French Negro, and the American Negro to rise to the occasion and start a +national campaign, jointly and collectively, with this aim in view." + +From British West Africa comes the bitter complaint "that the West +Africans should have the right or opportunity to settle their future for +themselves is a thing which hardly enters the mind of the European +politician. That the Balkan States should be admitted to the Council of +Peace and decide the government under which they are to live is taken as +a matter of course because they are Europeans, but no extra-European is +credited, even by the extremist advocates of human equality, with any +right except to humbly accept the fate which Europe shall decide for +him." + +Here, then, is the danger and the demand; and the real Pacifist will +seek to organize, not simply the masses in white nations, guarding +against exploitation and profiteering, but will remember that no +permanent relief can come but by including in this organization the +lowest and the most exploited races in the world. World philanthropy, +like national philanthropy, must come as uplift and prevention and not +merely as alleviation and religious conversion. Reverence for humanity, +as such, must be installed in the world, and Africa should be the +talisman. + +Black Africa, including British, French, Belgian, Portuguese, Italian, +and Spanish possessions and the independent states of Abyssinia and +Liberia and leaving out of account Egypt and North Africa, on the one +hand, and South Africa, on the other, has an area of 8,200,000 square +miles and a population well over one hundred millions of black men, +with less than one hundred thousand whites. + +Commercial exploitation in Africa has already larger results to show +than most people realize. Annually $200,000,000 worth of goods was +coming out of black Africa before the World War, including a third of +the world's supply of rubber, a quarter of all of the world's cocoa, and +practically all of the world's cloves, gum-arabic, and palm-oil. In +exchange there was being returned to Africa one hundred millions in +cotton cloth, twenty-five millions in iron and steel, and as much in +foods, and probably twenty-five millions in liquors. + +Here are the beginnings of a modern industrial system: iron and steel +for permanent investment, bound to yield large dividends; cloth as the +cheapest exchange for invaluable raw material; liquor to tickle the +appetites of the natives and render the alienation of land and the +breakdown of customary law easier; eventually forced and contract labor +under white drivers to increase and systematize the production of raw +materials. These materials are capable of indefinite expansion: cotton +may yet challenge the southern United States, fruits and vegetables, +hides and skins, lumber and dye-stuffs, coffee and tea, grain and +tobacco, and fibers of all sorts can easily follow organized and +systematic toil. + +Is it a paradise of industry we thus contemplate? It is much more likely +to be a hell. Under present plans there will be no voice or law or +custom to protect labor, no trades unions, no eight-hour laws, no +factory legislation,--nothing of that great body of legislation built up +in modern days to protect mankind from sinking to the level of beasts of +burden. All the industrial deviltry, which civilization has been driving +to the slums and the backwaters, will have a voiceless continent to +conceal it. If the slave cannot be taken from Africa, slavery can be +taken to Africa. + +Who are the folk who live here? They are brown and black, curly and +crisp-haired, short and tall, and longheaded. Out of them in days +without date flowed the beginnings of Egypt; among them rose, later, +centers of culture at Ghana, Melle, and Timbuktu. Kingdoms and empires +flourished in Songhay and Zymbabwe, and art and industry in Yoruba and +Benin. They have fought every human calamity in its most hideous form +and yet today they hold some similar vestiges of a mighty past,--their +work in iron, their weaving and carving, their music and singing, their +tribal government, their town-meeting and marketplace, their desperate +valor in war. + +Missionaries and commerce have left some good with all their evil. In +black Africa today there are more than a thousand government schools and +some thirty thousand mission schools, with a more or less regular +attendance of three-quarters of a million school children. In a few +cases training of a higher order is given chiefs' sons and selected +pupils. These beginnings of education are not much for so vast a land +and there is no general standard or set plan of development, but, after +all, the children of Africa are beginning to learn. + +In black Africa today only one-seventeenth of the land and a ninth of +the people in Liberia and Abyssinia are approximately independent, +although menaced and policed by European capitalism. Half the land and +the people are in domains under Portugal, France, and Belgium, held with +the avowed idea of exploitation for the benefit of Europe under a system +of caste and color serfdom. Out of this dangerous nadir of development +stretch two paths: one is indicated by the condition of about three per +cent of the people who in Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and French +Senegal, are tending toward the path of modern development; the other +path, followed by a fourth of the land and people, has local +self-government and native customs and might evolve, if undisturbed, a +native culture along their own peculiar lines. A tenth of the land, +sparsely settled, is being monopolized and held for whites to make an +African Australia. To these later folk must be added the four and +one-half millions of the South African Union, who by every modern device +are being forced into landless serfdom. + +Before the World War tendencies were strongly toward the destruction of +independent Africa, the industrial slavery of the mass of the blacks and +the encouragement of white immigration, where possible, to hold the +blacks in subjection. + +Against this idea let us set the conception of a new African World +State, a Black Africa, applying to these peoples the splendid +pronouncements which have of late been so broadly and perhaps carelessly +given the world: recognizing in Africa the declaration of the American +Federation of Labor, that "no people must be forced under sovereignty +under which it does not wish to live"; recognizing in President Wilson's +message to the Russians, the "principle of the undictated development of +all peoples"; recognizing the resolution of the recent conference of the +Aborigines Protection Society of England, "that in any reconstruction of +Africa, which may result from this war, the interests of the native +inhabitants and also their wishes, in so far as those wishes can be +clearly ascertained, should be recognized as among the principal factors +upon which the decision of their destiny should be based." In other +words, recognizing for the first time in the history of the modern world +that black men are human. + +It may not be possible to build this state at once. With the victory of +the Entente Allies, the German colonies, with their million of square +miles and one-half million black inhabitants, should form such a +nucleus. It would give Black Africa its physical beginnings. Beginning +with the German colonies two other sets of colonies could be added, for +obvious reasons. Neither Portugal nor Belgium has shown any particular +capacity for governing colonial peoples. Valid excuses may in both cases +be advanced, but it would certainly be fair to Belgium to have her start +her great task of reorganization after the World War with neither the +burden nor the temptation of colonies; and in the same way Portugal has, +in reality, the alternative of either giving up her colonies to an +African State or to some other European State in the near future. These +two sets of colonies would add 1,700,000 square miles and eighteen +million inhabitants. It would not, however, be fair to despoil Germany, +Belgium, and Portugal of their colonies unless, as Count Hertling once +demanded, the whole question of colonies be opened. + +How far shall the modern world recognize nations which are not nations, +but combinations of a dominant caste and a suppressed horde of serfs? +Will it not be possible to rebuild a world with compact nations, empires +of self-governing elements, and colonies of backward peoples under +benevolent international control? + +The great test would be easy. Does England propose to erect in India and +Nigeria nations brown and black which shall be eventually independent, +self-governing entities, with a full voice in the British Imperial +Government? If not, let these states either have independence at once +or, if unfitted for that, be put under international tutelage and +guardianship. It is possible that France, with her great heart, may +welcome a Black France,--an enlarged Senegal in Africa; but it would +seem that eventually all Africa south of twenty degrees north latitude +and north of the Union of South Africa should be included in a new +African State. Somaliland and Eritrea should be given to Abyssinia, and +then with Liberia we would start with two small, independent African +states and one large state under international control. + +Does this sound like an impossible dream? No one could be blamed for so +regarding it before 1914. I, myself, would have agreed with them. But +since the nightmare of 1914-1918, since we have seen the impossible +happen and the unspeakable become so common as to cease to stir us; in a +day when Russia has dethroned her Czar, England has granted the suffrage +to women and is in the act of giving Home Rule to Ireland; when Germany +has adopted parliamentary government; when Jerusalem has been delivered +from the Turks; and the United States has taken control of its +railroads,--is it really so far-fetched to think of an Africa for the +Africans, guided by organized civilization? + +No one would expect this new state to be independent and self-governing +from the start. Contrary, however, to present schemes for Africa the +world would expect independence and self-government as the only possible +end of the experiment At first we can conceive of no better way of +governing this state than through that same international control by +which we hope to govern the world for peace. A curious and instructive +parallel has been drawn by Simeon Strunsky: "Just as the common +ownership of the northwest territory helped to weld the colonies into +the United States, so could not joint and benevolent domination of +Africa and of other backward parts of the world be a cornerstone upon +which the future federation of the world could be built?" + +From the British Labor Party comes this declaration: "With regard to the +colonies of the several belligerents in tropical Africa, from sea to +sea, the British Labor Movement disclaims all sympathy with the +imperialist idea that these should form the booty of any nation, should +be exploited for the profit of the capitalists, or should be used for +the promotion of the militarists' aims of government. In view of the +fact that it is impracticable here to leave the various peoples +concerned to settle their own destinies it is suggested that the +interests of humanity would be best served by the full and frank +abandonment by all the belligerents of any dreams of an African Empire; +the transfer of the present colonies of the European Powers in tropical +Africa, however, and the limits of this area may be defined to the +proposed Supernational Authority, or League of Nations." + +Lloyd George himself has said in regard to the German colonies a word +difficult to restrict merely to them: "I have repeatedly declared that +they are held at the disposal of a conference, whose decision must have +primary regard to the wishes and interests of the native inhabitants of +such colonies. None of those territories is inhabited by Europeans. The +governing considerations, therefore, must be that the inhabitants should +be placed under the control of an administration acceptable to +themselves, one of whose main purposes will be to prevent their +exploitation for the benefit of European capitalists or governments." + +The special commission for the government of this African State must, +naturally, be chosen with great care and thought. It must represent, not +simply governments, but civilization, science, commerce, social reform, +religious philanthropy without sectarian propaganda. It must include, +not simply white men, but educated and trained men of Negro blood. The +guiding principles before such a commission should be clearly +understood. In the first place, it ought by this time to be realized by +the labor movement throughout the world that no industrial democracy can +be built on industrial despotism, whether the two systems are in the +same country or in different countries, since the world today so nearly +approaches a common industrial unity. If, therefore, it is impossible in +any single land to uplift permanently skilled labor without also raising +common labor, so, too, there can be no permanent uplift of American or +European labor as long as African laborers are slaves. + +Secondly, this building of a new African State does not mean the +segregation in it of all the world's black folk. It is too late in the +history of the world to go back to the idea of absolute racial +segregation. The new African State would not involve any idea of a vast +transplantation of the twenty-seven million Negroids of the western +world, of Africa, or of the gathering there of Negroid Asia. The Negroes +in the United States and the other Americas have earned the right to +fight out their problems where they are, but they could easily furnish +from time to time technical experts, leaders of thought, and +missionaries of culture for their backward brethren in the new Africa. + +With these two principles, the practical policies to be followed out in +the government of the new states should involve a thorough and complete +system of modern education, built upon the present government, religion, +and customary laws of the natives. There should be no violent tampering +with the curiously efficient African institutions of local +self-government through the family and the tribe; there should be no +attempt at sudden "conversion" by religious propaganda. Obviously +deleterious customs and unsanitary usages must gradually be abolished, +but the general government, set up from without, must follow the example +of the best colonial administrators and build on recognized, established +foundations rather than from entirely new and theoretical plans. + +The real effort to modernize Africa should be through schools rather +than churches. Within ten years, twenty million black children ought to +be in school. Within a generation young Africa should know the essential +outlines of modern culture and groups of bright African students could +be going to the world's great universities. From the beginning the +actual general government should use both colored and white officials +and later natives should be worked in. Taxation and industry could +follow the newer ideals of industrial democracy, avoiding private land +monopoly and poverty, and promoting co-operation in production and the +socialization of income. Difficulties as to capital and revenue would be +far less than many imagine. If a capable English administrator of +British Nigeria could with $1,500 build up a cocoa industry of twenty +million dollars annually, what might not be done in all Africa, without +gin, thieves, and hypocrisy? + +Capital could not only be accumulated in Africa, but attracted from the +white world, with one great difference from present usage: no return so +fabulous would be offered that civilized lands would be tempted to +divert to colonial trade and invest materials and labor needed by the +masses at home, but rather would receive the same modest profits as +legitimate home industry offers. + +There is no sense in asserting that the ideal of an African State, thus +governed and directed toward independence and self-government, is +impossible of realization. The first great essential is that the +civilized world believe in its possibility. By reason of a crime +(perhaps the greatest crime in human history) the modern world has been +systematically taught to despise colored peoples. Men of education and +decency ask, and ask seriously, if it is really possible to uplift +Africa. Are Negroes human, or, if human, developed far enough to absorb, +even under benevolent tutelage, any appreciable part of modern culture? +Has not the experiment been tried in Haiti and Liberia, and failed? + +One cannot ignore the extraordinary fact that a world campaign beginning +with the slave-trade and ending with the refusal to capitalize the word +"Negro," leading through a passionate defense of slavery by attributing +every bestiality to blacks and finally culminating in the evident modern +profit which lies in degrading blacks,--all this has unconsciously +trained millions of honest, modern men into the belief that black folk +are sub-human. This belief is not based on science, else it would be +held as a postulate of the most tentative kind, ready at any time to be +withdrawn in the face of facts; the belief is not based on history, for +it is absolutely contradicted by Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and +Arabian experience; nor is the belief based on any careful survey of the +social development of men of Negro blood to-day in Africa and America. +It is simply passionate, deep-seated heritage, and as such can be moved +by neither argument nor fact. Only faith in humanity will lead the world +to rise above its present color prejudice. + +Those who do believe in men, who know what black men have done in human +history, who have taken pains to follow even superficially the story of +the rise of the Negro in Africa, the West Indies, and the Americas of +our day know that our modern contempt of Negroes rests upon no +scientific foundation worth a moment's attention. It is nothing more +than a vicious habit of mind. It could as easily be overthrown as our +belief in war, as our international hatreds, as our old conception of +the status of women, as our fear of educating the masses, and as our +belief in the necessity of poverty. We can, if we will, inaugurate on +the Dark Continent a last great crusade for humanity. With Africa +redeemed Asia would be safe and Europe indeed triumphant. + +I have not mentioned North and South Africa, because my eye was centered +on the main mass of the Negro race. Yet it is clear that for the +development of Central Africa, Egypt should be free and independent, +there along the highway to a free and independent India; while Morocco, +Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli must become a part of Europe, with modern +development and home rule. South Africa, stripped of its black serfs and +their lands, must admit the resident natives and colored folk to its +body politic as equals. + +The hands which Ethiopia shall soon stretch out unto God are not mere +hands of helplessness and supplication, but rather are they hands of +pain and promise; hard, gnarled, and muscled for the world's real work; +they are hands of fellowship for the half-submerged masses of a +distempered world; they are hands of helpfulness for an agonized God! + + * * * * * + +Twenty centuries before Christ a great cloud swept over seas and settled +on Africa, darkening and well-nigh blotting out the culture of the land +of Egypt. For half a thousand years it rested there, until a black +woman, Queen Nefertari, "the most venerated figure in Egyptian history," +rose to the throne of the Pharaohs and redeemed the world and her +people. Twenty centuries after Christ, Black Africa,--prostrated, raped, +and shamed, lies at the feet of the conquering Philistines of Europe. +Beyond the awful sea a black woman is weeping and waiting, with her sons +on her breast. What shall the end be? The world-old and fearful +things,--war and wealth, murder and luxury? Or shall it be a new +thing,--a new peace and a new democracy of all races,--a great humanity +of equal men? "_Semper novi quid ex Africa_!" + + + + +_The Princess of the Hither Isles_ + + +Her soul was beautiful, wherefore she kept it veiled in lightly-laced +humility and fear, out of which peered anxiously and anon the white and +blue and pale-gold of her face,-beautiful as daybreak or as the laughing +of a child. She sat in the Hither Isles, well walled between the This +and Now, upon a low and silver throne, and leaned upon its armposts, +sadly looking upward toward the sun. Now the Hither Isles are flat and +cold and swampy, with drear-drab light and all manner of slimy, creeping +things, and piles of dirt and clouds of flying dust and sordid scraping +and feeding and noise. + +She hated them and ever as her hands and busy feet swept back the dust +and slime her soul sat silver-throned, staring toward the great hill to +the westward, which shone so brilliant-golden beneath the sunlight and +above the sea. + +The sea moaned and with it moaned the princess' soul, for she was +lonely,--very, very lonely, and full weary of the monotone of life. So +she was glad to see a moving in Yonder Kingdom on the mountainside, +where the sun shone warm, and when the king of Yonder Kingdom, silken in +robe and golden-crowned and warded by his hound, walked down along the +restless waters and sat beside the armpost of her throne, she wondered +why she could not love him and fly with him up the shining mountain's +side, out of the dirt and dust that nested between the This and Now. She +looked at him and tried to be glad, for he was bonny and good to look +upon, this king of Yonder Kingdom,--tall and straight, thin-lipped and +white and tawny. So, again, this last day, she strove to burn life into +his singularly sodden clay,--to put his icy soul aflame wherewith to +warm her own, to set his senses singing. Vacantly he heard her winged +words, staring and curling his long mustaches with vast thoughtfulness. +Then he said: + +"We've found more gold in Yonder Kingdom." + +"Hell seize your gold!" blurted the princess. + +"No,--it's mine," he maintained stolidly. + +She raised her eyes. "It belongs," she said, "to the Empire of the Sun." + +"Nay,--the Sun belongs to us," said the king calmly as he glanced to +where Yonder Kingdom blushed above the sea. She glanced, too, and a +softness crept into her eyes. + +"No, no," she murmured as with hesitating pause she raised her eyes +above the sea, above the hill, up into the sky where the sun hung silent +and splendid. Its robes were heaven's blue, lined and broidered in +living flame, and its crown was one vast jewel, glistening in glittering +glory that made the sun's own face a blackness,--the blackness of utter +light. With blinded, tear-filled eyes she peered into that formless +black and burning face and sensed in its soft, sad gleam unfathomed +understanding. With sudden, wild abandon she stretched her arms toward +it appealing, beseeching, entreating, and lo! + +"Niggers and dagoes," said the king of Yonder Kingdom, glancing +carelessly backward and lighting in his lips a carefully rolled wisp of +fragrant tobacco. She looked back, too, but in half-wondering terror, +for it seemed-- + +A beggar man was creeping across the swamp, shuffling through the dirt +and slime. He was little and bald and black, rough-clothed, sodden with +dirt, and bent with toil. Yet withal something she sensed about him and +it seemed,-- + +The king of Yonder Kingdom lounged more comfortably beside the silver +throne and let curl a tiny trail of light-blue smoke. + +"I hate beggars," he said, "especially brown and black ones." And he +then pointed at the beggar's retinue and laughed,--an unpleasant laugh, +welded of contempt and amusement. The princess looked and shrank on her +throne. He, the beggar man, was--was what? But his retinue,--that +squalid, sordid, parti-colored band of vacant, dull-faced filth and +viciousness--was writhing over the land, and he and they seemed almost +crouching underneath the scorpion lash of one tall skeleton, that looked +like Death, and the twisted woman whom men called Pain. Yet they all +walked as one. + +The King of Yonder Kingdom laughed, but the princess shrank on her +throne, and the king on seeing her thus took a gold-piece from out of +his purse and tossed it carelessly to the passing throng. She watched it +with fascinated eyes,--how it rose and sailed and whirled and struggled +in the air, then seemed to burst, and upward flew its light and sheen +and downward dropped its dross. She glanced at the king, but he was +lighting a match. She watched the dross wallow in the slime, but the +sunlight fell on the back of the beggar's neck, and he turned his head. + +The beggar passing afar turned his head and the princess straightened +on her throne; he turned his head and she shivered forward on her +silver seat; he looked upon her full and slow and suddenly she saw +within that formless black and burning face the same soft, glad gleam of +utter understanding, seen so many times before. She saw the suffering of +endless years and endless love that softened it. She saw the burning +passion of the sun and with it the cold, unbending duty-deeds of upper +air. All she had seen and dreamed of seeing in the rising, blazing sun +she saw now again and with it myriads more of human tenderness, of +longing, and of love. So, then, she knew. She rose as to a dream come +true, with solemn face and waiting eyes. + +With her rose the king of Yonder Kingdom, almost eagerly. + +"You'll come?" he cried. "You'll come and see my gold?" And then in +sudden generosity, he added: "You'll have a golden throne,-up there-when +we marry." + +But she, looking up and on with radiant face, answered softly: "I come." + +So down and up and on they mounted,-the black beggar man and his +cavalcade of Death and Pain, and then a space; and then a lone, black +hound that nosed and whimpered as he ran, and then a space; and then the +king of Yonder Kingdom in his robes, and then a space; and last the +princess of the Hither Isles, with face set sunward and lovelight in her +eyes. + +And so they marched and struggled on and up through endless years and +spaces and ever the black beggar looked back past death and pain toward +the maid and ever the maid strove forward with lovelit eyes, but ever +the great and silken shoulders of the king of Yonder Kingdom arose +between the princess and the sun like a cloud of storms. + +Now, finally, they neared unto the hillsides topmost shoulder and there +most eagerly the king bent to the bowels of the earth and bared its +golden entrails,-all green and gray and rusted-while the princess +strained her pitiful eyes aloft to where the beggar, set 'twixt Death +and Pain, whirled his slim back against the glory of the setting sun and +stood somber in his grave majesty, enhaloed and transfigured, +outstretching his long arms, and around all heaven glittered jewels in a +cloth of gold. + +A while the princess stood and moaned in mad amaze, then with one wilful +wrench she bared the white flowers of her breast and snatching forth her +own red heart held it with one hand aloft while with the other she +gathered close her robe and poised herself. + +The king of Yonder Kingdom looked upward quickly, curiously, still +fingering the earth, and saw the offer of her bleeding heart. + +"It's a Negro!" he growled darkly; "it may not be." + +The woman quivered. + +"It's a nigger!" he repeated fiercely. "It's neither God nor man, but a +nigger!" + +The princess stepped forward. + +The king grasped his sword and looked north and east; he raised his +sword and looked south and west. + +"I seek the sun," the princess sang, and started into the west. + +"Never!" cried the king of Yonder Kingdom, "for such were blasphemy and +defilement and the making of all evil." + +So, raising his great sword he struck with all his might, and more. Down +hissed the blow and it bit that little, white, heart-holding hand until +it flew armless and disbodied up through the sunlit air. Down hissed the +blow and it clove the whimpering hound until his last shriek shook the +stars. Down hissed the blow and it rent the earth. It trembled, fell +apart, and yawned to a chasm wide as earth from heaven, deep as hell, +and empty, cold, and silent. + +On yonder distant shore blazed the mighty Empire of the Sun in warm and +blissful radiance, while on this side, in shadows cold and dark, gloomed +the Hither Isles and the hill that once was golden, but now was green +and slimy dross; all below was the sad and moaning sea, while between +the Here and There flew the severed hand and dripped the bleeding heart. + +Then up from the soul of the princess welled a cry of dark +despair,--such a cry as only babe-raped mothers know and murdered loves. +Poised on the crumbling edge of that great nothingness the princess +hung, hungering with her eyes and straining her fainting ears against +the awful splendor of the sky. + +Out from the slime and shadows groped the king, thundering: "Back--don't +be a fool!" + +But down through the thin ether thrilled the still and throbbing warmth +of heaven's sun, whispering "Leap!" + +And the princess leapt. + + + + +IV + +OF WORK AND WEALTH + + +For fifteen years I was a teacher of youth. They were years out of the +fullness and bloom of my younger manhood. They were years mingled of +half breathless work, of anxious self-questionings, of planning and +replanning, of disillusion, or mounting wonder. + +The teacher's life is a double one. He stands in a certain fear. He +tends to be stilted, almost dishonest, veiling himself before those +awful eyes. Not the eyes of Almighty God are so straight, so +penetrating, so all-seeing as the wonder-swept eyes of youth. You walk +into a room: to the left is a tall window, bright with colors of crimson +and gold and sunshine. Here are rows of books and there is a table. +Somber blackboards clothe the walls to the right and beside your desk is +the delicate ivory of a nobly cast head. But you see nothing of this: +you see only a silence and eyes,--fringed, soft eyes; hard eyes; eyes +great and small; eyes here so poignant with beauty that the sob +struggles in your throat; eyes there so hard with sorrow that laughter +wells up to meet and beat it back; eyes through which the mockery and +ridicule of hell or some pulse of high heaven may suddenly flash. Ah! +That mighty pause before the class,--that orison and benediction--how +much of my life it has been and made. + +I fought earnestly against posing before my class. I tried to be natural +and honest and frank, but it was a bitter hard. What would you say to a +soft, brown face, aureoled in a thousand ripples of gray-black hair, +which knells suddenly: "Do you trust white people?" You do not and you +know that you do not, much as you want to; yet you rise and lie and say +you do; you must say it for her salvation and the world's; you repeat +that she must trust them, that most white folks are honest, and all the +while you are lying and every level, silent eye there knows you are +lying, and miserably you sit and lie on, to the greater glory of God. + +I taught history and economics and something called "sociology" at +Atlanta University, where, as our Mr. Webster used to say, we professors +occupied settees and not mere chairs. I was fortunate with this teaching +in having vivid in the minds of my pupils a concrete social problem of +which we all were parts and which we desperately desired to solve. There +was little danger, then, of my teaching or of their thinking becoming +purely theoretical. Work and wage were thrilling realities to us all. +What did we study? I can tell you best by taking a concrete human case, +such as was continually leaping to our eyes and thought and demanding +understanding and interpretation and what I could bring of prophecy. + + * * * * * + +St. Louis sprawls where mighty rivers meet,--as broad as Philadelphia, +but three stories high instead of two, with wider streets and dirtier +atmosphere, over the dull-brown of wide, calm rivers. The city overflows +into the valleys of Illinois and lies there, writhing under its grimy +cloud. The other city is dusty and hot beyond all dream,--a feverish +Pittsburg in the Mississippi Valley--a great, ruthless, terrible thing! +It is the sort that crushes man and invokes some living superman,--a +giant of things done, a clang of awful accomplishment. + +Three men came wandering across this place. They were neither kings nor +wise men, but they came with every significance--perhaps even +greater--than that which the kings bore in the days of old. There was +one who came from the North,--brawny and riotous with energy, a man of +concentrated power, who held all the thunderbolts of modern capital in +his great fists and made flour and meat, iron and steel, cunning +chemicals, wood, paint and paper, transforming to endless tools a +disemboweled earth. He was one who saw nothing, knew nothing, sought +nothing but the making and buying of that which sells; who out from the +magic of his hand rolled over miles of iron road, ton upon ton of food +and metal and wood, of coal and oil and lumber, until the thronging of +knotted ways in East and real St. Louis was like the red, festering +ganglia of some mighty heart. + +Then from the East and called by the crash of thunderbolts and +forked-flame came the Unwise Man,--unwise by the theft of endless ages, +but as human as anything God ever made. He was the slave for the miracle +maker. It was he that the thunderbolts struck and electrified into +gasping energy. The rasp of his hard breathing shook the midnights of +all this endless valley and the pulse of his powerful arms set the great +nation to trembling. + +And then, at last, out of the South, like a still, small voice, came the +third man,--black, with great eyes and greater memories; hesitantly +eager and yet with the infinite softness and ancient calm which come +from that eternal race whose history is not the history of a day, but +of endless ages. Here, surely, was fit meeting-place for these curiously +intent forces, for these epoch-making and age-twisting forces, for these +human feet on their super-human errands. + +Yesterday I rode in East St. Louis. It is the kind of place one quickly +recognizes,--tireless and with no restful green of verdure; hard and +uneven of street; crude, cold, and even hateful of aspect; conventional, +of course, in its business quarter, but quickly beyond one sees the ruts +and the hollows, the stench of ill-tamed sewerage, unguarded railroad +crossings, saloons outnumbering churches and churches catering to +saloons; homes impudently strait and new, prostitutes free and happy, +gamblers in paradise, the town "wide open," shameless and frank; great +factories pouring out stench, filth, and flame--these and all other +things so familiar in the world market places, where industry triumphs +over thought and products overwhelm men. May I tell, too, how yesterday +I rode in this city past flame-swept walls and over gray ashes; in +streets almost wet with blood and beside ruins, where the bones of dead +men new-bleached peered out at me in sullen wonder? + +Across the river, in the greater city, where bronze St. Louis,--that +just and austere king--looks with angry, fear-swept eyes down from the +rolling heights of Forest Park, which knows him not nor heeds him, there +is something of the same thing, but this city is larger and older and +the forces of evil have had some curbing from those who have seen the +vision and panted for life; but eastward from St. Louis there is a land +of no taxes for great industries; there is a land where you may buy +grafting politicians at far less rate than you would pay for franchises +or privileges in a modern town. There, too, you may escape the buying of +indulgences from the great terminal fist, which squeezes industry out of +St. Louis. In fact, East St. Louis is a paradise for high and frequent +dividends and for the piling up of wealth to be spent in St. Louis and +Chicago and New York and when the world is sane again, across the seas. + +So the Unwise Men pouring out of the East,--falling, scrambling, rushing +into America at the rate of a million a year,--ran, walked, and crawled +to this maelstrom of the workers. They garnered higher wage than ever +they had before, but not all of it came in cash. A part, and an +insidious part, was given to them transmuted into whiskey, prostitutes, +and games of chance. They laughed and disported themselves. God! Had not +their mothers wept enough? It was a good town. There was no veil of +hypocrisy here, but a wickedness, frank, ungilded, and open. To be sure, +there were things sometimes to reveal the basic savagery and thin +veneer. Once, for instance, a man was lynched for brawling on the public +square of the county seat; once a mayor who sought to "clean up" was +publicly assassinated; always there was theft and rumors of theft, +until St. Clair County was a hissing in good men's ears; but always, +too, there were good wages and jolly hoodlums and unchecked wassail of +Saturday nights. Gamblers, big and little, rioted in East St. Louis. The +little gamblers used cards and roulette wheels and filched the weekly +wage of the workers. The greater gamblers used meat and iron and undid +the foundations of the world. All the gods of chance flaunted their wild +raiment here, above the brown flood of the Mississippi. + +Then the world changed; then civilization, built for culture, rebuilt +itself for wilful murder in Europe, Asia, America, and the Southern +Seas. Hands that made food made powder, and iron for railways was iron +for guns. The wants of common men were forgotten before the groan of +giants. Streams of gold, lost from the world's workers, filtered and +trickled into the hands of gamblers and put new power into the +thunderbolts of East St. Louis. + +Wages had been growing before the World War. Slowly but remorselessly +the skilled and intelligent, banding themselves, had threatened the +coffers of the mighty, and slowly the mighty had disgorged. Even the +common workers, the poor and unlettered, had again and again gripped the +sills of the city walls and pulled themselves to their chins; but, alas! +there were so many hands and so many mouths and the feet of the +Disinherited kept coming across the wet paths of the sea to this old El +Dorado. + +War brought subtle changes. Wages stood still while prices fattened. It +was not that the white American worker was threatened with starvation, +but it was what was, after all, a more important question,--whether or +not he should lose his front-room and victrola and even the dream of a +Ford car. + +There came a whirling and scrambling among the workers,--they fought +each other; they climbed on each others' backs. The skilled and +intelligent, banding themselves even better than before, bargained with +the men of might and held them by bitter threats; the less skilled and +more ignorant seethed at the bottom and tried, as of old, to bring it +about that the ignorant and unlettered should learn to stand together +against both capital and skilled labor. + +It was here that there came out of the East a beam of unearthly +light,--a triumph of possible good in evil so strange that the workers +hardly believed it. Slowly they saw the gates of Ellis Island closing, +slowly the footsteps of the yearly million men became fainter and +fainter, until the stream of immigrants overseas was stopped by the +shadow of death at the very time when new murder opened new markets over +all the world to American industry; and the giants with the thunderbolts +stamped and raged and peered out across the world and called for men and +evermore,--men! + +The Unwise Men laughed and squeezed reluctant dollars out of the fists +of the mighty and saw in their dream the vision of a day when labor, as +they knew it, should come into its own; saw this day and saw it with +justice and with right, save for one thing, and that was the sound of +the moan of the Disinherited, who still lay without the walls. When they +heard this moan and saw that it came not across the seas, they were at +first amazed and said it was not true; and then they were mad and said +it should not be. Quickly they turned and looked into the red blackness +of the South and in their hearts were fear and hate! + +What did they see? They saw something at which they had been taught to +laugh and make sport; they saw that which the heading of every newspaper +column, the lie of every cub reporter, the exaggeration of every press +dispatch, and the distortion of every speech and book had taught them +was a mass of despicable men, inhuman; at best, laughable; at worst, the +meat of mobs and fury. + +What did they see? They saw nine and one-half millions of human beings. +They saw the spawn of slavery, ignorant by law and by deviltry, crushed +by insult and debauched by systematic and criminal injustice. They saw a +people whose helpless women have been raped by thousands and whose men +lynched by hundreds in the face of a sneering world. They saw a people +with heads bloody, but unbowed, working faithfully at wages fifty per +cent. lower than the wages of the nation and under conditions which +shame civilization, saving homes, training children, hoping against +hope. They saw the greatest industrial miracle of modern days,--slaves +transforming themselves to freemen and climbing out of perdition by +their own efforts, despite the most contemptible opposition God ever +saw,--they saw all this and what they saw the distraught employers of +America saw, too. + +The North called to the South. A scream of rage went up from the cotton +monopolists and industrial barons of the new South. Who was this who +dared to "interfere" with their labor? Who sought to own their black +slaves but they? Who honored and loved "niggers" as they did? + +They mobilized all the machinery of modern oppression: taxes, city +ordinances, licenses, state laws, municipal regulations, wholesale +police arrests and, of course, the peculiarly Southern method of the mob +and the lyncher. They appealed frantically to the United States +Government; they groveled on their knees and shed wild tears at the +"suffering" of their poor, misguided black friends, and yet, despite +this, the Northern employers simply had to offer two and three dollars a +day and from one-quarter to one-half a million dark workers arose and +poured themselves into the North. They went to the mines of West +Virginia, because war needs coal; they went to the industries of New +Jersey and Pennsylvania, because war needs ships and iron; they went to +the automobiles of Detroit and the load-carrying of Chicago; and they +went to East St. Louis. + +Now there came fear in the hearts of the Unwise Men. It was not that +their wages were lowered,--they went even higher. They received, not +simply, a living wage, but a wage that paid for some of the decencies, +and, in East St. Louis, many of the indecencies of life. What they +feared was not deprivation of the things they were used to and the +shadow of poverty, but rather the definite death of their rising dreams. +But if fear was new-born in the hearts of the Unwise Men, the black man +was born in a house of fear; to him poverty of the ugliest and straitest +type was father, mother, and blood-brother. He was slipping stealthily +northward to escape hunger and insult, the hand of oppression, and the +shadow of death. + +Here, then, in the wide valley which Father Marquette saw peaceful and +golden, lazy with fruit and river, half-asleep beneath the nod of +God,--here, then, was staged every element for human tragedy, every +element of the modern economic paradox. + + * * * * * + +Ah! That hot, wide plain of East St. Louis is a gripping thing. The +rivers are dirty with sweat and toil and lip, like lakes, along the low +and burdened shores; flatboats ramble and thread among them, and above +the steamers bridges swing on great arches of steel, striding with +mighty grace from shore to shore. Everywhere are brick kennels,--tall, +black and red chimneys, tongues of flame. The ground is littered with +cars and iron, tracks and trucks, boxes and crates, metals and coal and +rubber. Nature-defying cranes, grim elevators rise above pile on pile of +black and grimy lumber. And ever below is the water,--wide and silent, +gray-brown and yellow. + +This is the stage for the tragedy: the armored might of the modern world +urged by the bloody needs of the world wants, fevered today by a +fabulous vision of gain and needing only hands, hands, hands! Fear of +loss and greed of gain in the hearts of the giants; the clustered +cunning of the modern workman, skilled as artificer and skilled in the +rhythm of the habit of work, tasting the world's good and panting for +more; fear of poverty and hate of "scabs" in the hearts of the workers; +the dumb yearning in the hearts of the oppressed; the echo of laughter +heard at the foot of the Pyramids; the faithful, plodding slouch of the +laborers; fear of the Shadow of Death in the hearts of black men. + +We ask, and perhaps there is no answer, how far may the captain of the +world's industry do his deeds, despite the grinding tragedy of its +doing? How far may men fight for the beginning of comfort, out beyond +the horrid shadow of poverty, at the cost of starving other and what the +world calls lesser men? How far may those who reach up out of the slime +that fills the pits of the world's damned compel men with loaves to +divide with men who starve? + +The answers to these questions are hard, but yet one answer looms above +all,--justice lies with the lowest; the plight of the lowest man,--the +plight of the black man--deserves the first answer, and the plight of +the giants of industry, the last. + +Little cared East St. Louis for all this bandying of human problems, so +long as its grocers and saloon-keepers flourished and its industries +steamed and screamed and smoked and its bankers grew rich. Stupidity, +license, and graft sat enthroned in the City Hall. The new black folk +were exploited as cheerfully as white Polacks and Italians; the rent of +shacks mounted merrily, the street car lines counted gleeful gains, and +the crimes of white men and black men flourished in the dark. The high +and skilled and smart climbed on the bent backs of the ignorant; harder +the mass of laborers strove to unionize their fellows and to bargain +with employers. + +Nor were the new blacks fools. They had no love for nothings in labor; +they had no wish to make their fellows' wage envelopes smaller, but they +were determined to make their own larger. They, too, were willing to +join in the new union movement. But the unions did not want them. Just +as employers monopolized meat and steel, so they sought to monopolize +labor and beat a giant's bargain. In the higher trades they succeeded. +The best electrician in the city was refused admittance to the union and +driven from the town because he was black. No black builder, printer, or +machinist could join a union or work in East St. Louis, no matter what +his skill or character. But out of the stink of the stockyards and the +dust of the aluminum works and the sweat of the lumber yards the willing +blacks could not be kept. + +They were invited to join unions of the laborers here and they joined. +White workers and black workers struck at the aluminum works in the fall +and won higher wages and better hours; then again in the spring they +struck to make bargaining compulsory for the employer, but this time +they fronted new things. The conflagration of war had spread to America; +government and court stepped in and ordered no hesitation, no strikes; +the work must go on. + +Deeper was the call for workers. Black men poured in and red anger +flamed in the hearts of the white workers. The anger was against the +wielders of the thunderbolts, but here it was impotent because employers +stood with the hand of the government before their faces; it was against +entrenched union labor, which had risen on the backs of the unskilled +and unintelligent and on the backs of those whom for any reason of race +or prejudice or chicane they could beat beyond the bars of competition; +and finally the anger of the mass of white workers was turned toward +these new black interlopers, who seemed to come to spoil their last +dream of a great monopoly of common labor. + +These angers flamed and the union leaders, fearing their fury and +knowing their own guilt, not only in the larger and subtler matter of +bidding their way to power across the weakness of their less fortunate +fellows, but also conscious of their part in making East St. Louis a +miserable town of liquor and lust, leaped quickly to ward the gathering +thunder from their own heads. The thing they wanted was even at their +hands: here were black men, guilty not only of bidding for jobs which +white men could have held at war prices, even if they could not fill, +but also guilty of being black! It was at this blackness that the unions +pointed the accusing finger. It was here that they committed the +unpardonable crime. It was here that they entered the Shadow of Hell, +where suddenly from a fight for wage and protection against industrial +oppression East St. Louis became the center of the oldest and nastiest +form of human oppression,--race hatred. + +The whole situation lent itself to this terrible transformation. +Everything in the history of the United States, from slavery to Sunday +supplements, from disfranchisement to residence segregation, from +"Jim-Crow" cars to a "Jim-Crow" army draft--all this history of +discrimination and insult festered to make men think and willing to +think that the venting of their unbridled anger against 12,000,000 +humble, upstriving workers was a way of settling the industrial tangle +of the ages. It was the logic of the broken plate, which, seared of old +across its pattern, cracks never again, save along the old destruction. + +So hell flamed in East St. Louis! The white men drove even black union +men out of their unions and when the black men, beaten by night and +assaulted, flew to arms and shot back at the marauders, five thousand +rioters arose and surged like a crested stormwave, from noonday until +midnight; they killed and beat and murdered; they dashed out the brains +of children and stripped off the clothes of women; they drove victims +into the flames and hanged the helpless to the lighting poles. Fathers +were killed before the faces of mothers; children were burned; heads +were cut off with axes; pregnant women crawled and spawned in dark, wet +fields; thieves went through houses and firebrands followed; bodies were +thrown from bridges; and rocks and bricks flew through the air. + +The Negroes fought. They grappled with the mob like beasts at bay. They +drove them back from the thickest cluster of their homes and piled the +white dead on the street, but the cunning mob caught the black men +between the factories and their homes, where they knew they were armed +only with their dinner pails. Firemen, policemen, and militiamen stood +with hanging hands or even joined eagerly with the mob. + +It was the old world horror come to life again: all that Jews suffered +in Spain and Poland; all that peasants suffered in France, and Indians +in Calcutta; all that aroused human deviltry had accomplished in ages +past they did in East St. Louis, while the rags of six thousand +half-naked black men and women fluttered across the bridges of the calm +Mississippi. + +The white South laughed,--it was infinitely funny--the "niggers" who had +gone North to escape slavery and lynching had met the fury of the mob +which they had fled. Delegations rushed North from Mississippi and +Texas, with suspicious timeliness and with great-hearted offers to take +these workers back to a lesser hell. The man from Greensville, +Mississippi, who wanted a thousand got six, because, after all, the end +was not so simple. + +No, the end was not simple. On the contrary, the problem raised by East +St. Louis was curiously complex. The ordinary American, tired of the +persistence of "the Negro problem," sees only another anti-Negro mob and +wonders, not when we shall settle this problem, but when we shall be +well rid of it. The student of social things sees another mile-post in +the triumphant march of union labor; he is sorry that blood and rapine +should mark its march,--but, what will you? War is life! + +Despite these smug reasonings the bare facts were these: East St. Louis, +a great industrial center, lost 5,000 laborers,--good, honest, +hard-working laborers. It was not the criminals, either black or white, +who were driven from East St. Louis. They are still there. They will +stay there. But half the honest black laborers were gone. The crippled +ranks of industrial organization in the mid-Mississippi Valley cannot be +recruited from Ellis Island, because in Europe men are dead and maimed, +and restoration, when restoration comes, will raise a European demand +for labor such as this age has never seen. The vision of industrial +supremacy has come to the giants who lead American industry and finance. +But it can never be realized unless the laborers are here to do the +work,--the skilled laborers, the common laborers, the willing laborers, +the well-paid laborers. The present forces, organized however cunningly, +are not large enough to do what America wants; but there is another +group of laborers, 12,000,000 strong, the natural heirs, by every logic +of justice, to the fruits of America's industrial advance. They will be +used simply because they must be used,--but their using means East St. +Louis! + +Eastward from St. Louis lie great centers, like Chicago, Indianapolis, +Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and New York; in every one +of these and in lesser centers there is not only the industrial unrest +of war and revolutionized work, but there is the call for workers, the +coming of black folk, and the deliberate effort to divert the thoughts +of men, and particularly of workingmen, into channels of race hatred +against blacks. In every one of these centers what happened in East St. +Louis has been attempted, with more or less success. Yet the American +Negroes stand today as the greatest strategic group in the world. Their +services are indispensable, their temper and character are fine, and +their souls have seen a vision more beautiful than any other mass of +workers. They may win back culture to the world if their strength can be +used with the forces of the world that make for justice and not against +the hidden hates that fight for barbarism. For fight they must and fight +they will! + +Rising on wings we cross again the rivers of St. Louis, winding and +threading between the towers of industry that threaten and drown the +towers of God. Far, far beyond, we sight the green of fields and hills; +but ever below lies the river, blue,--brownish-gray, touched with the +hint of hidden gold. Drifting through half-flooded lowlands, with +shanties and crops and stunted trees, past struggling corn and +straggling village, we rush toward the Battle of the Marne and the West, +from this dread Battle of the East. Westward, dear God, the fire of Thy +Mad World crimsons our Heaven. Our answering Hell rolls eastward from +St. Louis. + + * * * * * + +Here, in microcosm, is the sort of economic snarl that arose continually +for me and my pupils to solve. We could bring to its unraveling little +of the scholarly aloofness and academic calm of most white universities. +To us this thing was Life and Hope and Death! + +How should we think such a problem through, not simply as Negroes, but +as men and women of a new century, helping to build a new world? And +first of all, here is no simple question of race antagonism. There are +no races, in the sense of great, separate, pure breeds of men, differing +in attainment, development, and capacity. There are great groups,--now +with common history, now with common interests, now with common +ancestry; more and more common experience and present interest drive +back the common blood and the world today consists, not of races, but of +the imperial commercial group of master capitalists, international and +predominantly white; the national middle classes of the several nations, +white, yellow, and brown, with strong blood bonds, common languages, and +common history; the international laboring class of all colors; the +backward, oppressed groups of nature-folk, predominantly yellow, brown, +and black. + +Two questions arise from the work and relations of these groups: how to +furnish goods and services for the wants of men and how equitably and +sufficiently to satisfy these wants. There can be no doubt that we have +passed in our day from a world that could hardly satisfy the physical +wants of the mass of men, by the greatest effort, to a world whose +technique supplies enough for all, if all can claim their right. Our +great ethical question today is, therefore, how may we justly distribute +the world's goods to satisfy the necessary wants of the mass of men. + +What hinders the answer to this question? Dislikes, jealousies, +hatreds,--undoubtedly like the race hatred in East St. Louis; the +jealousy of English and German; the dislike of the Jew and the Gentile. +But these are, after all, surface disturbances, sprung from ancient +habit more than from present reason. They persist and are encouraged +because of deeper, mightier currents. If the white workingmen of East +St. Louis felt sure that Negro workers would not and could not take the +bread and cake from their mouths, their race hatred would never have +been translated into murder. If the black workingmen of the South could +earn a decent living under decent circumstances at home, they would not +be compelled to underbid their white fellows. + +Thus the shadow of hunger, in a world which never needs to be hungry, +drives us to war and murder and hate. But why does hunger shadow so vast +a mass of men? Manifestly because in the great organizing of men for +work a few of the participants come out with more wealth than they can +possibly use, while a vast number emerge with less than can decently +support life. In earlier economic stages we defended this as the reward +of Thrift and Sacrifice, and as the punishment of Ignorance and Crime. +To this the answer is sharp: Sacrifice calls for no such reward and +Ignorance deserves no such punishment. The chief meaning of our present +thinking is that the disproportion between wealth and poverty today +cannot be adequately accounted for by the thrift and ignorance of the +rich and the poor. + +Yesterday we righted one great mistake when we realized that the +ownership of the laborer did not tend to increase production. The world +at large had learned this long since, but black slavery arose again in +America as an inexplicable anachronism, a wilful crime. The freeing of +the black slaves freed America. Today we are challenging another +ownership,-the ownership of materials which go to make the goods we +need. Private ownership of land, tools, and raw materials may at one +stage of economic development be a method of stimulating production and +one which does not greatly interfere with equitable distribution. When, +however, the intricacy and length of technical production increased, the +ownership of these things becomes a monopoly, which easily makes the +rich richer and the poor poorer. Today, therefore, we are challenging +this ownership; we are demanding general consent as to what materials +shall be privately owned and as to how materials shall be used. We are +rapidly approaching the day when we shall repudiate all private property +in raw materials and tools and demand that distribution hinge, not on +the power of those who monopolize the materials, but on the needs of the +mass of men. + +Can we do this and still make sufficient goods, justly gauge the needs +of men, and rightly decide who are to be considered "men"? How do we +arrange to accomplish these things today? Somebody decides whose wants +should be satisfied. Somebody organizes industry so as to satisfy these +wants. What is to hinder the same ability and foresight from being used +in the future as in the past? The amount and kind of human ability +necessary need not be decreased,--it may even be vastly increased, with +proper encouragement and rewards. Are we today evoking the necessary +ability? On the contrary, it is not the Inventor, the Manager, and the +Thinker who today are reaping the great rewards of industry, but rather +the Gambler and the Highwayman. Rightly-organized industry might easily +save the Gambler's Profit and the Monopolist's Interest and by paying a +more discriminating reward in wealth and honor bring to the service of +the state more ability and sacrifice than we can today command. If we do +away with interest and profit, consider the savings that could be made; +but above all, think how great the revolution would be when we ask the +mysterious Somebody to decide in the light of public opinion whose wants +should be satisfied. This is the great and real revolution that is +coming in future industry. + +But this is not the need of the revolution nor indeed, perhaps, its real +beginning. What we must decide sometime is who are to be considered +"men." Today, at the beginning of this industrial change, we are +admitting that economic classes must give way. The laborers' hire must +increase, the employers' profit must be curbed. But how far shall this +change go? Must it apply to all human beings and to all work throughout +the world? + +Certainly not. We seek to apply it slowly and with some reluctance to +white men and more slowly and with greater reserve to white women, but +black folk and brown and for the most part yellow folk we have widely +determined shall not be among those whose needs must justly be heard and +whose wants must be ministered to in the great organization of world +industry. + +In the teaching of my classes I was not willing to stop with showing +that this was unfair,--indeed I did not have to do this. They knew +through bitter experience its rank injustice, because they were black. +What I had to show was that no real reorganization of industry could be +permanently made with the majority of mankind left out. These +disinherited darker peoples must either share in the future industrial +democracy or overturn the world. + +Of course, the foundation of such a system must be a high, ethical +ideal. We must really envisage the wants of humanity. We must want the +wants of all men. We must get rid of the fascination for exclusiveness. +Here, in a world full of folk, men are lonely. The rich are lonely. We +are all frantic for fellow-souls, yet we shut souls out and bar the ways +and bolster up the fiction of the Elect and the Superior when the great +mass of men is capable of producing larger and larger numbers for every +human height of attainment. To be sure, there are differences between +men and groups and there will ever be, but they will be differences of +beauty and genius and of interest and not necessarily of ugliness, +imbecility, and hatred. + +The meaning of America is the beginning of the discovery of the Crowd. +The crowd is not so well-trained as a Versailles garden party of Louis +XIV, but it is far better trained than the Sans-culottes and it has +infinite possibilities. What a world this will be when human +possibilities are freed, when we discover each other, when the stranger +is no longer the potential criminal and the certain inferior! + +What hinders our approach to the ideals outlined above? Our profit from +degradation, our colonial exploitation, our American attitude toward the +Negro. Think again of East St. Louis! Think back of that to slavery and +Reconstruction! Do we want the wants of American Negroes satisfied? Most +certainly not, and that negative is the greatest hindrance today to the +reorganization of work and redistribution of wealth, not only in +America, but in the world. + +All humanity must share in the future industrial democracy of the world. +For this it must be trained in intelligence and in appreciation of the +good and the beautiful. Present Big Business,--that Science of Human +Wants--must be perfected by eliminating the price paid for waste, which +is Interest, and for Chance, which is Profit, and making all income a +personal wage for service rendered by the recipient; by recognizing no +possible human service as great enough to enable a person to designate +another as an idler or as a worker at work which he cannot do. Above +all, industry must minister to the wants of the many and not to the few, +and the Negro, the Indian, the Mongolian, and the South Sea Islander +must be among the many as well as Germans, Frenchmen, and Englishmen. + +In this coming socialization of industry we must guard against that same +tyranny of the majority that has marked democracy in the making of laws. +There must, for instance, persist in this future economics a certain +minimum of machine-like work and prompt obedience and submission. This +necessity is a simple corollary from the hard facts of the physical +world. It must be accepted with the comforting thought that its routine +need not demand twelve hours a day or even eight. With Work for All and +All at Work probably from three to six hours would suffice, and leave +abundant time for leisure, exercise, study, and avocations. + +But what shall we say of work where spiritual values and social +distinctions enter? Who shall be Artists and who shall be Servants in +the world to come? Or shall we all be artists and all serve? + + + + +_The Second Coming_ + + +Three bishops sat in San Francisco, New Orleans, and New York, peering +gloomily into three flickering fires, which cast and recast shuddering +shadows on book-lined walls. Three letters lay in their laps, which +said: + +"And thou, Valdosta, in the land of Georgia, art not least among the +princes of America, for out of thee shall come a governor who shall rule +my people." + +The white bishop of New York scowled and impatiently threw the letter +into the fire. "Valdosta?" he thought,--"That's where I go to the +governor's wedding of little Marguerite, my white flower,--" Then he +forgot the writing in his musing, but the paper flared red in the +fireplace. + +"Valdosta?" said the black bishop of New Orleans, turning uneasily in +his chair. "I must go down there. Those colored folk are acting +strangely. I don't know where all this unrest and moving will lead to. +Then, there's poor Lucy--" And he threw the letter into the fire, but +eyed it suspiciously as it flamed green. "Stranger things than that have +happened," he said slowly, "'and ye shall hear of wars and rumors of +wars ... for nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against +kingdom.'" + +In San Francisco the priest of Japan, abroad to study strange lands, sat +in his lacquer chair, with face like soft-yellow and wrinkled parchment. +Slowly he wrote in a great and golden book: "I have been strangely +bidden to the Val d' Osta, where one of those religious cults that swarm +here will welcome a prophet. I shall go and report to Kioto." + +So in the dim waning of the day before Christmas three bishops met in +Valdosta and saw its mills and storehouses, its wide-throated and sandy +streets, in the mellow glow of a crimson sun. The governor glared +anxiously up the street as he helped the bishop of New York into his car +and welcomed him graciously. + +"I am troubled," said the governor, "about the niggers. They are acting +queerly. I'm not certain but Fleming is back of it." + +"Fleming?" + +"Yes! He's running against me next term for governor; he's a firebrand; +wants niggers to vote and all that--pardon me a moment, there's a darky +I know--" and he hurried to the black bishop, who had just descended +from the "Jim-Crow" car, and clasped his hand cordially. They talked in +whispers. "Search diligently," said the governor in parting, "and bring +me word again." Then returning to his guest, "You will excuse me, won't +you?" he asked, "but I am sorely troubled! I never saw niggers act so. +They're leaving by the hundreds and those who stay are getting impudent! +They seem to be expecting something. What's the crowd, Jim?" + +The chauffeur said that there was some sort of Chinese official in town +and everybody wanted to glimpse him. He drove around another way. + +It all happened very suddenly. The bishop of New York, in full +canonicals for the early wedding, stepped out on the rear balcony of his +mansion, just as the dying sun lit crimson clouds of glory in the East +and burned the West. + +"Fire!" yelled a wag in the surging crowd that was gathering to +celebrate a southern Christmas-eve; all laughed and ran. + +The bishop of New York did not understand. He peered around. Was it that +dark, little house in the far backyard that flamed? Forgetful of his +robes he hurried down,--a brave, white figure in the sunset. He found +himself before an old, black, rickety stable. He could hear the mules +stamping within. + +No. It was not fire. It was the sunset glowing through the cracks. +Behind the hut its glory rose toward God like flaming wings of cherubim. +He paused until he heard the faint wail of a child. Hastily he entered. +A white girl crouched before him, down by the very mules' feet, with a +baby in her arms,-a little mite of a baby that wailed weakly. Behind +mother and child stood a shadow. The bishop of New York turned to the +right, inquiringly, and saw a black man in bishop's robes that faintly +re-echoed his own. He turned away to the left and saw a golden Japanese +in golden garb. Then he heard the black man mutter behind him: "But He +was to come the second time in clouds of glory, with the nations +gathered around Him and angels--" at the word a shaft of glorious light +fell full upon the child, while without came the tramping of unnumbered +feet and the whirring of wings. + +The bishop of New York bent quickly over the baby. It was black! He +stepped back with a gesture of disgust, hardly listening to and yet +hearing the black bishop, who spoke almost as if in apology: + +"She's not really white; I know Lucy--you see, her mother worked for the +governor--" The white bishop turned on his heel and nearly trod on the +yellow priest, who knelt with bowed head before the pale mother and +offered incense and a gift of gold. + +Out into the night rushed the bishop of New York. The wings of the +cherubim were folded black against the stars. As he hastened down the +front staircase the governor came rushing up the street steps. + +"We are late!" he cried nervously. "The bride awaits!" He hurried the +bishop to the waiting limousine, asking him anxiously: "Did you hear +anything? Do you hear that noise? The crowd is growing strangely on the +streets and there seems to be a fire over toward the East. I never saw +so many people here--I fear violence--a mob--a lynching--I fear--hark!" + +What was that which he, too, heard beneath the rhythm of unnumbered +feet? Deep in his heart a wonder grew. What was it? Ah, he knew! It was +music,--some strong and mighty chord. It rose higher as the +brilliantly-lighted church split the night, and swept radiantly toward +them. So high and clear that music flew, it seemed above, around, behind +them. The governor, ashen-faced, crouched in the car; but the bishop +said softly as the ecstasy pulsed in his heart: + +"Such music, such wedding music! What choir is it?" + + + + +V + +"THE SERVANT IN THE HOUSE" + + +The lady looked at me severely; I glanced away. I had addressed the +little audience at some length on the disfranchisement of my people in +society, politics, and industry and had studiously avoided the while her +cold, green eye. I finished and shook weary hands, while she lay in +wait. I knew what was coming and braced my soul. + +"Do you know where I can get a good colored cook?" she asked. I +disclaimed all guilty concupiscence. She came nearer and spitefully +shook a finger in my face. + +"Why--won't--Negroes--work!" she panted. "I have given money for years +to Hampton and Tuskegee and yet I can't get decent servants. They won't +try. They're lazy! They're unreliable! They're impudent and they leave +without notice. They all want to be lawyers and doctors and" (she spat +the word in venom) "ladies!" + +"God forbid!" I answered solemnly, and then being of gentle birth, and +unminded to strike a defenseless female of uncertain years, I ran; I ran +home and wrote a chapter in my book and this is it. + + * * * * * + +I speak and speak bitterly as a servant and a servant's son, for my +mother spent five or more years of her life as a menial; my father's +family escaped, although grandfather as a boat steward had to fight hard +to be a man and not a lackey. He fought and won. My mother's folk, +however, during my childhood, sat poised on that thin edge between the +farmer and the menial. The surrounding Irish had two chances, the +factory and the kitchen, and most of them took the factory, with all its +dirt and noise and low wage. The factory was closed to us. Our little +lands were too small to feed most of us. A few clung almost sullenly to +the old homes, low and red things crouching on a wide level; but the +children stirred restlessly and walked often to town and saw its +wonders. Slowly they dribbled off,--a waiter here, a cook there, help +for a few weeks in Mrs. Blank's kitchen when she had summer boarders. + +Instinctively I hated such work from my birth. I loathed it and shrank +from it. Why? I could not have said. Had I been born in Carolina instead +of Massachusetts I should hardly have escaped the taint of "service." +Its temptations in wage and comfort would soon have answered my +scruples; and yet I am sure I would have fought long even in Carolina, +for I knew in my heart that thither lay Hell. + +I mowed lawns on contract, did "chores" that left me my own man, sold +papers, and peddled tea--anything to escape the shadow of the awful +thing that lurked to grip my soul. Once, and once only, I felt the sting +of its talons. I was twenty and had graduated from Fisk with a +scholarship for Harvard; I needed, however, travel money and clothes and +a bit to live on until the scholarship was due. Fortson was a +fellow-student in winter and a waiter in summer. He proposed that the +Glee Club Quartet of Fisk spend the summer at the hotel in Minnesota +where he worked and that I go along as "Business Manager" to arrange for +engagements on the journey back. We were all eager, but we knew nothing +of table-waiting. "Never mind," said Fortson, "you can stand around the +dining-room during meals and carry out the big wooden trays of dirty +dishes. Thus you can pick up knowledge of waiting and earn good tips and +get free board." I listened askance, but I went. + +I entered that broad and blatant hotel at Lake Minnetonka with distinct +forebodings. The flamboyant architecture, the great verandas, rich +furniture, and richer dresses awed us mightily. The long loft reserved +for us, with its clean little cots, was reassuring; the work was not +difficult,--but the meals! There were no meals. At first, before the +guests ate, a dirty table in the kitchen was hastily strewn with +uneatable scraps. We novices were the only ones who came to eat, while +the guests' dining-room, with its savors and sights, set our appetites +on edge! After a while even the pretense of meals for us was dropped. We +were sure we were going to starve when Dug, one of us, made a startling +discovery: the waiters stole their food and they stole the best. We +gulped and hesitated. Then we stole, too, (or, at least, they stole and +I shared) and we all fattened, for the dainties were marvelous. You +slipped a bit here and hid it there; you cut off extra portions and gave +false orders; you dashed off into darkness and hid in corners and ate +and ate! It was nasty business. I hated it. I was too cowardly to steal +much myself, and not coward enough to refuse what others stole. + +Our work was easy, but insipid. We stood about and watched overdressed +people gorge. For the most part we were treated like furniture and were +supposed to act the wooden part. I watched the waiters even more than +the guests. I saw that it paid to amuse and to cringe. One particular +black man set me crazy. He was intelligent and deft, but one day I +caught sight of his face as he served a crowd of men; he was playing the +clown,--crouching, grinning, assuming a broad dialect when he usually +spoke good English--ah! it was a heartbreaking sight, and he made more +money than any waiter in the dining-room. + +I did not mind the actual work or the kind of work, but it was the +dishonesty and deception, the flattery and cajolery, the unnatural +assumption that worker and diner had no common humanity. It was uncanny. +It was inherently and fundamentally wrong. I stood staring and thinking, +while the other boys hustled about. Then I noticed one fat hog, feeding +at a heavily gilded trough, who could not find his waiter. He beckoned +me. It was not his voice, for his mouth was too full. It was his way, +his air, his assumption. Thus Caesar ordered his legionaries or +Cleopatra her slaves. Dogs recognized the gesture. I did not. He may be +beckoning yet for all I know, for something froze within me. I did not +look his way again. Then and there I disowned menial service for me and +my people. + +I would work my hands off for an honest wage, but for "tips" and +"hand-me-outs," never! Fortson was a pious, honest fellow, who regarded +"tips" as in the nature of things, being to the manner born; but the +hotel that summer in other respects rather astonished even him. He came +to us much flurried one night and got us to help him with a memorial to +the absentee proprietor, telling of the wild and gay doings of midnights +in the rooms and corridors among "tired" business men and their +prostitutes. We listened wide-eyed and eager and wrote the filth out +manfully. The proprietor did not thank Fortson. He did not even answer +the letter. + +When I finally walked out of that hotel and out of menial service +forever, I felt as though, in a field of flowers, my nose had been held +unpleasantly long to the worms and manure at their roots. + + * * * * * + +"Cursed be Canaan!" cried the Hebrew priests. "A servant of servants +shall he be unto his brethren." With what characteristic complacency did +the slaveholders assume that Canaanites were Negroes and their +"brethren" white? Are not Negroes servants? _Ergo_! Upon such spiritual +myths was the anachronism of American slavery built, and this was the +degradation that once made menial servants the aristocrats among colored +folk. House servants secured some decencies of food and clothing and +shelter; they could more easily reach their master's ear; their personal +abilities of character became known and bonds grew between slave and +master which strengthened from friendship to love, from mutual service +to mutual blood. + +Naturally out of this the West Indian servant climbed out of slavery +into citizenship, for few West Indian masters--fewer Spanish or +Dutch--were callous enough to sell their own children into slavery. Not +so with English and Americans. With a harshness and indecency seldom +paralleled in the civilized world white masters on the mainland sold +their mulatto children, half-brothers and half-sisters, and their own +wives in all but name, into life-slavery by the hundreds and thousands. +They originated a special branch of slave-trading for this trade and the +white aristocrats of Virginia and the Carolinas made more money by this +business during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries than in any +other way. + +The clang of the door of opportunity thus knelled in the ears of the +colored house servant whirled the whole face of Negro advancement as on +some great pivot. The movement was slow, but vast. When emancipation +came, before and after 1863, the house servant still held advantages. He +had whatever education the race possessed and his white father, no +longer able to sell him, often helped him with land and protection. +Notwithstanding this the lure of house service for the Negro was gone. +The path of salvation for the emancipated host of black folk lay no +longer through the kitchen door, with its wide hall and pillared veranda +and flowered yard beyond. It lay, as every Negro soon knew and knows, in +escape from menial serfdom. + +In 1860, 98 per cent of the Negroes were servants and serfs. In 1880, 30 +per cent were servants and 65 per cent were serfs. The percentage of +servants then rose slightly and fell again until 21 per cent were in +service in 1910 and, doubtless, much less than 20 per cent today. This +is the measure of our rise, but the Negro will not approach freedom +until this hateful badge of slavery and mediaevalism has been reduced to +less than 10 per cent. + +Not only are less than a fifth of our workers servants today, but the +character of their service has been changed. The million menial workers +among us include 300,000 upper servants,--skilled men and women of +character, like hotel waiters, Pullman porters, janitors, and cooks, +who, had they been white, could have called on the great labor movement +to lift their work out of slavery, to standardize their hours, to define +their duties, and to substitute a living, regular wage for personal +largess in the shape of tips, old clothes, and cold leavings of food. +But the labor movement turned their backs on those black men when the +white world dinned in their ears. _Negroes are servants; servants are +Negroes._ They shut the door of escape to factory and trade in their +fellows' faces and battened down the hatches, lest the 300,000 should be +workers equal in pay and consideration with white men. + +But, if the upper servants could not escape to modern, industrial +conditions, how much the more did they press down on the bodies and +souls of 700,000 washerwomen and household drudges,--ignorant, +unskilled offal of a millionaire industrial system. Their pay was the +lowest and their hours the longest of all workers. The personal +degradation of their work is so great that any white man of decency +would rather cut his daughter's throat than let her grow up to such a +destiny. There is throughout the world and in all races no greater +source of prostitution than this grade of menial service, and the Negro +race in America has largely escaped this destiny simply because its +innate decency leads black women to choose irregular and temporary +sexual relations with men they like rather than to sell themselves to +strangers. To such sexual morals is added (in the nature of +self-defense) that revolt against unjust labor conditions which +expresses itself in "soldiering," sullenness, petty pilfering, +unreliability, and fast and fruitless changes of masters. + +Indeed, here among American Negroes we have exemplified the last and +worst refuge of industrial caste. Menial service is an anachronism,--the +refuse of mediaeval barbarism. Whey, then, does it linger? Why are we +silent about it? Why in the minds of so many decent and up-seeing folks +does the whole Negro problem resolve itself into the matter of their +getting a cook or a maid? + +No one knows better than I the capabilities of a system of domestic +service at its best. I have seen children who were spiritual sons and +daughters of their masters, girls who were friends of their mistresses, +and old servants honored and revered. But in every such case the Servant +had transcended the Menial, the Service had been exalted above the Wage. +Now to accomplish this permanently and universally, calls for the same +revolution in household help as in factory help and public service. +While organized industry has been slowly making its help into +self-respecting, well-paid men, and while public service is beginning to +call for the highest types of educated and efficient thinkers, domestic +service lags behind and insists upon seeking to evolve the best types of +men from the worst conditions. + +The cause of this perversity, to my mind, is twofold. First, the ancient +high estate of Service, now pitifully fallen, yet gasping for breath; +secondly, the present low estate of the outcasts of the world, peering +with blood-shot eyes at the gates of the industrial heaven. + +The Master spoke no greater word than that which said: "Whosoever will +be great among you, let him be your servant!" What is greater than +Personal Service! Surely no social service, no wholesale helping of +masses of men can exist which does not find its effectiveness and beauty +in the personal aid of man to man. It is the purest and holiest of +duties. Some mighty glimmer of this truth survived in those who made the +First Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, the Keepers of the Robes, and the +Knights of the Bath, the highest nobility that hedged an anointed king. +Nor does it differ today in what the mother does for the child or the +daughter for the mother, in all the personal attentions in the +old-fashioned home; this is Service! Think of what Friend has meant, not +simply in spiritual sympathies, but in physical helpfulness. In the +world today what calls for more of love, sympathy, learning, sacrifice, +and long-suffering than the care of children, the preparation of food, +the cleansing and ordering of the home, personal attendance and +companionship, the care of bodies and their raiment--what greater, more +intimate, more holy Services are there than these? + +And yet we are degrading these services and loathing them and scoffing +at them and spitting upon them, first, by turning them over to the +lowest and least competent and worst trained classes in the world, and +then by yelling like spoiled children if our babies are neglected, our +biscuits sodden, our homes dirty, and our baths unpoured. Let one +suggest that the only cure for such deeds is in the uplift of the doer +and our rage is even worse and less explicable. We will call them by +their first names, thus blaspheming a holy intimacy; we will confine +them to back doors; we will insist that their meals be no gracious +ceremony nor even a restful sprawl, but usually a hasty, heckled gulp +amid garbage; we exact, not a natural, but a purchased deference, and we +leave them naked to insult by our children and by our husbands. + +I remember a girl,--how pretty she was, with the crimson flooding the +old ivory of her cheeks and her gracious plumpness! She had come to the +valley during the summer to "do housework." I met and walked home with +her, in the thrilling shadows, to an old village home I knew well; then +as I turned to leave I learned that she was there alone in that house +for a week-end with only one young white man to represent the family. +Oh, he was doubtless a "gentleman" and all that, but for the first time +in my life I saw what a snare the fowler was spreading at the feet of +the daughters of my people, baited by church and state. + +Not alone is the hurt thus offered to the lowly,--Society and Science +suffer. The unit which we seek to make the center of society,--the +Home--is deprived of the help of scientific invention and suggestion. It +is only slowly and by the utmost effort that some small foothold has +been gained for the vacuum cleaner, the washing-machine, the power tool, +and the chemical reagent. In our frantic effort to preserve the last +vestiges of slavery and mediaevalism we not only set out faces against +such improvements, but we seek to use education and the power of the +state to train the servants who do not naturally appear. + +Meantime the wild rush from house service, on the part of all who can +scramble or run, continues. The rules of the labor union are designed, +not simply to raise wages, but to guard against any likeness between +artisan and servant. There is no essential difference in ability and +training between a subway guard and a Pullman porter, but between their +union cards lies a whole world. + +Yet we are silent. Menial service is not a "social problem." It is not +really discussed. There is no scientific program for its "reform." There +is but one panacea: Escape! Get yourselves and your sons and daughters +out of the shadow of this awful thing! Hire servants, but never be one. +Indeed, subtly but surely the ability to hire at least "a maid" is still +civilization's patent to respectability, while "a man" is the first word +of aristocracy. + +All this is because we still consciously and unconsciously hold to the +"manure" theory of social organization. We believe that at the bottom of +organized human life there are necessary duties and services which no +real human being ought to be compelled to do. We push below this mudsill +the derelicts and half-men, whom we hate and despise, and seek to build +above it--Democracy! On such foundations is reared a Theory of +Exclusiveness, a feeling that the world progresses by a process of +excluding from the benefits of culture the majority of men, so that a +gifted minority may blossom. Through this door the modern democrat +arrives to the place where he is willing to allot two able-bodied men +and two fine horses to the task of helping one wizened beldam to take +the morning air. + +Here the absurdity ends. Here all honest minds turn back and ask: Is +menial service permanent or necessary? Can we not transfer cooking from +the home to the scientific laboratory, along with the laundry? Cannot +machinery, in the hands of self-respecting and well-paid artisans, do +our cleaning, sewing, moving, and decorating? Cannot the training of +children become an even greater profession than the attending of the +sick? And cannot personal service and companionship be coupled with +friendship and love where it belongs and whence it can never be divorced +without degradation and pain? + +In fine, can we not, black and white, rich and poor, look forward to a +world of Service without Servants? + +A miracle! you say? True. And only to be performed by the Immortal +Child. + + + + +_Jesus Christ in Texas_ + + +It was in Waco, Texas. + +The convict guard laughed. "I don't know," he said, "I hadn't thought of +that." He hesitated and looked at the stranger curiously. In the solemn +twilight he got an impression of unusual height and soft, dark eyes. +"Curious sort of acquaintance for the colonel," he thought; then he +continued aloud: "But that nigger there is bad, a born thief, and ought +to be sent up for life; got ten years last time--" + +Here the voice of the promoter, talking within, broke in; he was bending +over his figures, sitting by the colonel. He was slight, with a sharp +nose. + +"The convicts," he said, "would cost us $96 a year and board. Well, we +can squeeze this so that it won't be over $125 apiece. Now if these +fellows are driven, they can build this line within twelve months. It +will be running by next April. Freights will fall fifty per cent. Why, +man, you'll be a millionaire in less than ten years." + +The colonel started. He was a thick, short man, with a clean-shaven face +and a certain air of breeding about the lines of his countenance; the +word millionaire sounded well to his ears. He thought--he thought a +great deal; he almost heard the puff of the fearfully costly automobile +that was coming up the road, and he said: + +"I suppose we might as well hire them." + +"Of course," answered the promoter. + +The voice of the tall stranger in the corner broke in here: + +"It will be a good thing for them?" he said, half in question. + +The colonel moved. "The guard makes strange friends," he thought to +himself. "What's this man doing here, anyway?" He looked at him, or +rather looked at his eyes, and then somehow he felt a warming toward +him. He said: + +"Well, at least, it can't harm them; they're beyond that." + +"It will do them good, then," said the stranger again. + +The promoter shrugged his shoulders. "It will do us good," he said. + +But the colonel shook his head impatiently. He felt a desire to justify +himself before those eyes, and he answered: "Yes, it will do them good; +or at any rate it won't make them any worse than they are." Then he +started to say something else, but here sure enough the sound of the +automobile breathing at the gate stopped him and they all arose. + +"It is settled, then," said the promoter. + +"Yes," said the colonel, turning toward the stranger again. "Are you +going into town?" he asked with the Southern courtesy of white men to +white men in a country town. The stranger said he was. "Then come along +in my machine. I want to talk with you about this." + +They went out to the car. The stranger as he went turned again to look +back at the convict. He was a tall, powerfully built black fellow. His +face was sullen, with a low forehead, thick, hanging lips, and bitter +eyes. There was revolt written about his mouth despite the hang-dog +expression. He stood bending over his pile of stones, pounding +listlessly. Beside him stood a boy of twelve,--yellow, with a hunted, +crafty look. The convict raised his eyes and they met the eyes of the +stranger. The hammer fell from his hands. + +The stranger turned slowly toward the automobile and the colonel +introduced him. He had not exactly caught his name, but he mumbled +something as he presented him to his wife and little girl, who were +waiting. + +As they whirled away the colonel started to talk, but the stranger had +taken the little girl into his lap and together they conversed in low +tones all the way home. + +In some way, they did not exactly know how, they got the impression that +the man was a teacher and, of course, he must be a foreigner. The long, +cloak-like coat told this. They rode in the twilight through the lighted +town and at last drew up before the colonel's mansion, with its +ghost-like pillars. + +The lady in the back seat was thinking of the guests she had invited to +dinner and was wondering if she ought not to ask this man to stay. He +seemed cultured and she supposed he was some acquaintance of the +colonel's. It would be rather interesting to have him there, with the +judge's wife and daughter and the rector. She spoke almost before she +thought: + +"You will enter and rest awhile?" + +The colonel and the little girl insisted. For a moment the stranger +seemed about to refuse. He said he had some business for his father, +about town. Then for the child's sake he consented. + +Up the steps they went and into the dark parlor where they sat and +talked a long time. It was a curious conversation. Afterwards they did +not remember exactly what was said and yet they all remembered a certain +strange satisfaction in that long, low talk. + +Finally the nurse came for the reluctant child and the hostess +bethought herself: + +"We will have a cup of tea; you will be dry and tired." + +She rang and switched on a blaze of light. With one accord they all +looked at the stranger, for they had hardly seen him well in the +glooming twilight. The woman started in amazement and the colonel half +rose in anger. Why, the man was a mulatto, surely; even if he did not +own the Negro blood, their practised eyes knew it. He was tall and +straight and the coat looked like a Jewish gabardine. His hair hung in +close curls far down the sides of his face and his face was olive, even +yellow. + +A peremptory order rose to the colonel's lips and froze there as he +caught the stranger's eyes. Those eyes,--where had he seen those eyes +before? He remembered them long years ago. The soft, tear-filled eyes of +a brown girl. He remembered many things, and his face grew drawn and +white. Those eyes kept burning into him, even when they were turned half +away toward the staircase, where the white figure of the child hovered +with her nurse and waved good-night. The lady sank into her chair and +thought: "What will the judge's wife say? How did the colonel come to +invite this man here? How shall we be rid of him?" She looked at the +colonel in reproachful consternation. + +Just then the door opened and the old butler came in. He was an ancient +black man, with tufted white hair, and he held before him a large, +silver tray filled with a china tea service. The stranger rose slowly +and stretched forth his hands as if to bless the viands. The old man +paused in bewilderment, tottered, and then with sudden gladness in his +eyes dropped to his knees, and the tray crashed to the floor. + +"My Lord and my God!" he whispered; but the woman screamed: "Mother's +china!" + +The doorbell rang. + +"Heavens! here is the dinner party!" exclaimed the lady. She turned +toward the door, but there in the hall, clad in her night clothes, was +the little girl. She had stolen down the stairs to see the stranger +again, and the nurse above was calling in vain. The woman felt +hysterical and scolded at the nurse, but the stranger had stretched out +his arms and with a glad cry the child nestled in them. They caught some +words about the "Kingdom of Heaven" as he slowly mounted the stairs with +his little, white burden. + +The mother was glad of anything to get rid of the interloper, even for a +moment. The bell rang again and she hastened toward the door, which the +loitering black maid was just opening. She did not notice the shadow of +the stranger as he came slowly down the stairs and paused by the newel +post, dark and silent. + +The judge's wife came in. She was an old woman, frilled and powdered +into a semblance of youth, and gorgeously gowned. She came forward, +smiling with extended hands, but when she was opposite the stranger, +somewhere a chill seemed to strike her and she shuddered and cried: + +"What a draft!" as she drew a silken shawl about her and shook hands +cordially; she forgot to ask who the stranger was. The judge strode in +unseeing, thinking of a puzzling case of theft. + +"Eh? What? Oh--er--yes,--good evening," he said, "good evening." Behind +them came a young woman in the glory of youth, and daintily silked, +beautiful in face and form, with diamonds around her fair neck. She came +in lightly, but stopped with a little gasp; then she laughed gaily and +said: + +"Why, I beg your pardon. Was it not curious? I thought I saw there +behind your man"--she hesitated, but he must be a servant, she +argued--"the shadow of great, white wings. It was but the light on the +drapery. What a turn it gave me." And she smiled again. With her came a +tall, handsome, young naval officer. Hearing his lady refer to the +servant, he hardly looked at him, but held his gilded cap carelessly +toward him, and the stranger placed it carefully on the rack. + +Last came the rector, a man of forty, and well-clothed. He started to +pass the stranger, stopped, and looked at him inquiringly. + +"I beg your pardon," he said. "I beg your pardon,--I think I have met +you?" + +The stranger made no answer, and the hostess nervously hurried the +guests on. But the rector lingered and looked perplexed. + +"Surely, I know you. I have met you somewhere," he said, putting his +hand vaguely to his head. "You--you remember me, do you not?" + +The stranger quietly swept his cloak aside, and to the hostess' +unspeakable relief passed out of the door. + +"I never knew you," he said in low tones as he went. + +The lady murmured some vain excuse about intruders, but the rector stood +with annoyance written on his face. + +"I beg a thousand pardons," he said to the hostess absently. "It is a +great pleasure to be here,--somehow I thought I knew that man. I am sure +I knew him once." + +The stranger had passed down the steps, and as he passed, the nurse, +lingering at the top of the staircase, flew down after him, caught his +cloak, trembled, hesitated, and then kneeled in the dust. + +He touched her lightly with his hand and said: "Go, and sin no more!" + +With a glad cry the maid left the house, with its open door, and turned +north, running. The stranger turned eastward into the night. As they +parted a long, low howl rose tremulously and reverberated through the +night. The colonel's wife within shuddered. + +"The bloodhounds!" she said. + +The rector answered carelessly: + +"Another one of those convicts escaped, I suppose. Really, they need +severer measures." Then he stopped. He was trying to remember that +stranger's name. + +The judge's wife looked about for the draft and arranged her shawl. The +girl glanced at the white drapery in the hall, but the young officer was +bending over her and the fires of life burned in her veins. + +Howl after howl rose in the night, swelled, and died away. The stranger +strode rapidly along the highway and out into the deep forest. There he +paused and stood waiting, tall and still. + +A mile up the road behind a man was running, tall and powerful and +black, with crime-stained face and convicts' stripes upon him, and +shackles on his legs. He ran and jumped, in little, short steps, and his +chains rang. He fell and rose again, while the howl of the hounds rang +louder behind him. + +Into the forest he leapt and crept and jumped and ran, streaming with +sweat; seeing the tall form rise before him, he stopped suddenly, +dropped his hands in sullen impotence, and sank panting to the earth. A +greyhound shot out of the woods behind him, howled, whined, and fawned +before the stranger's feet. Hound after hound bayed, leapt, and lay +there; then silently, one by one, and with bowed heads, they crept +backward toward the town. + +The stranger made a cup of his hands and gave the man water to drink, +bathed his hot head, and gently took the chains and irons from his feet. +By and by the convict stood up. Day was dawning above the treetops. He +looked into the stranger's face, and for a moment a gladness swept over +the stains of his face. + +"Why, you are a nigger, too," he said. + +Then the convict seemed anxious to justify himself. + +"I never had no chance," he said furtively. + +"Thou shalt not steal," said the stranger. + +The man bridled. + +"But how about them? Can they steal? Didn't they steal a whole year's +work, and then when I stole to keep from starving--" He glanced at the +stranger. + +"No, I didn't steal just to keep from starving. I stole to be stealing. +I can't seem to keep from stealing. Seems like when I see things, I just +must--but, yes, I'll try!" + +The convict looked down at his striped clothes, but the stranger had +taken off his long coat; he had put it around him and the stripes +disappeared. + +In the opening morning the black man started toward the low, log +farmhouse in the distance, while the stranger stood watching him. There +was a new glory in the day. The black man's face cleared up, and the +farmer was glad to get him. All day the black man worked as he had never +worked before. The farmer gave him some cold food. + +"You can sleep in the barn," he said, and turned away. + +"How much do I git a day?" asked the black man. + +The farmer scowled. + +"Now see here," said he. "If you'll sign a contract for the season, I'll +give you ten dollars a month." + +"I won't sign no contract," said the black man doggedly. + +"Yes, you will," said the farmer, threateningly, "or I'll call the +convict guard." And he grinned. + +The convict shrank and slouched to the barn. As night fell he looked out +and saw the farmer leave the place. Slowly he crept out and sneaked +toward the house. He looked through the kitchen door. No one was there, +but the supper was spread as if the mistress had laid it and gone out. +He ate ravenously. Then he looked into the front room and listened. He +could hear low voices on the porch. On the table lay a gold watch. He +gazed at it, and in a moment he was beside it,--his hands were on it! +Quickly he slipped out of the house and slouched toward the field. He +saw his employer coming along the highway. He fled back in tenor and +around to the front of the house, when suddenly he stopped. He felt the +great, dark eyes of the stranger and saw the same dark, cloak-like coat +where the stranger sat on the doorstep talking with the mistress of the +house. Slowly, guiltily, he turned back, entered the kitchen, and laid +the watch stealthily where he had found it; then he rushed wildly back +toward the stranger, with arms outstretched. + +The woman had laid supper for her husband, and going down from the house +had walked out toward a neighbor's. She was gone but a little while, and +when she came back she started to see a dark figure on the doorsteps +under the tall, red oak. She thought it was the new Negro until he said +in a soft voice: + +"Will you give me bread?" + +Reassured at the voice of a white man, she answered quickly in her soft, +Southern tones: + +"Why, certainly." + +She was a little woman, and once had been pretty; but now her face was +drawn with work and care. She was nervous and always thinking, wishing, +wanting for something. She went in and got him some cornbread and a +glass of cool, rich buttermilk; then she came out and sat down beside +him. She began, quite unconsciously, to tell him about herself,--the +things she had done and had not done and the things she had wished for. +She told him of her husband and this new farm they were trying to buy. +She said it was hard to get niggers to work. She said they ought all to +be in the chain-gang and made to work. Even then some ran away. Only +yesterday one had escaped, and another the day before. + +At last she gossiped of her neighbors, how good they were and how bad. + +"And do you like them all?" asked the stranger. + +She hesitated. + +"Most of them," she said; and then, looking up into his face and putting +her hand into his, as though he were her father, she said: + +"There are none I hate; no, none at all." + +He looked away, holding her hand in his, and said dreamily: + +"You love your neighbor as yourself?" + +She hesitated. + +"I try--" she began, and then looked the way he was looking; down under +the hill where lay a little, half-ruined cabin. + +"They are niggers," she said briefly. + +He looked at her. Suddenly a confusion came over her and she insisted, +she knew not why. + +"But they are niggers!" + +With a sudden impulse she arose and hurriedly lighted the lamp that +stood just within the door, and held it above her head. She saw his dark +face and curly hair. She shrieked in angry terror and rushed down the +path, and just as she rushed down, the black convict came running up +with hands outstretched. They met in mid-path, and before he could stop +he had run against her and she fell heavily to earth and lay white and +still. Her husband came rushing around the house with a cry and an oath. + +"I knew it," he said. "It's that runaway nigger." He held the black man +struggling to the earth and raised his voice to a yell. Down the highway +came the convict guard, with hound and mob and gun. They paused across +the fields. The farmer motioned to them. + +"He--attacked--my wife," he gasped. + +The mob snarled and worked silently. Right to the limb of the red oak +they hoisted the struggling, writhing black man, while others lifted the +dazed woman. Right and left, as she tottered to the house, she searched +for the stranger with a yearning, but the stranger was gone. And she +told none of her guests. + +"No--no, I want nothing," she insisted, until they left her, as they +thought, asleep. For a time she lay still, listening to the departure of +the mob. Then she rose. She shuddered as she heard the creaking of the +limb where the body hung. But resolutely she crawled to the window and +peered out into the moonlight; she saw the dead man writhe. He stretched +his arms out like a cross, looking upward. She gasped and clung to the +window sill. Behind the swaying body, and down where the little, +half-ruined cabin lay, a single flame flashed up amid the far-off shout +and cry of the mob. A fierce joy sobbed up through the terror in her +soul and then sank abashed as she watched the flame rise. Suddenly +whirling into one great crimson column it shot to the top of the sky and +threw great arms athwart the gloom until above the world and behind the +roped and swaying form below hung quivering and burning a great crimson +cross. + +She hid her dizzy, aching head in an agony of tears, and dared not look, +for she knew. Her dry lips moved: + +"Despised and rejected of men." + +She knew, and the very horror of it lifted her dull and shrinking +eyelids. There, heaven-tall, earth-wide, hung the stranger on the +crimson cross, riven and blood-stained, with thorn-crowned head and +pierced hands. She stretched her arms and shrieked. + +He did not hear. He did not see. His calm dark eyes, all sorrowful, were +fastened on the writhing, twisting body of the thief, and a voice came +out of the winds of the night, saying: + +"This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise!" + + + + +VI + +OF THE RULING OF MEN + + +The ruling of men is the effort to direct the individual actions of many +persons toward some end. This end theoretically should be the greatest +good of all, but no human group has ever reached this ideal because of +ignorance and selfishness. The simplest object would be rule for the +Pleasure of One, namely the Ruler; or of the Few--his favorites; or of +many--the Rich, the Privileged, the Powerful. Democratic movements +inside groups and nations are always taking place and they are the +efforts to increase the number of beneficiaries of the ruling. In 18th +century Europe, the effort became so broad and sweeping that an attempt +was made at universal expression and the philosophy of the movement said +that if All ruled they would rule for All and thus Universal Good was +sought through Universal Suffrage. + +The unrealized difficulty of this program lay in the widespread +ignorance. The mass of men, even of the more intelligent men, not only +knew little about each other but less about the action of men in groups +and the technique of industry in general. They could only apply +universal suffrage, therefore, to the things they knew or knew +partially: they knew personal and menial service, individual +craftsmanship, agriculture and barter, taxes or the taking of private +property for public ends and the rent of land. With these matters then +they attempted to deal. Under the cry of "Freedom" they greatly relaxed +the grip of selfish interests by restricting menial service, securing +the right of property in handiwork and regulating public taxes; +distributing land ownership and freeing trade and barter. + +While they were doing this against stubborn resistance, a whole new +organization of work suddenly appeared. The suddenness of this +"Industrial Revolution" of the 19th century was partly fortuitous--in +the case of Watt's teakettle--partly a natural development, as in the +matter of spinning, but largely the determination of powerful and +intelligent individuals to secure the benefits of privileged persons, as +in the case of foreign slave trade. + +The result was on the one hand a vast and unexampled development of +industry. Life and civilization in the late 19th and early 20th century +were Industry in its whole conception, language, and accomplishment: the +object of life was to make goods. Now before this giant aspect of +things, the new democracy stood aghast and impotent. It could not rule +because it did not understand: an invincible kingdom of trade, business, +and commerce ruled the world, and before its threshold stood the Freedom +of 18th century philosophy warding the way. Some of the very ones who +were freed from the tyranny of the Middle Age became the tyrants of the +industrial age. + +There came a reaction. Men sneered at "democracy" and politics, and +brought forth Fate and Philanthropy to rule the world--Fate which gave +divine right to rule to the Captains of Industry and their created +Millionaires; Philanthropy which organized vast schemes of relief to +stop at least the flow of blood in the vaster wounds which industry was +making. + +It was at this time that the lowest laborers, who worked hardest, got +least and suffered most, began to mutter and rebel, and among these were +the American Negroes. Lions have no historians, and therefore lion hunts +are thrilling and satisfactory human reading. Negroes had no bards, and +therefore it has been widely told how American philanthropy freed the +slave. In truth the Negro revolted by armed rebellion, by sullen refusal +to work, by poison and murder, by running away to the North and Canada, +by giving point and powerful example to the agitation of the +abolitionists and by furnishing 200,000 soldiers and many times as many +civilian helpers in the Civil War. This war was not a war for Negro +freedom, but a duel between two industrial systems, one of which was +bound to fail because it was an anachronism, and the other bound to +succeed because of the Industrial Revolution. + +When now the Negro was freed the Philanthropists sought to apply to his +situation the Philosophy of Democracy handed down from the 18th century. + +There was a chance here to try democratic rule in a new way, that is, +against the new industrial oppression with a mass of workers who were +not yet in its control. With plenty of land widely distributed, staple +products like cotton, rice, and sugar cane, and a thorough system of +education, there was a unique chance to realize a new modern democracy +in industry in the southern United States which would point the way to +the world. This, too, if done by black folk, would have tended to a new +unity of human beings and an obliteration of human hatreds festering +along the color line. + +Efforts were begun. The 14th and 15th amendments gave the right to vote +to white and black laborers, and they immediately established a public +school system and began to attack the land question. The United States +government was seriously considering the distribution of land and +capital--"40 acres and a mule"--and the price of cotton opened an easy +way to economic independence. Co-operative movements began on a large +scale. + +But alas! Not only were the former slave-owners solidly arrayed against +this experiment, but the owners of the industrial North saw disaster in +any such beginnings of industrial democracy. The opposition based its +objections on the color line, and Reconstruction became in history a +great movement for the self-assertion of the white race against the +impudent ambition of degraded blacks, instead of, in truth, the rise of +a mass of black and white laborers. + +The result was the disfranchisement of the blacks of the South and a +world-wide attempt to restrict democratic development to white races and +to distract them with race hatred against the darker races. This +program, however, although it undoubtedly helped raise the scale of +white labor, in much greater proportion put wealth and power in the +hands of the great European Captains of Industry and made modern +industrial imperialism possible. + +This led to renewed efforts on the part of white European workers to +understand and apply their political power to its reform through +democratic control. + +Whether known as Communism or Socialism or what not, these efforts are +neither new nor strange nor terrible, but world-old and seeking an +absolutely justifiable human ideal--the only ideal that can be sought: +the direction of individual action in industry so as to secure the +greatest good of all. Marxism was one method of accomplishing this, and +its panacea was the doing away with private property in machines and +materials. Two mighty attacks were made on this proposal. One was an +attack on the fundamental democratic foundation: modern European white +industry does not even theoretically seek the good of all, but simply of +all Europeans. This attack was virtually unanswered--indeed some +Socialists openly excluded Negroes and Asiatics from their scheme. From +this it was easy to drift into that form of syndicalism which asks +socialism for the skilled laborer only and leaves the common laborer in +his bonds. + +This throws us back on fundamentals. It compels us again to examine the +roots of democracy. + +Who may be excluded from a share in the ruling of men? Time and time +again the world has answered: + +The Ignorant +The Inexperienced +The Guarded +The Unwilling + +That is, we have assumed that only the intelligent should vote, or those +who know how to rule men, or those who are not under benevolent +guardianship, or those who ardently desire the right. + +These restrictions are not arguments for the wide distribution of the +ballot--they are rather reasons for restriction addressed to the +self-interest of the present real rulers. We say easily, for instance, +"The ignorant ought not to vote." We would say, "No civilized state +should have citizens too ignorant to participate in government," and +this statement is but a step to the fact: that no state is civilized +which has citizens too ignorant to help rule it. Or, in other words, +education is not a prerequisite to political control--political control +is the cause of popular education. + +Again, to make experience a qualification for the franchise is absurd: +it would stop the spread of democracy and make political power +hereditary, a prerequisite of a class, caste, race, or sex. It has of +course been soberly argued that only white folk or Englishmen, or men, +are really capable of exercising sovereign power in a modern state. The +statement proves too much: only yesterday it was Englishmen of high +descent, or men of "blood," or sovereigns "by divine right" who could +rule. Today the civilized world is being ruled by the descendants of +persons who a century ago were pronounced incapable of ever developing a +self-ruling people. In every modern state there must come to the polls +every generation, and indeed every year, men who are inexperienced in +the solutions of the political problems that confront them and who must +experiment in methods of ruling men. Thus and thus only will +civilization grow. + +Again, what is this theory of benevolent guardianship for women, for the +masses, for Negroes--for "lesser breeds without the law"? It is simply +the old cry of privilege, the old assumption that there are those in the +world who know better what is best for others than those others know +themselves, and who can be trusted to do this best. + +In fact no one knows himself but that self's own soul. The vast and +wonderful knowledge of this marvelous universe is locked in the bosoms +of its individual souls. To tap this mighty reservoir of experience, +knowledge, beauty, love, and deed we must appeal not to the few, not to +some souls, but to all. The narrower the appeal, the poorer the culture; +the wider the appeal the more magnificent are the possibilities. +Infinite is human nature. We make it finite by choking back the mass of +men, by attempting to speak for others, to interpret and act for them, +and we end by acting for ourselves and using the world as our private +property. If this were all, it were crime enough--but it is not all: by +our ignorance we make the creation of the greater world impossible; we +beat back a world built of the playing of dogs and laughter of children, +the song of Black Folk and worship of Yellow, the love of women and +strength of men, and try to express by a group of doddering ancients the +Will of the World. + +There are people who insist upon regarding the franchise, not as a +necessity for the many, but as a privilege for the few. They say of +persons and classes: "They do not need the ballot." This is often said +of women. It is argued that everything which women with the ballot might +do for themselves can be done for them; that they have influence and +friends "at court," and that their enfranchisement would simply double +the number of ballots. So, too, we are told that American Negroes can +have done for them by other voters all that they could possibly do for +themselves with the ballot and much more because the white voters are +more intelligent. + +Further than this, it is argued that many of the disfranchised people +recognize these facts. "Women do not want the ballot" has been a very +effective counter war-cry, so much so that many men have taken refuge in +the declaration: "When they want to vote, why, then--" So, too, we are +continually told that the "best" Negroes stay out of politics. + +Such arguments show so curious a misapprehension of the foundation of +the argument for democracy that the argument must be continually +restated and emphasized. We must remember that if the theory of +democracy is correct, the right to vote is not merely a privilege, not +simply a method of meeting the needs of a particular group, and least of +all a matter of recognized want or desire. Democracy is a method of +realizing the broadest measure of justice to all human beings. The world +has, in the past, attempted various methods of attaining this end, most +of which can be summed up in three categories: + +The method of the benevolent tyrant. +The method of the select few. +The method of the excluded groups. + +The method of intrusting the government of a people to a strong ruler +has great advantages when the ruler combines strength with ability, +unselfish devotion to the public good, and knowledge of what that good +calls for. Such a combination is, however, rare and the selection of the +right ruler is very difficult. To leave the selection to force is to put +a premium on physical strength, chance, and intrigue; to make the +selection a matter of birth simply transfers the real power from +sovereign to minister. Inevitably the choice of rulers must fall on +electors. + +Then comes the problem, who shall elect. The earlier answer was: a +select few, such as the wise, the best born, the able. Many people +assume that it was corruption that made such aristocracies fail. By no +means. The best and most effective aristocracy, like the best monarchy, +suffered from lack of knowledge. The rulers did not know or understand +the needs of the people and they could not find out, for in the last +analysis only the man himself, however humble, knows his own condition. +He may not know how to remedy it, he may not realize just what is the +matter; but he knows when something hurts and he alone knows how that +hurt feels. Or if sunk below feeling or comprehension or complaint, he +does not even know that he is hurt, God help his country, for it not +only lacks knowledge, but has destroyed the sources of knowledge. + +So soon as a nation discovers that it holds in the heads and hearts of +its individual citizens the vast mine of knowledge, out of which it may +build a just government, then more and more it calls those citizens to +select their rulers and to judge the justice of their acts. + +Even here, however, the temptation is to ask only for the wisdom of +citizens of a certain grade or those of recognized worth. Continually +some classes are tacitly or expressly excluded. Thus women have been +excluded from modern democracy because of the persistent theory of +female subjection and because it was argued that their husbands or other +male folks would look to their interests. Now, manifestly, most +husbands, fathers, and brothers will, so far as they know how or as they +realize women's needs, look after them. But remember the foundation of +the argument,--that in the last analysis only the sufferer knows his +sufferings and that no state can be strong which excludes from its +expressed wisdom the knowledge possessed by mothers, wives, and +daughters. We have but to view the unsatisfactory relations of the sexes +the world over and the problem of children to realize how desperately we +need this excluded wisdom. + +The same arguments apply to other excluded groups: if a race, like the +Negro race, is excluded, then so far as that race is a part of the +economic and social organization of the land, the feeling and the +experience of that race are absolutely necessary to the realization of +the broadest justice for all citizens. Or if the "submerged tenth" be +excluded, then again, there is lost from the world an experience of +untold value, and they must be raised rapidly to a place where they can +speak for themselves. In the same way and for the same reason children +must be educated, insanity prevented, and only those put under the +guardianship of others who can in no way be trained to speak for +themselves. + +The real argument for democracy is, then, that in the people we have +the source of that endless life and unbounded wisdom which the rulers of +men must have. A given people today may not be intelligent, but through +a democratic government that recognizes, not only the worth of the +individual to himself, but the worth of his feelings and experiences to +all, they can educate, not only the individual unit, but generation +after generation, until they accumulate vast stores of wisdom. Democracy +alone is the method of showing the whole experience of the race for the +benefit of the future and if democracy tries to exclude women or Negroes +or the poor or any class because of innate characteristics which do not +interfere with intelligence, then that democracy cripples itself and +belies its name. + +From this point of view we can easily see the weakness and strength of +current criticism of extension of the ballot. It is the business of a +modern government to see to it, first, that the number of ignorant +within its bounds is reduced to the very smallest number. Again, it is +the duty of every such government to extend as quickly as possible the +number of persons of mature age who can vote. Such possible voters must +be regarded, not as sharers of a limited treasure, but as sources of new +national wisdom and strength. + +The addition of the new wisdom, the new points of view, and the new +interests must, of course, be from time to time bewildering and +confusing. Today those who have a voice in the body politic have +expressed their wishes and sufferings. The result has been a smaller or +greater balancing of their conflicting interests. The appearance of new +interests and complaints means disarrangement and confusion to the older +equilibrium. It is, of course, the inevitable preliminary step to that +larger equilibrium in which the interests of no human soul will be +neglected. These interests will not, surely, be all fully realized, but +they will be recognized and given as full weight as the conflicting +interests will allow. The problem of government thereafter would be to +reduce the necessary conflict of human interests to the minimum. + +From such a point of view one easily sees the strength of the demand for +the ballot on the part of certain disfranchised classes. When women ask +for the ballot, they are asking, not for a privilege, but for a +necessity. You may not see the necessity, you may easily argue that +women do not need to vote. Indeed, the women themselves in considerable +numbers may agree with you. Nevertheless, women do need the ballot. They +need it to right the balance of a world sadly awry because of its brutal +neglect of the rights of women and children. With the best will and +knowledge, no man can know women's wants as well as women themselves. To +disfranchise women is deliberately to turn from knowledge and grope in +ignorance. + +So, too, with American Negroes: the South continually insists that a +benevolent guardianship of whites over blacks is the ideal thing. They +assume that white people not only know better what Negroes need than +Negroes themselves, but that they are anxious to supply these needs. As +a result they grope in ignorance and helplessness. They cannot +"understand" the Negro; they cannot protect him from cheating and +lynching; and, in general, instead of loving guardianship we see anarchy +and exploitation. If the Negro could speak for himself in the South +instead of being spoken for, if he could defend himself instead of +having to depend on the chance sympathy of white citizens, how much +healthier a growth of democracy the South would have. + +So, too, with the darker races of the world. No federation of the world, +no true inter-nation--can exclude the black and brown and yellow races +from its counsels. They must equally and according to number act and be +heard at the world's council. + +It is not, for a moment, to be assumed that enfranchising women will not +cost something. It will for many years confuse our politics. It may even +change the present status of family life. It will admit to the ballot +thousands of inexperienced persons, unable to vote intelligently. Above +all, it will interfere with some of the present prerogatives of men and +probably for some time to come annoy them considerably. + +So, too, Negro enfranchisement meant reconstruction, with its theft and +bribery and incompetency as well as its public schools and enlightened, +social legislation. It would mean today that black men in the South +would have to be treated with consideration, have their wishes respected +and their manhood rights recognized. Every white Southerner, who wants +peons beneath him, who believes in hereditary menials and a privileged +aristocracy, or who hates certain races because of their +characteristics, would resent this. + +Notwithstanding this, if America is ever to become a government built on +the broadest justice to every citizen, then every citizen must be +enfranchised. There may be temporary exclusions, until the ignorant and +their children are taught, or to avoid too sudden an influx of +inexperienced voters. But such exclusions can be but temporary if +justice is to prevail. + +The principle of basing all government on the consent of the governed is +undenied and undeniable. Moreover, the method of modern democracy has +placed within reach of the modern state larger reserves of efficiency, +ability, and even genius than the ancient or mediaeval state dreamed of. +That this great work of the past can be carried further among all races +and nations no one can reasonably doubt. + +Great as are our human differences and capabilities there is not the +slightest scientific reason for assuming that a given human being of any +race or sex cannot reach normal, human development if he is granted a +reasonable chance. This is, of course, denied. It is denied so volubly +and so frequently and with such positive conviction that the majority of +unthinking people seem to assume that most human beings are not human +and have no right to human treatment or human opportunity. All this goes +to prove that human beings are, and must be, woefully ignorant of each +other. It always startles us to find folks thinking like ourselves. We +do not really associate with each other, we associate with our ideas of +each other, and few people have either the ability or courage to +question their own ideas. None have more persistently and dogmatically +insisted upon the inherent inferiority of women than the men with whom +they come in closest contact. It is the husbands, brothers, and sons of +women whom it has been most difficult to induce to consider women +seriously or to acknowledge that women have rights which men are bound +to respect. So, too, it is those people who live in closest contact with +black folk who have most unhesitatingly asserted the utter impossibility +of living beside Negroes who are not industrial or political slaves or +social pariahs. All this proves that none are so blind as those nearest +the thing seen, while, on the other hand, the history of the world is +the history of the discovery of the common humanity of human beings +among steadily-increasing circles of men. + +If the foundations of democracy are thus seen to be sound, how are we +going to make democracy effective where it now fails to +function--particularly in industry? The Marxists assert that industrial +democracy will automatically follow public ownership of machines and +materials. Their opponents object that nationalization of machines and +materials would not suffice because the mass of people do not understand +the industrial process. They do not know: + + What to do + How to do it + Who could do it best + or + How to apportion the resulting goods. + +There can be no doubt but that monopoly of machines and materials is a +chief source of the power of industrial tyrants over the common worker +and that monopoly today is due as much to chance and cheating as to +thrift and intelligence. So far as it is due to chance and cheating, the +argument for public ownership of capital is incontrovertible even though +it involves some interference with long vested rights and inheritance. +This is being widely recognized in the whole civilized world. But how +about the accumulation of goods due to thrift and intelligence--would +democracy in industry interfere here to such an extent as to discourage +enterprise and make impossible the intelligent direction of the mighty +and intricate industrial process of modern times? + +The knowledge of what to do in industry and how to do it in order to +attain the resulting goods rests in the hands and brains of the workers +and managers, and the judges of the result are the public. Consequently +it is not so much a question as to whether the world will admit +democratic control here as how can such control be long avoided when the +people once understand the fundamentals of industry. How can +civilization persist in letting one person or a group of persons, by +secret inherent power, determine what goods shall be made--whether bread +or champagne, overcoats or silk socks? Can so vast a power be kept from +the people? + +But it may be opportunely asked: has our experience in electing public +officials led us to think that we could run railways, cotton mills, and +department stores by popular vote? The answer is clear: no, it has not, +and the reason has been lack of interest in politics and the tyranny of +the Majority. Politics have not touched the matters of daily life which +are nearest the interests of the people--namely, work and wages; or if +they have, they have touched it obscurely and indirectly. When voting +touches the vital, everyday interests of all, nominations and elections +will call for more intelligent activity. Consider too the vast unused +and misused power of public rewards to obtain ability and genius for the +service of the state. If millionaires can buy science and art, cannot +the Democratic state outbid them not only with money but with the vast +ideal of the common weal? + +There still remains, however, the problem of the Majority. + +What is the cause of the undoubted reaction and alarm that the citizens +of democracy continually feel? It is, I am sure, the failure to feel the +full significance of the change of rule from a privileged minority to +that of an omnipotent majority, and the assumption that mere majority +rule is the last word of government; that majorities have no +responsibilities, that they rule by the grace of God. Granted that +government should be based on the consent of the governed, does the +consent of a majority at any particular time adequately express the +consent of all? Has the minority, even though a small and unpopular and +unfashionable minority, no right to respectful consideration? + +I remember that excellent little high school text book, "Nordhoff's +Politics," where I first read of government, saying this sentence at the +beginning of its most important chapter: "The first duty of a minority +is to become a majority." This is a statement which has its underlying +truth, but it also has its dangerous falsehood; viz., any minority which +cannot become a majority is not worthy of any consideration. But suppose +that the out-voted minority is necessarily always a minority? Women, +for instance, can seldom expect to be a majority; artists must always be +the few; ability is always rare, and black folk in this land are but a +tenth. Yet to tyrannize over such minorities, to browbeat and insult +them, to call that government a democracy which makes majority votes an +excuse for crushing ideas and individuality and self-development, is +manifestly a peculiarly dangerous perversion of the real democratic +ideal. It is right here, in its method and not in its object, that +democracy in America and elsewhere has so often failed. We have +attempted to enthrone any chance majority and make it rule by divine +right. We have kicked and cursed minorities as upstarts and usurpers +when their sole offense lay in not having ideas or hair like ours. +Efficiency, ability, and genius found often no abiding place in such a +soil as this. Small wonder that revolt has come and high-handed methods +are rife, of pretending that policies which we favor or persons that we +like have the anointment of a purely imaginary majority vote. + +Are the methods of such a revolt wise, howsoever great the provocation +and evil may be? If the absolute monarchy of majorities is galling and +inefficient, is it any more inefficient than the absolute monarchy of +individuals or privileged classes have been found to be in the past? Is +the appeal from a numerous-minded despot to a smaller, privileged group +or to one man likely to remedy matters permanently? Shall we step +backward a thousand years because our present problem is baffling? + +Surely not and surely, too, the remedy for absolutism lies in calling +these same minorities to council. As the king-in-council succeeded the +king by the grace of God, so in future democracies the toleration and +encouragement of minorities and the willingness to consider as "men" the +crankiest, humblest and poorest and blackest peoples, must be the real +key to the consent of the governed. Peoples and governments will not in +the future assume that because they have the brute power to enforce +momentarily dominant ideas, it is best to do so without thoughtful +conference with the ideas of smaller groups and individuals. +Proportionate representation in physical and spiritual form must come. + +That this method is virtually coming in vogue we can see by the minority +groups of modern legislatures. Instead of the artificial attempts to +divide all possible ideas and plans between two great parties, modern +legislatures in advanced nations tend to develop smaller and smaller +minority groups, while government is carried on by temporary coalitions. +For a time we inveighed against this and sought to consider it a +perversion of the only possible method of practical democracy. Today we +are gradually coming to realize that government by temporary coalition +of small and diverse groups may easily become the most efficient method +of expressing the will of man and of setting the human soul free. The +only hindrance to the faster development of this government by allied +minorities is the fear of external war which is used again and again to +melt these living, human, thinking groups into inhuman, thoughtless, and +murdering machines. + +The persons, then, who come forward in the dawn of the 20th century to +help in the ruling of men must come with the firm conviction that no +nation, race, or sex, has a monopoly of ability or ideas; that no human +group is so small as to deserve to be ignored as a part, and as an +integral and respected part, of the mass of men; that, above all, no +group of twelve million black folk, even though they are at the physical +mercy of a hundred million white majority, can be deprived of a voice in +their government and of the right to self-development without a blow at +the very foundations of all democracy and all human uplift; that the +very criticism aimed today at universal suffrage is in reality a demand +for power on the part of consciously efficient minorities,--but these +minorities face a fatal blunder when they assume that less democracy +will give them and their kind greater efficiency. However desperate the +temptation, no modern nation can shut the gates of opportunity in the +face of its women, its peasants, its laborers, or its socially damned. +How astounded the future world-citizen will be to know that as late as +1918 great and civilized nations were making desperate endeavor to +confine the development of ability and individuality to one sex,--that +is, to one-half of the nation; and he will probably learn that similar +effort to confine humanity to one race lasted a hundred years longer. + +The doctrine of the divine right of majorities leads to almost humorous +insistence on a dead level of mediocrity. It demands that all people be +alike or that they be ostracized. At the same time its greatest +accusation against rebels is this same desire to be alike: the +suffragette is accused of wanting to be a man, the socialist is accused +of envy of the rich, and the black man is accused of wanting to be +white. That any one of these should simply want to be himself is to the +average worshiper of the majority inconceivable, and yet of all worlds, +may the good Lord deliver us from a world where everybody looks like his +neighbor and thinks like his neighbor and is like his neighbor. + +The world has long since awakened to a realization of the evil which a +privileged few may exercise over the majority of a nation. So vividly +has this truth been brought home to us that we have lightly assumed that +a privileged and enfranchised majority cannot equally harm a nation. +Insane, wicked, and wasteful as the tyranny of the few over the many may +be, it is not more dangerous than the tyranny of the many over the few. +Brutal physical revolution can, and usually does, end the tyranny of the +few. But the spiritual losses from suppressed minorities may be vast and +fatal and yet all unknown and unrealized because idea and dream and +ability are paralyzed by brute force. + +If, now, we have a democracy with no excluded groups, with all men and +women enfranchised, what is such a democracy to do? How will it +function? What will be its field of work? + +The paradox which faces the civilized world today is that democratic +control is everywhere limited in its control of human interests. Mankind +is engaged in planting, forestry, and mining, preparing food and +shelter, making clothes and machines, transporting goods and folk, +disseminating news, distributing products, doing public and private +personal service, teaching, advancing science, and creating art. + +In this intricate whirl of activities, the theory of government has been +hitherto to lay down only very general rules of conduct, marking the +limits of extreme anti-social acts, like fraud, theft, and murder. + +The theory was that within these bounds was Freedom--the Liberty to +think and do and move as one wished. The real realm of freedom was found +in experience to be much narrower than this in one direction and much +broader in another. In matters of Truth and Faith and Beauty, the +Ancient Law was inexcusably strait and modern law unforgivably stupid. +It is here that the future and mighty fight for Freedom must and will be +made. Here in the heavens and on the mountaintops, the air of Freedom is +wide, almost limitless, for here, in the highest stretches, individual +freedom harms no man, and, therefore, no man has the right to limit it. + +On the other hand, in the valleys of the hard, unyielding laws of matter +and the social necessities of time production, and human intercourse, +the limits on our freedom are stern and unbending if we would exist and +thrive. This does not say that everything here is governed by +incontrovertible "natural" law which needs no human decision as to raw +materials, machinery, prices, wages, news-dissemination, education of +children, etc.; but it does mean that decisions here must be limited by +brute facts and based on science and human wants. + +Today the scientific and ethical boundaries of our industrial activities +are not in the hands of scientists, teachers, and thinkers; nor is the +intervening opportunity for decision left in the control of the public +whose welfare such decisions guide. On the contrary, the control of +industry is largely in the hands of a powerful few, who decide for their +own good and regardless of the good of others. The making of the rules +of Industry, then, is not in the hands of All, but in the hands of the +Few. The Few who govern industry envisage, not the wants of mankind, but +their own wants. They work quietly, often secretly, opposing Law, on the +one hand, as interfering with the "freedom of industry"; opposing, on +the other hand, free discussion and open determination of the rules of +work and wealth and wages, on the ground that harsh natural law brooks +no interference by Democracy. + +These things today, then, are not matters of free discussion and +determination. They are strictly controlled. Who controls them? Who +makes these inner, but powerful, rules? Few people know. Others assert +and believe these rules are "natural"--a part of our inescapable +physical environment. Some of them doubtless are; but most of them are +just as clearly the dictates of self-interest laid down by the powerful +private persons who today control industry. Just here it is that modern +men demand that Democracy supplant skilfully concealed, but all too +evident, Monarchy. + +In industry, monarchy and the aristocracy rule, and there are those who, +calling themselves democratic, believe that democracy can never enter +here. Industry, they maintain, is a matter of technical knowledge and +ability, and, therefore, is the eternal heritage of the few. They point +to the failure of attempts at democratic control in industry, just as we +used to point to Spanish-American governments, and they expose, not +simply the failures of Russian Soviets,--they fly to arms to prevent +that greatest experiment in industrial democracy which the world has yet +seen. These are the ones who say: We must control labor or civilization +will fail; we must control white labor in Europe and America; above all, +we must control yellow labor in Asia and black labor in Africa and the +South, else we shall have no tea, or rubber, or cotton. And yet,--and +yet is it so easy to give up the dream of democracy? Must industry rule +men or may men rule even industry? And unless men rule industry, can +they ever hope really to make laws or educate children or create beauty? + +That the problem of the democratization of industry is tremendous, let +no man deny. We must spread that sympathy and intelligence which +tolerates the widest individual freedom despite the necessary public +control; we must learn to select for public office ability rather than +mere affability. We must stand ready to defer to knowledge and science +and judge by result rather than by method; and finally we must face the +fact that the final distribution of goods--the question of wages and +income is an ethical and not a mere mechanical problem and calls for +grave public human judgment and not secrecy and closed doors. All this +means time and development. It comes not complete by instant revolution +of a day, nor yet by the deferred evolution of a thousand years--it +comes daily, bit by bit and step by step, as men and women learn and +grow and as children are trained in Truth. + +These steps are in many cases clear: the careful, steady increase of +public democratic ownership of industry, beginning with the simplest +type of public utilities and monopolies, and extending gradually as we +learn the way; the use of taxation to limit inheritance and to take the +unearned increment for public use beginning (but not ending) with a +"single tax" on monopolized land values; the training of the public in +business technique by co-operation in buying and selling, and in +industrial technique by the shop committee and manufacturing guild. + +But beyond all this must come the Spirit--the Will to Human Brotherhood +of all Colors, Races, and Creeds; the Wanting of the Wants of All. +Perhaps the finest contribution of current Socialism to the world is +neither its light nor its dogma, but the idea back of its one mighty +word--Comrade! + + + + +The Call + + +In the Land of the Heavy Laden came once a dreary day. And the King, who +sat upon the Great White Throne, raised his eyes and saw afar off how +the hills around were hot with hostile feet and the sound of the mocking +of his enemies struck anxiously on the King's ears, for the King loved +his enemies. So the King lifted up his hand in the glittering silence +and spake softly, saying: "Call the Servants of the King." Then the +herald stepped before the armpost of the throne, and cried: "Thus saith +the High and Mighty One, who inhabiteth Eternity, whose name is +Holy,--the Servants of the King!" + +Now, of the servants of the king there were a hundred and forty-four +thousand,--tried men and brave, brawny of arm and quick of wit; aye, +too, and women of wisdom and women marvelous in beauty and grace. And +yet on this drear day when the King called, their ears were thick with +the dust of the enemy, their eyes were blinded with the flashing of his +spears, and they hid their faces in dread silence and moved not, even at +the King's behest. So the herald called again. And the servants cowered +in very shame, but none came forth. But the third blast of the herald +struck upon a woman's heart, afar. And the woman straightway left her +baking and sweeping and the rattle of pans; and the woman straightway +left her chatting and gossiping and the sewing of garments, and the +woman stood before the King, saying: "The servant of thy servants, O +Lord." + +Then the King smiled,--smiled wondrously, so that the setting sun burst +through the clouds, and the hearts of the King's men dried hard within +them. And the low-voiced King said, so low that even they that listened +heard not well: "Go, smite me mine enemies, that they cease to do evil +in my sight." And the woman quailed and trembled. Three times she lifted +her eyes unto the hills and saw the heathen whirling onward in their +rage. And seeing, she shrank--three times she shrank and crept to the +King's feet. + +"O King," she cried, "I am but a woman." + +And the King answered: "Go, then, Mother of Men." + +And the woman said, "Nay, King, but I am still a maid." Whereat the King +cried: "O maid, made Man, thou shalt be Bride of God." + +And yet the third time the woman shrank at the thunder in her ears, and +whispered: "Dear God, I am black!" + +The King spake not, but swept the veiling of his face aside and lifted +up the light of his countenance upon her and lo! it was black. + +So the woman went forth on the hills of God to do battle for the King, +on that drear day in the land of the Heavy Laden, when the heathen raged +and imagined a vain thing. + + + + +VII + +THE DAMNATION OF WOMEN + + +I remember four women of my boyhood: my mother, cousin Inez, Emma, and +Ide Fuller. They represented the problem of the widow, the wife, the +maiden, and the outcast. They were, in color, brown and light-brown, +yellow with brown freckles, and white. They existed not for themselves, +but for men; they were named after the men to whom they were related and +not after the fashion of their own souls. + +They were not beings, they were relations and these relations were +enfilmed with mystery and secrecy. We did not know the truth or believe +it when we heard it. Motherhood! What was it? We did not know or greatly +care. My mother and I were good chums. I liked her. After she was dead I +loved her with a fierce sense of personal loss. + +Inez was a pretty, brown cousin who married. What was marriage? We did +not know, neither did she, poor thing! It came to mean for her a litter +of children, poverty, a drunken, cruel companion, sickness, and death. +Why? + +There was no sweeter sight than Emma,--slim, straight, and dainty, +darkly flushed with the passion of youth; but her life was a wild, awful +struggle to crush her natural, fierce joy of love. She crushed it and +became a cold, calculating mockery. + +Last there was that awful outcast of the town, the white woman, Ide +Fuller. What she was, we did not know. She stood to us as embodied filth +and wrong,--but whose filth, whose wrong? + +Grown up I see the problem of these women transfused; I hear all about +me the unanswered call of youthful love, none the less glorious because +of its clean, honest, physical passion. Why unanswered? Because the +youth are too poor to marry or if they marry, too poor to have children. +They turn aside, then, in three directions: to marry for support, to +what men call shame, or to that which is more evil than nothing. It is +an unendurable paradox; it must be changed or the bases of culture will +totter and fall. + +The world wants healthy babies and intelligent workers. Today we refuse +to allow the combination and force thousands of intelligent workers to +go childless at a horrible expenditure of moral force, or we damn them +if they break our idiotic conventions. Only at the sacrifice of +intelligence and the chance to do their best work can the majority of +modern women bear children. This is the damnation of women. + +All womanhood is hampered today because the world on which it is +emerging is a world that tries to worship both virgins and mothers and +in the end despises motherhood and despoils virgins. + +The future woman must have a life work and economic independence. She +must have knowledge. She must have the right of motherhood at her own +discretion. The present mincing horror at free womanhood must pass if we +are ever to be rid of the bestiality of free manhood; not by guarding +the weak in weakness do we gain strength, but by making weakness free +and strong. + +The world must choose the free woman or the white wraith of the +prostitute. Today it wavers between the prostitute and the nun. +Civilization must show two things: the glory and beauty of creating life +and the need and duty of power and intelligence. This and this only will +make the perfect marriage of love and work. + + God is Love, + Love is God; + There is no God but Love + And Work is His Prophet! + +All this of woman,--but what of black women? + +The world that wills to worship womankind studiously forgets its darker +sisters. They seem in a sense to typify that veiled Melancholy: + + "Whose saintly visage is too bright + To hit the sense of human sight, + And, therefore, to our weaker view + O'er-laid with black." + +Yet the world must heed these daughters of sorrow, from the primal black +All-Mother of men down through the ghostly throng of mighty womanhood, +who walked in the mysterious dawn of Asia and Africa; from Neith, the +primal mother of all, whose feet rest on hell, and whose almighty hands +uphold the heavens; all religion, from beauty to beast, lies on her +eager breasts; her body bears the stars, while her shoulders are +necklaced by the dragon; from black Neith down to + + "That starr'd Ethiop queen who strove + To set her beauty's praise above + The sea-nymphs," + +through dusky Cleopatras, dark Candaces, and darker, fiercer Zinghas, to +our own day and our own land,--in gentle Phillis; Harriet, the crude +Moses; the sybil, Sojourner Truth; and the martyr, Louise De Mortie. + +The father and his worship is Asia; Europe is the precocious, +self-centered, forward-striving child; but the land of the mother is and +was Africa. In subtle and mysterious way, despite her curious history, +her slavery, polygamy, and toil, the spell of the African mother +pervades her land. Isis, the mother, is still titular goddess, in +thought if not in name, of the dark continent. Nor does this all seem to +be solely a survival of the historic matriarchate through which all +nations pass,--it appears to be more than this,--as if the great black +race in passing up the steps of human culture gave the world, not only +the Iron Age, the cultivation of the soil, and the domestication of +animals, but also, in peculiar emphasis, the mother-idea. + +"No mother can love more tenderly and none is more tenderly loved than +the Negro mother," writes Schneider. Robin tells of the slave who bought +his mother's freedom instead of his own. Mungo Park writes: "Everywhere +in Africa, I have noticed that no greater affront can be offered a Negro +than insulting his mother. 'Strike me,' cries a Mandingo to his enemy, +'but revile not my mother!'" And the Krus and Fantis say the same. The +peoples on the Zambezi and the great lakes cry in sudden fear or joy: +"O, my mother!" And the Herero swears (endless oath) "By my mother's +tears!" "As the mist in the swamps," cries the Angola Negro, "so lives +the love of father and mother." + +A student of the present Gold Coast life describes the work of the +village headman, and adds: "It is a difficult task that he is set to, +but in this matter he has all-powerful helpers in the female members of +the family, who will be either the aunts or the sisters or the cousins +or the nieces of the headman, and as their interests are identical with +his in every particular, the good women spontaneously train up their +children to implicit obedience to the headman, whose rule in the family +thus becomes a simple and an easy matter. 'The hand that rocks the +cradle rules the world.' What a power for good in the native state +system would the mothers of the Gold Coast and Ashanti become by +judicious training upon native lines!" + +Schweinfurth declares of one tribe: "A bond between mother and child +which lasts for life is the measure of affection shown among the Dyoor" +and Ratzel adds: + +"Agreeable to the natural relation the mother stands first among the +chief influences affecting the children. From the Zulus to the Waganda, +we find the mother the most influential counsellor at the court of +ferocious sovereigns, like Chaka or Mtesa; sometimes sisters take her +place. Thus even with chiefs who possess wives by hundreds the bonds of +blood are the strongest and that the woman, though often heavily +burdened, is in herself held in no small esteem among the Negroes is +clear from the numerous Negro queens, from the medicine women, from the +participation in public meetings permitted to women by many Negro +peoples." + +As I remember through memories of others, backward among my own family, +it is the mother I ever recall,--the little, far-off mother of my +grandmothers, who sobbed her life away in song, longing for her lost +palm-trees and scented waters; the tall and bronzen grandmother, with +beaked nose and shrewish eyes, who loved and scolded her black and +laughing husband as he smoked lazily in his high oak chair; above all, +my own mother, with all her soft brownness,--the brown velvet of her +skin, the sorrowful black-brown of her eyes, and the tiny brown-capped +waves of her midnight hair as it lay new parted on her forehead. All the +way back in these dim distances it is mothers and mothers of mothers who +seem to count, while fathers are shadowy memories. + +Upon this African mother-idea, the westward slave trade and American +slavery struck like doom. In the cruel exigencies of the traffic in men +and in the sudden, unprepared emancipation the great pendulum of social +equilibrium swung from a time, in 1800,--when America had but eight or +less black women to every ten black men,--all too swiftly to a day, in +1870,--when there were nearly eleven women to ten men in our Negro +population. This was but the outward numerical fact of social +dislocation; within lay polygamy, polyandry, concubinage, and moral +degradation. They fought against all this desperately, did these black +slaves in the West Indies, especially among the half-free artisans; they +set up their ancient household gods, and when Toussaint and Cristophe +founded their kingdom in Haiti, it was based on old African tribal ties +and beneath it was the mother-idea. + +The crushing weight of slavery fell on black women. Under it there was +no legal marriage, no legal family, no legal control over children. To +be sure, custom and religion replaced here and there what the law +denied, yet one has but to read advertisements like the following to see +the hell beneath the system: + + "One hundred dollars reward will be given for my two fellows, Abram + and Frank. Abram has a wife at Colonel Stewart's, in Liberty + County, and a mother at Thunderbolt, and a sister in Savannah. + + "WILLIAM ROBERTS." + + + "Fifty dollars reward--Ran away from the subscriber a Negro girl + named Maria. She is of a copper color, between thirteen and + fourteen years of age--bareheaded and barefooted. She is small for + her age--very sprightly and very likely. She stated she was going + to see her mother at Maysville. + + + "SANFORD THOMSON." + + "Fifty dollars reward--Ran away from the subscriber his Negro man + Pauladore, commonly called Paul. I understand General R.Y. Hayne + has purchased his wife and children from H.L. Pinckney, Esq., and + has them now on his plantation at Goose Creek, where, no doubt, the + fellow is frequently lurking. + + "T. DAVIS." + + +The Presbyterian synod of Kentucky said to the churches under its care +in 1835: "Brothers and sisters, parents and children, husbands and +wives, are torn asunder and permitted to see each other no more. These +acts are daily occurring in the midst of us. The shrieks and agony often +witnessed on such occasions proclaim, with a trumpet tongue, the +iniquity of our system. There is not a neighborhood where these +heartrending scenes are not displayed. There is not a village or road +that does not behold the sad procession of manacled outcasts whose +mournful countenances tell that they are exiled by force from all that +their hearts hold dear." + +A sister of a president of the United States declared: "We Southern +ladies are complimented with the names of wives, but we are only the +mistresses of seraglios." + +Out of this, what sort of black women could be born into the world of +today? There are those who hasten to answer this query in scathing terms +and who say lightly and repeatedly that out of black slavery came +nothing decent in womanhood; that adultery and uncleanness were their +heritage and are their continued portion. + +Fortunately so exaggerated a charge is humanly impossible of truth. The +half-million women of Negro descent who lived at the beginning of the +19th century had become the mothers of two and one-fourth million +daughters at the time of the Civil War and five million grand-daughters +in 1910. Can all these women be vile and the hunted race continue to +grow in wealth and character? Impossible. Yet to save from the past the +shreds and vestiges of self-respect has been a terrible task. I most +sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its +fineness up through so devilish a fire. + +Alexander Crummell once said of his sister in the blood: "In her +girlhood all the delicate tenderness of her sex has been rudely +outraged. In the field, in the rude cabin, in the press-room, in the +factory she was thrown into the companionship of coarse and ignorant +men. No chance was given her for delicate reserve or tender modesty. +From her childhood she was the doomed victim of the grossest passion. +All the virtues of her sex were utterly ignored. If the instinct of +chastity asserted itself, then she had to fight like a tiger for the +ownership and possession of her own person and ofttimes had to suffer +pain and lacerations for her virtuous self-assertion. When she reached +maturity, all the tender instincts of her womanhood were ruthlessly +violated. At the age of marriage,--always prematurely anticipated under +slavery--she was mated as the stock of the plantation were mated, not to +be the companion of a loved and chosen husband, but to be the breeder of +human cattle for the field or the auction block." + +Down in such mire has the black motherhood of this race +struggled,--starving its own wailing offspring to nurse to the world +their swaggering masters; welding for its children chains which +affronted even the moral sense of an unmoral world. Many a man and woman +in the South have lived in wedlock as holy as Adam and Eve and brought +forth their brown and golden children, but because the darker woman was +helpless, her chivalrous and whiter mate could cast her off at his +pleasure and publicly sneer at the body he had privately blasphemed. + +I shall forgive the white South much in its final judgment day: I shall +forgive its slavery, for slavery is a world-old habit; I shall forgive +its fighting for a well-lost cause, and for remembering that struggle +with tender tears; I shall forgive its so-called "pride of race," the +passion of its hot blood, and even its dear, old, laughable strutting +and posing; but one thing I shall never forgive, neither in this world +nor the world to come: its wanton and continued and persistent insulting +of the black womanhood which it sought and seeks to prostitute to its +lust. I cannot forget that it is such Southern gentlemen into whose +hands smug Northern hypocrites of today are seeking to place our women's +eternal destiny,--men who insist upon withholding from my mother and +wife and daughter those signs and appellations of courtesy and respect +which elsewhere he withholds only from bawds and courtesans. + +The result of this history of insult and degradation has been both +fearful and glorious. It has birthed the haunting prostitute, the +brawler, and the beast of burden; but it has also given the world an +efficient womanhood, whose strength lies in its freedom and whose +chastity was won in the teeth of temptation and not in prison and +swaddling clothes. + +To no modern race does its women mean so much as to the Negro nor come +so near to the fulfilment of its meaning. As one of our women writes: +"Only the black woman can say 'when and where I enter, in the quiet, +undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing +or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with +me.'" + +They came first, in earlier days, like foam flashing on dark, silent +waters,--bits of stern, dark womanhood here and there tossed almost +carelessly aloft to the world's notice. First and naturally they assumed +the panoply of the ancient African mother of men, strong and black, +whose very nature beat back the wilderness of oppression and contempt. +Such a one was that cousin of my grandmother, whom western Massachusetts +remembers as "Mum Bett." Scarred for life by a blow received in defense +of a sister, she ran away to Great Barrington and was the first slave, +or one of the first, to be declared free under the Bill of Rights of +1780. The son of the judge who freed her, writes: + + "Even in her humble station, she had, when occasion required it, an + air of command which conferred a degree of dignity and gave her an + ascendancy over those of her rank, which is very unusual in persons + of any rank or color. Her determined and resolute character, which + enabled her to limit the ravages of Shay's mob, was manifested in + her conduct and deportment during her whole life. She claimed no + distinction, but it was yielded to her from her superior + experience, energy, skill, and sagacity. Having known this woman as + familiarly as I knew either of my parents, I cannot believe in the + moral or physical inferiority of the race to which she belonged. + The degradation of the African must have been otherwise caused than + by natural inferiority." + +It was such strong women that laid the foundations of the great Negro +church of today, with its five million members and ninety millions of +dollars in property. One of the early mothers of the church, Mary Still, +writes thus quaintly, in the forties: + + "When we were as castouts and spurned from the large churches, + driven from our knees, pointed at by the proud, neglected by the + careless, without a place of worship, Allen, faithful to the + heavenly calling, came forward and laid the foundation of this + connection. The women, like the women at the sepulcher, were early + to aid in laying the foundation of the temple and in helping to + carry up the noble structure and in the name of their God set up + their banner; most of our aged mothers are gone from this to a + better state of things. Yet some linger still on their staves, + watching with intense interest the ark as it moves over the + tempestuous waves of opposition and ignorance.... + + "But the labors of these women stopped not here, for they knew well + that they were subject to affliction and death. For the purpose of + mutual aid, they banded themselves together in society capacity, + that they might be better able to administer to each others' + sufferings and to soften their own pillows. So we find the females + in the early history of the church abounding in good works and in + acts of true benevolence." + +From such spiritual ancestry came two striking figures of +war-time,--Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. + +For eight or ten years previous to the breaking out of the Civil War, +Harriet Tubman was a constant attendant at anti-slavery conventions, +lectures, and other meetings; she was a black woman of medium size, +smiling countenance, with her upper front teeth gone, attired in coarse +but neat clothes, and carrying always an old-fashioned reticule at her +side. Usually as soon as she sat down she would drop off in sound sleep. + +She was born a slave in Maryland, in 1820, bore the marks of the lash on +her flesh; and had been made partially deaf, and perhaps to some degree +mentally unbalanced by a blow on the head in childhood. Yet she was one +of the most important agents of the Underground Railroad and a leader of +fugitive slaves. She ran away in 1849 and went to Boston in 1854, where +she was welcomed into the homes of the leading abolitionists and where +every one listened with tense interest to her strange stories. She was +absolutely illiterate, with no knowledge of geography, and yet year +after year she penetrated the slave states and personally led North over +three hundred fugitives without losing a single one. A standing reward +of $10,000 was offered for her, but as she said: "The whites cannot +catch us, for I was born with the charm, and the Lord has given me the +power." She was one of John Brown's closest advisers and only severe +sickness prevented her presence at Harper's Ferry. + +When the war cloud broke, she hastened to the front, flitting down along +her own mysterious paths, haunting the armies in the field, and serving +as guide and nurse and spy. She followed Sherman in his great march to +the sea and was with Grant at Petersburg, and always in the camps the +Union officers silently saluted her. + +The other woman belonged to a different type,--a tall, gaunt, black, +unsmiling sybil, weighted with the woe of the world. She ran away from +slavery and giving up her own name took the name of Sojourner Truth. She +says: "I can remember when I was a little, young girl, how my old mammy +would sit out of doors in the evenings and look up at the stars and +groan, and I would say, 'Mammy, what makes you groan so?' And she would +say, 'I am groaning to think of my poor children; they do not know where +I be and I don't know where they be. I look up at the stars and they +look up at the stars!'" + +Her determination was founded on unwavering faith in ultimate good. +Wendell Phillips says that he was once in Faneuil Hall, when Frederick +Douglass was one of the chief speakers. Douglass had been describing the +wrongs of the Negro race and as he proceeded he grew more and more +excited and finally ended by saying that they had no hope of justice +from the whites, no possible hope except in their own right arms. It +must come to blood! They must fight for themselves. Sojourner Truth was +sitting, tall and dark, on the very front seat facing the platform, and +in the hush of feeling when Douglass sat down she spoke out in her deep, +peculiar voice, heard all over the hall: + +"Frederick, is God dead?" + +Such strong, primitive types of Negro womanhood in America seem to some +to exhaust its capabilities. They know less of a not more worthy, but a +finer type of black woman wherein trembles all of that delicate sense of +beauty and striving for self-realization, which is as characteristic of +the Negro soul as is its quaint strength and sweet laughter. George +Washington wrote in grave and gentle courtesy to a Negro woman, in 1776, +that he would "be happy to see" at his headquarters at any time, a +person "to whom nature has been so liberal and beneficial in her +dispensations." This child, Phillis Wheatley, sang her trite and halting +strain to a world that wondered and could not produce her like. Measured +today her muse was slight and yet, feeling her striving spirit, we call +to her still in her own words: + + "Through thickest glooms look back, immortal shade." + +Perhaps even higher than strength and art loom human sympathy and +sacrifice as characteristic of Negro womanhood. Long years ago, before +the Declaration of Independence, Kate Ferguson was born in New York. +Freed, widowed, and bereaved of her children before she was twenty, she +took the children of the streets of New York, white and black, to her +empty arms, taught them, found them homes, and with Dr. Mason of Murray +Street Church established the first modern Sunday School in Manhattan. + +Sixty years later came Mary Shadd up out of Delaware. She was tall and +slim, of that ravishing dream-born beauty,--that twilight of the races +which we call mulatto. Well-educated, vivacious, with determination +shining from her sharp eyes, she threw herself singlehanded into the +great Canadian pilgrimage when thousands of hunted black men hurried +northward and crept beneath the protection of the lion's paw. She became +teacher, editor, and lecturer; tramping afoot through winter snows, +pushing without blot or blemish through crowd and turmoil to conventions +and meetings, and finally becoming recruiting agent for the United +States government in gathering Negro soldiers in the West. + +After the war the sacrifice of Negro women for freedom and uplift is one +of the finest chapters in their history. Let one life typify all: Louise +De Mortie, a free-born Virginia girl, had lived most of her life in +Boston. Her high forehead, swelling lips, and dark eyes marked her for a +woman of feeling and intellect. She began a successful career as a +public reader. Then came the War and the Call. She went to the orphaned +colored children of New Orleans,--out of freedom into insult and +oppression and into the teeth of the yellow fever. She toiled and +dreamed. In 1887 she had raised money and built an orphan home and that +same year, in the thirty-fourth year of her young life, she died, saying +simply: "I belong to God." + +As I look about me today in this veiled world of mine, despite the +noisier and more spectacular advance of my brothers, I instinctively +feel and know that it is the five million women of my race who really +count. Black women (and women whose grandmothers were black) are today +furnishing our teachers; they are the main pillars of those social +settlements which we call churches; and they have with small doubt +raised three-fourths of our church property. If we have today, as seems +likely, over a billion dollars of accumulated goods, who shall say how +much of it has been wrung from the hearts of servant girls and +washerwomen and women toilers in the fields? As makers of two million +homes these women are today seeking in marvelous ways to show forth our +strength and beauty and our conception of the truth. + +In the United States in 1910 there were 4,931,882 women of Negro +descent; over twelve hundred thousand of these were children, another +million were girls and young women under twenty, and two and a +half-million were adults. As a mass these women were unlettered,--a +fourth of those from fifteen to twenty-five years of age were unable to +write. These women are passing through, not only a moral, but an +economic revolution. Their grandmothers married at twelve and fifteen, +but twenty-seven per cent of these women today who have passed fifteen +are still single. + +Yet these black women toil and toil hard. There were in 1910 two and a +half million Negro homes in the United States. Out of these homes walked +daily to work two million women and girls over ten years of age,--over +half of the colored female population as against a fifth in the case of +white women. These, then, are a group of workers, fighting for their +daily bread like men; independent and approaching economic freedom! They +furnished a million farm laborers, 80,000 farmers, 22,000 teachers, +600,000 servants and washerwomen, and 50,000 in trades and +merchandizing. + +The family group, however, which is the ideal of the culture with which +these folk have been born, is not based on the idea of an economically +independent working mother. Rather its ideal harks back to the sheltered +harem with the mother emerging at first as nurse and homemaker, while +the man remains the sole breadwinner. What is the inevitable result of +the clash of such ideals and such facts in the colored group? Broken +families. + +Among native white women one in ten is separated from her husband by +death, divorce, or desertion. Among Negroes the ratio is one in seven. +Is the cause racial? No, it is economic, because there is the same high +ratio among the white foreign-born. The breaking up of the present +family is the result of modern working and sex conditions and it hits +the laborers with terrible force. The Negroes are put in a peculiarly +difficult position, because the wage of the male breadwinner is below +the standard, while the openings for colored women in certain lines of +domestic work, and now in industries, are many. Thus while toil holds +the father and brother in country and town at low wages, the sisters and +mothers are called to the city. As a result the Negro women outnumber +the men nine or ten to eight in many cities, making what Charlotte +Gilman bluntly calls "cheap women." + +What shall we say to this new economic equality in a great laboring +class? Some people within and without the race deplore it. "Back to the +homes with the women," they cry, "and higher wage for the men." But how +impossible this is has been shown by war conditions. Cessation of +foreign migration has raised Negro men's wages, to be sure--but it has +not only raised Negro women's wages, it has opened to them a score of +new avenues of earning a living. Indeed, here, in microcosm and with +differences emphasizing sex equality, is the industrial history of labor +in the 19th and 20th centuries. We cannot abolish the new economic +freedom of women. We cannot imprison women again in a home or require +them all on pain of death to be nurses and housekeepers. + +What is today the message of these black women to America and to the +world? The uplift of women is, next to the problem of the color line and +the peace movement, our greatest modern cause. When, now, two of these +movements--woman and color--combine in one, the combination has deep +meaning. + +In other years women's way was clear: to be beautiful, to be petted, to +bear children. Such has been their theoretic destiny and if perchance +they have been ugly, hurt, and barren, that has been forgotten with +studied silence. In partial compensation for this narrowed destiny the +white world has lavished its politeness on its womankind,--its chivalry +and bows, its uncoverings and courtesies--all the accumulated homage +disused for courts and kings and craving exercise. The revolt of white +women against this preordained destiny has in these latter days reached +splendid proportions, but it is the revolt of an aristocracy of brains +and ability,--the middle class and rank and file still plod on in the +appointed path, paid by the homage, the almost mocking homage, of men. + +From black women of America, however, (and from some others, too, but +chiefly from black women and their daughters' daughters) this gauze has +been withheld and without semblance of such apology they have been +frankly trodden under the feet of men. They are and have been objected +to, apparently for reasons peculiarly exasperating to reasoning human +beings. When in this world a man comes forward with a thought, a deed, a +vision, we ask not, how does he look,--but what is his message? It is of +but passing interest whether or not the messenger is beautiful or +ugly,--the _message_ is the thing. This, which is axiomatic among men, +has been in past ages but partially true if the messenger was a woman. +The world still wants to ask that a woman primarily be pretty and if she +is not, the mob pouts and asks querulously, "What else are women for?" +Beauty "is its own excuse for being," but there are other excuses, as +most men know, and when the white world objects to black women because +it does not consider them beautiful, the black world of right asks two +questions: "What is beauty?" and, "Suppose you think them ugly, what +then? If ugliness and unconventionality and eccentricity of face and +deed do not hinder men from doing the world's work and reaping the +world's reward, why should it hinder women?" + +Other things being equal, all of us, black and white, would prefer to be +beautiful in face and form and suitably clothed; but most of us are not +so, and one of the mightiest revolts of the century is against the +devilish decree that no woman is a woman who is not by present standards +a beautiful woman. This decree the black women of America have in large +measure escaped from the first. Not being expected to be merely +ornamental, they have girded themselves for work, instead of adorning +their bodies only for play. Their sturdier minds have concluded that if +a woman be clean, healthy, and educated, she is as pleasing as God wills +and far more useful than most of her sisters. If in addition to this she +is pink and white and straight-haired, and some of her fellow-men prefer +this, well and good; but if she is black or brown and crowned in curled +mists (and this to us is the most beautiful thing on earth), this is +surely the flimsiest excuse for spiritual incarceration or banishment. + +The very attempt to do this in the case of Negro Americans has strangely +over-reached itself. By so much as the defective eyesight of the white +world rejects black women as beauties, by so much the more it needs them +as human beings,--an enviable alternative, as many a white woman knows. +Consequently, for black women alone, as a group, "handsome is that +handsome does" and they are asked to be no more beautiful than God made +them, but they are asked to be efficient, to be strong, fertile, +muscled, and able to work. If they marry, they must as independent +workers be able to help support their children, for their men are paid +on a scale which makes sole support of the family often impossible. + +On the whole, colored working women are paid as well as white working +women for similar work, save in some higher grades, while colored men +get from one-fourth to three-fourths less than white men. The result is +curious and three-fold: the economic independence of black women is +increased, the breaking up of Negro families must be more frequent, and +the number of illegitimate children is decreased more slowly among them +than other evidences of culture are increased, just as was once true in +Scotland and Bavaria. + +What does this mean? It forecasts a mighty dilemma which the whole world +of civilization, despite its will, must one time frankly face: the +unhusbanded mother or the childless wife. God send us a world with +woman's freedom and married motherhood inextricably wed, but until He +sends it, I see more of future promise in the betrayed girl-mothers of +the black belt than in the childless wives of the white North, and I +have more respect for the colored servant who yields to her frank +longing for motherhood than for her white sister who offers up children +for clothes. Out of a sex freedom that today makes us shudder will come +in time a day when we will no longer pay men for work they do not do, +for the sake of their harem; we will pay women what they earn and insist +on their working and earning it; we will allow those persons to vote who +know enough to vote, whether they be black or female, white or male; and +we will ward race suicide, not by further burdening the over-burdened, +but by honoring motherhood, even when the sneaking father shirks his +duty. + + * * * * * + +"Wait till the lady passes," said a Nashville white boy. + +"She's no lady; she's a nigger," answered another. + +So some few women are born free, and some amid insult and scarlet +letters achieve freedom; but our women in black had freedom thrust +contemptuously upon them. With that freedom they are buying an +untrammeled independence and dear as is the price they pay for it, it +will in the end be worth every taunt and groan. Today the dreams of the +mothers are coming true. We have still our poverty and degradation, our +lewdness and our cruel toil; but we have, too, a vast group of women of +Negro blood who for strength of character, cleanness of soul, and +unselfish devotion of purpose, is today easily the peer of any group of +women in the civilized world. And more than that, in the great rank and +file of our five million women we have the up-working of new +revolutionary ideals, which must in time have vast influence on the +thought and action of this land. + +For this, their promise, and for their hard past, I honor the women of +my race. Their beauty,--their dark and mysterious beauty of midnight +eyes, crumpled hair, and soft, full-featured faces--is perhaps more to +me than to you, because I was born to its warm and subtle spell; but +their worth is yours as well as mine. No other women on earth could +have emerged from the hell of force and temptation which once engulfed +and still surrounds black women in America with half the modesty and +womanliness that they retain. I have always felt like bowing myself +before them in all abasement, searching to bring some tribute to these +long-suffering victims, these burdened sisters of mine, whom the world, +the wise, white world, loves to affront and ridicule and wantonly to +insult. I have known the women of many lands and nations,--I have known +and seen and lived beside them, but none have I known more sweetly +feminine, more unswervingly loyal, more desperately earnest, and more +instinctively pure in body and in soul than the daughters of my black +mothers. This, then,--a little thing--to their memory and inspiration. + + + + +_Children of the Moon_ + + + I am dead; + Yet somehow, somewhere, + In Time's weird contradiction, I + May tell of that dread deed, wherewith + I brought to Children of the Moon + Freedom and vast salvation. + + I was a woman born, + And trod the streaming street, + That ebbs and flows from Harlem's hills, + Through caves and cañons limned in light, + Down to the twisting sea. + + That night of nights, + I stood alone and at the End, + Until the sudden highway to the moon, + Golden in splendor, + Became too real to doubt. + + Dimly I set foot upon the air, + I fled, I flew, through the thrills of light, + With all about, above, below, the whirring + Of almighty wings. + + I found a twilight land, + Where, hardly hid, the sun + Sent softly-saddened rays of + Red and brown to burn the iron soil + And bathe the snow-white peaks + In mighty splendor. + + Black were the men, + Hard-haired and silent-slow, + Moving as shadows, + Bending with face of fear to earthward; + And women there were none. + + "Woman, woman, woman!" + I cried in mounting terror. + "Woman and Child!" + And the cry sang back + Through heaven, with the + Whirring of almighty wings. + + Wings, wings, endless wings,-- + Heaven and earth are wings; + Wings that flutter, furl, and fold, + Always folding and unfolding, + Ever folding yet again; + Wings, veiling some vast + And veiléd face, + In blazing blackness, + Behind the folding and unfolding, + The rolling and unrolling of + Almighty wings! + + I saw the black men huddle, + Fumed in fear, falling face downward; + Vainly I clutched and clawed, + Dumbly they cringed and cowered, + Moaning in mournful monotone: + + O Freedom, O Freedom, + O Freedom over me; + Before I'll be a slave, + I'll be buried in my grave, + And go home to my God, + And be free. + + It was angel-music + From the dead, + And ever, as they sang, + Some wingéd thing of wings, filling all heaven, + Folding and unfolding, and folding yet again, + + Tore out their blood and entrails, + 'Til I screamed in utter terror; + And a silence came-- + A silence and the wailing of a babe. + + Then, at last, I saw and shamed; + I knew how these dumb, dark, and dusky things + Had given blood and life, + To fend the caves of underground, + The great black caves of utter night, + Where earth lay full of mothers + And their babes. + + Little children sobbing in darkness, + Little children crying in silent pain, + Little mothers rocking and groping and struggling, + Digging and delving and groveling, + Amid the dying-dead and dead-in-life + And drip and dripping of warm, wet blood, + Far, far beneath the wings,-- + The folding and unfolding of almighty wings. + + I bent with tears and pitying hands, + Above these dusky star-eyed children,-- + Crinkly-haired, with sweet-sad baby voices, + Pleading low for light and love and living-- + And I crooned: + + "Little children weeping there, + God shall find your faces fair; + Guerdon for your deep distress, + He shall send His tenderness; + For the tripping of your feet + Make a mystic music sweet + In the darkness of your hair; + Light and laughter in the air-- + Little children weeping there, + God shall find your faces fair!" + + I strode above the stricken, bleeding men, + The rampart 'ranged against the skies, + And shouted: + "Up, I say, build and slay; + Fight face foremost, force a way, + Unloose, unfetter, and unbind; + Be men and free!" + + Dumbly they shrank, + Muttering they pointed toward that peak, + Than vastness vaster, + Whereon a darkness brooded, + "Who shall look and live," they sighed; + And I sensed + The folding and unfolding of almighty wings. + + Yet did we build of iron, bricks, and blood; + We built a day, a year, a thousand years, + Blood was the mortar,--blood and tears, + And, ah, the Thing, the Thing of wings, + The wingéd, folding Wing of Things + Did furnish much mad mortar + For that tower. + + Slow and ever slower rose the towering task, + And with it rose the sun, + Until at last on one wild day, + Wind-whirled, cloud-swept and terrible + I stood beneath the burning shadow + Of the peak, + Beneath the whirring of almighty wings, + While downward from my feet + Streamed the long line of dusky faces + And the wail of little children sobbing under earth. + + Alone, aloft, + I saw through firmaments on high + The drama of Almighty God, + With all its flaming suns and stars. + "Freedom!" I cried. + "Freedom!" cried heaven, earth, and stars; + And a Voice near-far, + Amid the folding and unfolding of almighty wings, + Answered, "I am Freedom-- + Who sees my face is free-- + He and his." + + I dared not look; + Downward I glanced on deep-bowed heads and closed eyes, + Outward I gazed on flecked and flaming blue-- + But ever onward, upward flew + The sobbing of small voices,-- + Down, down, far down into the night. + + Slowly I lifted livid limbs aloft; + Upward I strove: the face! the face! + Onward I reeled: the face! the face! + To beauty wonderful as sudden death, + Or horror horrible as endless life-- + Up! Up! the blood-built way; + (Shadow grow vaster! + Terror come faster!) + Up! Up! to the blazing blackness + Of one veiléd face. + + And endless folding and unfolding, + Rolling and unrolling of almighty wings. + The last step stood! + The last dim cry of pain + Fluttered across the stars, + And then-- + Wings, wings, triumphant wings, + Lifting and lowering, waxing and waning, + Swinging and swaying, twirling and whirling, + Whispering and screaming, streaming and gleaming, + Spreading and sweeping and shading and flaming-- + Wings, wings, eternal wings, + 'Til the hot, red blood, + Flood fleeing flood, + Thundered through heaven and mine ears, + While all across a purple sky, + The last vast pinion. + Trembled to unfold. + + I rose upon the Mountain of the Moon,-- + I felt the blazing glory of the Sun; + I heard the Song of Children crying, "Free!" + I saw the face of Freedom-- + And I died. + + + + + +VIII + +THE IMMORTAL CHILD + + +If a man die shall he live again? We do not know. But this we do know, +that our children's children live forever and grow and develop toward +perfection as they are trained. All human problems, then, center in the +Immortal Child and his education is the problem of problems. And first +for illustration of what I would say may I not take for example, out of +many millions, the life of one dark child. + + * * * * * + +It is now nineteen years since I first saw Coleridge-Taylor. We were in +London in some somber hall where there were many meeting, men and women +called chiefly to the beautiful World's Fair at Paris; and then a few +slipping over to London to meet Pan-Africa. We were there from Cape +Colony and Liberia, from Haiti and the States, and from the Islands of +the Sea. I remember the stiff, young officer who came with credentials +from Menelik of Abyssinia; I remember the bitter, black American who +whispered how an army of the Soudan might some day cross the Alps; I +remember Englishmen, like the Colensos, who sat and counseled with us; +but above all, I remember Coleridge-Taylor. + +He was a little man and nervous, with dark-golden face and hair that +bushed and strayed. His fingers were always nervously seeking hidden +keys and he was quick with enthusiasm,--instinct with life. His bride of +a year or more,--dark, too, in her whiter way,--was of the calm and +quiet type. Her soft contralto voice thrilled us often as she sang, +while her silences were full of understanding. + +Several times we met in public gatherings and then they bade me to their +home,--a nest of a cottage, with gate and garden, hidden in London's +endless rings of suburbs. I dimly recall through these years a room in +cozy disorder, strewn with music--music on the floor and music on the +chairs, music in the air as the master rushed to the piano now and +again to make some memory melodious--some allusion real. + +And then at last, for it was the last, I saw Coleridge-Taylor in a +mighty throng of people crowding the Crystal Palace. We came in facing +the stage and scarcely dared look around. On the stage were a full +orchestra, a chorus of eight hundred voices, and some of the world's +famous soloists. He left his wife sitting beside me, and she was very +silent as he went forward to lift the conductor's baton. It was one of +the earliest renditions of "Hiawatha's Wedding Feast." We sat at rapt +attention and when the last, weird music died, the great chorus and +orchestra rose as a man to acclaim the master; he turned toward the +audience and then we turning for the first time saw that sea of faces +behind,--the misty thousands whose voices rose to one strong shout of +joy! It was a moment such as one does not often live. It seemed, and +was, prophetic. + +This young man who stepped forth as one of the most notable of modern +English composers had a simple and uneventful career. His father was a +black surgeon of Sierra Leone who came to London for study. While there +he met an English girl and this son was born, in London, in 1875. + +Then came a series of chances. His father failed to succeed and +disappeared back to Africa leaving the support of the child to the poor +working mother. The child showed evidences of musical talent and a +friendly workingman gave him a little violin. A musician glancing from +his window saw a little dark boy playing marbles on the street with a +tiny violin in one hand; he gave him lessons. He happened to gain +entrance into a charity school with a master of understanding mind who +recognized genius when he saw it; and finally his beautiful child's +treble brought him to the notice of the choirmaster of St. George's, +Croyden. + +So by happy accident his way was clear. Within his soul was no +hesitation. He was one of those fortunate beings who are not called to +_Wander-Jahre_, but are born with sails set and seas charted. Already +the baby of four little years was a musician, and as choir-boy and +violinist he walked unhesitatingly and surely to his life work. He was +graduated with honors from the Royal Academy of Music in 1894, and +married soon after the daughter of one of his professors. Then his life +began, and whatever it lacked of physical adventure in the conventional +round of a modern world-city, it more than gained in the almost +tempestuous outpouring of his spiritual nature. Life to him was neither +meat nor drink,--it was creative flame; ideas, plans, melodies glowed +within him. To create, to do, to accomplish; to know the white glory of +mighty midnights and the pale Amen of dawns was his day of days. Songs, +pianoforte and violin pieces, trios and quintets for strings, incidental +music, symphony, orchestral, and choral works rushed from his fingers. +Nor were they laboriously contrived or light, thin things made to meet +sudden popularity. Rather they were the flaming bits that must be said +and sung,--that could not wait the slower birth of years, so hurried to +the world as though their young creator knew that God gave him but a +day. His whole active life was scarcely more than a decade and a half, +and yet in that time, without wealth, friends, or influence, in the face +of perhaps the most critical and skeptical and least imaginative +civilization of the modern world, he wrote his name so high as a +creative artist that it cannot soon be forgotten. + +And this was but one side of the man. On the other was the +sweet-tempered, sympathetic comrade, always willing to help, never +knowing how to refuse, generous with every nerve and fiber of his being. +Think of a young musician, father of a family, who at the time of his +death held positions as Associate of the Royal College of Music, +Professor in Trinity College and Crystal Palace, Conductor of the Handel +Choral Society and the Rochester Choral Society, Principal of the +Guildhall School of Music, where he had charge of the choral choir, the +orchestra, and the opera. He was repeatedly the leader of music +festivals all over Great Britain and a judge of contests. And with all +this his house was open in cheering hospitality to friends and his hand +ever ready with sympathy and help. + +When such a man dies, it must bring pause to a reasoning world. We may +call his death-sickness pneumonia, but we all know that it was sheer +overwork,--the using of a delicately-tuned instrument too commonly and +continuously and carelessly to let it last its normal life. We may well +talk of the waste of wood and water, of food and fire, but the real and +unforgivable waste of modern civilization is the waste of ability and +genius,--the killing of useful, indispensable men who have no right to +die; who deserve, not for themselves, but for the world, leisure, +freedom from distraction, expert medical advice, and intelligent +sympathy. + +Coleridge-Taylor's life work was not finished,--it was but well begun. +He lived only his first period of creative genius, when melody and +harmony flashed and fluttered in subtle, compelling, and more than +promising profusion. He did not live to do the organized, constructive +work in the full, calm power of noonday,--the reflective finishing of +evening. In the annals of the future his name must always stand high, +but with the priceless gift of years, who can say where it might not +have stood. + +Why should he have worked so breathlessly, almost furiously? It was, we +may be sure, because with unflinching determination and with no thought +of surrender he faced the great alternative,--the choice which the +cynical, thoughtless, busy, modern world spreads grimly before its +greater souls--food or beauty, bread and butter, or ideals. And +continually we see worthier men turning to the pettier, cheaper +thing--the popular portrait, the sensational novel, the jingling song. +The choice is not always between the least and the greatest, the high +and the empty, but only too often it is between starvation and +something. When, therefore, we see a man, working desperately to earn a +living and still stooping to no paltry dickering and to no unworthy +work, handing away a "Hiawatha" for less than a song, pausing for +glimpses of the stars when a world full of charcoal glowed far more +warmly and comfortably, we know that such a man is a hero in a sense +never approached by the swashbuckling soldier or the lying patriot. + +Deep as was the primal tragedy in the life of Coleridge-Taylor, there +lay another still deeper. He smiled at it lightly, as we all do,--we who +live within the veil,--to hide the deeper hurt. He had, with us, that +divine and African gift of laughter, that echo of a thousand centuries +of suns. I mind me how once he told of the bishop, the well-groomed +English bishop, who eyed the artist gravely, with his eye-glass--hair +and color and figure,--and said quite audibly to his friends, "Quite +interesting--looks intelligent,--yes--yes!" + +Fortunate was Coleridge-Taylor to be born in Europe and to speak a +universal tongue. In America he could hardly have had his career. His +genius was, to be sure, recognized (with some palpitation and +consternation) when it came full-grown across the seas with an English +imprint; but born here, it might never have been permitted to grow. We +know in America how to discourage, choke, and murder ability when it so +far forgets itself as to choose a dark skin. England, thank God, is +slightly more civilized than her colonies; but even there the path of +this young man was no way of roses and just a shade thornier than that +of whiter men. He did not complain at it,--he did not + + "Wince and cry aloud." + +Rather the hint here and there of color discrimination in England +aroused in him deeper and more poignant sympathy with his people +throughout the world. He was one with that great company of +mixed-blooded men: Pushkin and Dumas, Hamilton and Douglass, Browning +and many others; but he more than most of these men knew the call of the +blood when it came and listened and answered. He came to America with +strange enthusiasm. He took with quite simple and unconscious grace the +conventional congratulations of the musical world. He was used to that. +But to his own people--to the sad sweetness of their voices, their +inborn sense of music, their broken, half-articulate voices,--he leapt +with new enthusiasm. From the fainter shadowings of his own life, he +sensed instinctively the vaster tragedy of theirs. His soul yearned to +give voice and being to this human thing. He early turned to the sorrow +songs. He sat at the faltering feet of Paul Laurence Dunbar and he asked +(as we sadly shook our heads) for some masterpiece of this world-tragedy +that his soul could set to music. And then, so characteristically, he +rushed back to England, composed a half-dozen exquisite harmonies +haunted by slave-songs, led the Welsh in their singing, listened to the +Scotch, ordered great music festivals in all England, wrote for Beerbohm +Tree, took on another music professorship, promised a trip to Germany, +and at last, staggering home one night, on his way to his wife and +little boy and girl, fell in his tracks and in four days was dead, at +the age of thirty-seven. They say that in his death-throe he arose and +facing some great, ghostly choir raised his last baton, while all around +the massive silence rang with the last mist-music of his dying ears. + +He was buried from St. Michael's on September 5, 1912, with the acclaim +of kings and music masters and little children and to the majestic +melody of his own music. The tributes that followed him to his grave +were unusually hearty and sincere. The head of the Royal College calls +the first production of "Hiawatha" one of the most remarkable events in +modern English musical history and the trilogy one of the most +universally-beloved works of modern English music. One critic calls +Taylor's a name "which with that of Elgar represented the nation's most +individual output" and calls his "Atonement" "perhaps the finest passion +music of modern times." Another critic speaks of his originality: +"Though surrounded by the influences that are at work in Europe today, +he retained his individuality to the end, developing his style, however, +and evincing new ideas in each succeeding work. His untimely death at +the age of thirty-seven, a short life--like those of Schubert, +Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Hugo Wolf--has robbed the world of one of its +noblest singers, one of those few men of modern times who found +expression in the language of musical song, a lyricist of power and +worth." + +But the tributes did not rest with the artist; with peculiar unanimity +they sought his "sterling character," "the good husband and father," the +"staunch and loyal friend." And perhaps I cannot better end these +hesitating words than with that tribute from one who called this master, +friend, and whose lament cried in the night with more of depth and +passion than Alfred Noyes is wont in his self-repression to voice: + + "Through him, his race, a moment, lifted up + Forests of hands to beauty, as in prayer, + Touched through his lips the sacramental cup + And then sank back, benumbed in our bleak air." + +Yet, consider: to many millions of people this man was all wrong. +_First_, he ought never to have been born, for he was the mulatto son of +a white woman. _Secondly_, he should never have been educated as a +musician,--he should have been trained, for his "place" in the world and +to make him satisfied therewith. _Thirdly_, he should not have married +the woman he loved and who loved him, for she was white and the niece of +an Oxford professor. _Fourthly_, the children of such a union--but why +proceed? You know it all by heart. + +If he had been black, like Paul Laurence Dunbar, would the argument have +been different? No. He should never have been born, for he is a +"problem." He should never be educated, for he cannot be educated. He +should never marry, for that means children and there is no place for +black children in this world. + + * * * * * + +In the treatment of the child the world foreshadows its own future and +faith. All words and all thinking lead to the child,--to that vast +immortality and the wide sweep of infinite possibility which the child +represents. Such thought as this it was that made the Master say of old +as He saw baby faces: + +"And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones, it is better for +him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into +the sea." + +And yet the mothers and fathers and the men and women of my race must +often pause and ask: Is it worth while? Ought children be born to us? +Have we any right to make human souls face what we face today? The +answer is clear: If the great battle of human right against poverty, +against disease, against color prejudice is to be won, it must be won, +not in our day, but in the day of our children's children. Ours is the +blood and dust of battle; theirs the rewards of victory. If, then, they +are not there because we have not brought them into the world, we have +been the guiltiest factor in conquering ourselves. It is our duty, then, +to accomplish the immortality of black blood, in order that the day may +come in this dark world when poverty shall be abolished, privilege be +based on individual desert, and the color of a man's skin be no bar to +the outlook of his soul. + +If it is our duty as honest colored men and women, battling for a great +principle, to bring not aimless rafts of children to the world, but as +many as, with reasonable sacrifice, we can train to largest manhood, +what in its inner essence shall that training be, particularly in its +beginning? + +The first temptation is to shield the child,--to hedge it about that it +may not know and will not dream of the color line. Then when we can no +longer wholly shield, to indulge and pamper and coddle, as though in +this dumb way to compensate. From this attitude comes the multitude of +our spoiled, wayward, disappointed children. And must we not blame +ourselves? For while the motive was pure and the outer menace undoubted, +is shielding and indulgence the way to meet it? + +Some Negro parents, realizing this, leave their children to sink or swim +in this sea of race prejudice. They neither shield nor explain, but +thrust them forth grimly into school or street and let them learn as +they may from brutal fact. Out of this may come strength, poise, +self-dependence, and out of it, too, may come bewilderment, cringing +deception, and self-distrust. It is, all said, a brutal, unfair method, +and in its way it is as bad as shielding and indulgence. Why not, +rather, face the facts and tell the truth? Your child is wiser than you +think. + +The truth lies ever between extremes. It is wrong to introduce the child +to race consciousness prematurely; it is dangerous to let that +consciousness grow spontaneously without intelligent guidance. With +every step of dawning intelligence, explanation--frank, free, guiding +explanation--must come. The day will dawn when mother must explain +gently but clearly why the little girls next door do not want to play +with "niggers"; what the real cause is of the teacher's unsympathetic +attitude; and how people may ride in the backs of street cars and the +smoker end of trains and still be people, honest high-minded souls. + +Remember, too, that in such frank explanation you are speaking in nine +cases out of ten to a good deal clearer understanding than you think and +that the child-mind has what your tired soul may have lost faith +in,--the Power and the Glory. + +Out of little, unspoiled souls rise up wonderful resources and healing +balm. Once the colored child understands the white world's attitude and +the shameful wrong of it, you have furnished it with a great life +motive,--a power and impulse toward good which is the mightiest thing +man has. How many white folk would give their own souls if they might +graft into their children's souls a great, moving, guiding ideal! + +With this Power there comes, in the transfiguring soul of childhood, the +Glory: the vision of accomplishment, the lofty ideal. Once let the +strength of the motive work, and it becomes the life task of the parent +to guide and to shape the ideal; to raise it from resentment and revenge +to dignity and self-respect, to breadth and accomplishment, to human +service; to beat back every thought of cringing and surrender. + +Here, at last, we can speak with no hesitation, with no lack of faith. +For we know that as the world grows better there will be realized in our +children's lives that for which we fight unfalteringly, but vainly now. + +So much for the problem of the home and our own dark children. Now let +us look beyond the pale upon the children of the wide world. What is the +real lesson of the life of Coleridge-Taylor? It is this: humanly +speaking it was sheer accident that this boy developed his genius. We +have a right to assume that hundreds and thousands of boys and girls +today are missing the chance of developing unusual talents because the +chances have been against them; and that indeed the majority of the +children of the world are not being systematically fitted for their life +work and for life itself. Why? + +Many seek the reason in the content of the school program. They +feverishly argue the relative values of Greek, mathematics, and manual +training, but fail with singular unanimity in pointing out the +fundamental cause of our failure in human education: That failure is due +to the fact that we aim not at the full development of the child, but +that the world regards and always has regarded education first as a +means of buttressing the established order of things rather than +improving it. And this is the real reason why strife, war, and +revolution have marked the onward march of humanity instead of reason +and sound reform. Instead of seeking to push the coming generation ahead +of our pitiful accomplishment, we insist that it march behind. We say, +morally, that high character is conformity to present public opinion; we +say industrially that the present order is best and that children must +be trained to perpetuate it. + +But, it is objected, what else can we do? Can we teach Revolution to the +inexperienced in hope that they may discern progress? No, but we may +teach frankly that this world is not perfection, but development: that +the object of education is manhood and womanhood, clear reason, +individual talent and genius and the spirit of service and sacrifice, +and not simply a frantic effort to avoid change in present institutions; +that industry is for man and not man for industry and that while we must +have workers to work, the prime object of our training is not the work +but the worker--not the maintenance of present industrial caste but the +development of human intelligence by which drudgery may be lessened and +beauty widened. + +Back of our present educational system is the philosophy that sneers at +the foolish Fathers who believed it self-evident, "that all men were +created free and equal." Surely the overwhelming evidence is today that +men are slaves and unequal. But is it not education that is the creator +of this freedom and equality? Most men today cannot conceive of a +freedom that does not involve somebody's slavery. They do not want +equality because the thrill of their happiness comes from having things +that others have not. But may not human education fix the fine ideal of +an equal maximum of freedom for every human soul combined with that +minimum of slavery for each soul which the inexorable physical facts of +the world impose--rather than complete freedom for some and complete +slavery for others; and, again, is not the equality toward which the +world moves an equality of honor in the assigned human task itself +rather than equal facility in doing different tasks? Human equality is +not lack of difference, nor do the infinite human differences argue +relative superiority and inferiority. And, again, how new an aspect +human differences may assume when all men are educated. Today we think +of apes, semi-apes, and human beings; tomorrow we may think of Keir +Hardies, Roosevelts, and Beethovens--not equals but men. Today we are +forcing men into educational slavery in order that others may enjoy +life, and excuse ourselves by saying that the world's work must be done. +We are degrading some sorts of work by honoring others, and then +expressing surprise that most people object to having their children +trained solely to take up their father's tasks. + +Given as the ideal the utmost possible freedom for every human soul, +with slavery for none, and equal honor for all necessary human tasks, +then our problem of education is greatly simplified: we aim to develop +human souls; to make all intelligent; to discover special talents and +genius. With this course of training beginning in early childhood and +never ceasing must go the technical training for the present world's +work according to carefully studied individual gifts and wishes. + +On the other hand, if we arrange our system of education to develop +workmen who will not strike and Negroes satisfied with their present +place in the world, we have set ourselves a baffling task. We find +ourselves compelled to keep the masses ignorant and to curb our own +thought and expression so as not to inflame the ignorant. We force +moderate reformers and men with new and valuable ideas to become red +radicals and revolutionists, since that happens to be the only way to +make the world listen to reason. Consider our race problem in the South: +the South has invested in Negro ignorance; some Northerners proposed +limited education, not, they explained, to better the Negro, but merely +to make the investment more profitable to the present beneficiaries. +They thus gained wide Southern support for schools like Hampton and +Tuskegee. But could this program be expected long to satisfy colored +folk? And was this shifty dodging of the real issue the wisest +statesmanship? No! The real question in the South is the question of the +permanency of present color caste. The problem, then, of the formal +training of our colored children has been strangely complicated by the +strong feeling of certain persons as to their future in America and the +world. And the reaction toward this caste education has strengthened the +idea of caste education throughout the world. + +Let us then return to fundamental ideals. Children must be trained in a +knowledge of what the world is and what it knows and how it does its +daily work. These things cannot be separated: we cannot teach pure +knowledge apart from actual facts, or separate truth from the human +mind. Above all we must not forget that the object of all education is +the child itself and not what it does or makes. + +It is here that a great movement in America has grievously sinned +against the light. There has arisen among us a movement to make the +Public School primarily the hand-maiden of production. America is +conceived of as existing for the sake of its mines, fields and +factories, and not those factories, fields and mines as existing for +America. Consequently, the public schools are for training the mass of +men as servants and laborers and mechanics to increase the land's +industrial efficiency. + +Those who oppose this program, especially if they are black, are accused +of despising common toil and humble service. In fact, we Negroes are but +facing in our own children a world problem: how can we, while +maintaining a proper output of goods and furnishing needed services, +increase the knowledge of experience of common men and conserve genius +for the common weal? Without wider, deeper intelligence among the masses +Democracy cannot accomplish its greater ends. Without a more careful +conservation of human ability and talent the world cannot secure the +services which its greater needs call for. Yet today who goes to +college, the Talented or the Rich? Who goes to high school, the Bright +or the Well-to-Do? Who does the physical work of the world, those whose +muscles need the exercise or those whose souls and minds are stupefied +with manual toil? How is the drudgery of the world distributed, by +thoughtful justice or the lash of Slavery? + +We cannot base the education of future citizens on the present +inexcusable inequality of wealth nor on physical differences of race. We +must seek not to make men carpenters but to make carpenters men. + +Colored Americans must then with deep determination educate their +children in the broadest, highest way. They must fill the colleges with +the talented and fill the fields and shops with the intelligent. Wisdom +is the principal thing. Therefore, get wisdom. + +But why am I talking simply of "colored" children? Is not the problem of +their education simply an intensification of the problem of educating +all children? Look at our plight in the United States, nearly 150 years +after the establishment of a government based on human intelligence. + +If we take the figures of the Thirteenth Census, we find that there were +five and one-half million illiterate Americans of whom 3,184,633 were +white. Remembering that illiteracy is a crude and extreme test of +ignorance, we may assume that there are in the United States ten million +people over ten years of age who are too ignorant either to perform +their civic duties or to teach industrial efficiency. Moreover, it does +not seem that this illiteracy is disappearing rapidly. + +For instance, nine percent of American children between ten and +nineteen years of age cannot read and write. Moreover, there are +millions of children who, judging by the figures for the school year +1909-10, are not going to learn to read and write, for of the Americans +six to fourteen years of age there were 3,125,392 who were not in school +a single day during that year. If we take the eleven million youths +fifteen to twenty years of age for whom vocational training is +particularly adapted, we find that nearly five per cent of these, or +448,414, are absolutely illiterate; it is not too much to assume that a +million of them have not acquired enough of the ordinary tools of +intelligence to make the most of efficient vocational training. + +Confining ourselves to the white people, over fifteen per cent of the +white children six to fourteen years of age, or 2,253,198, did not +attend school during the school year 1909-10. Of the native white +children of native parents ten to fourteen years of age nearly a tenth +were not in school during that year; 121,878 native white children of +native parents, fifteen to nineteen years of age, were illiterate. + +If we continue our attention to the colored children, the case is, of +course, much worse. + +We cannot hope to make intelligent workmen and intelligent citizens of a +group of people, over forty per cent of whose children six to fourteen +years of age were not in school a single day during 1909-10; for the +other sixty per cent the school term in the majority of cases was +probably less than five months. Of the Negro children ten to fourteen +years of age 18.9 per cent were illiterate; of those fifteen to nineteen +years of age 20.3 per cent were illiterate; of those ten to fourteen +years of age 31.4 per cent did not go to school a single day in 1909-10. + +What is the trouble? It is simple. We are spending one dollar for +education where we should spend ten dollars. If tomorrow we multiplied +our effort to educate the next generation ten-fold, we should but begin +our bounden duty. The heaven that lies about our infancy is but the +ideals come true which every generation of children is capable of +bringing; but we, selfish in our own ignorance and incapacity, are +making of education a series of miserable compromises: How ignorant can +we let a child grow to be in order to make him the best cotton mill +operative? What is the least sum that will keep the average youth out of +jail? How many months saved on a high school course will make the +largest export of wheat? + +If we realized that children are the future, that immortality is the +present child, that no education which educates can possibly be too +costly, then we know that the menace of Kaiserism which called for the +expenditure of more than 332 thousand millions of dollars was not a whit +more pressing than the menace of ignorance, and that no nation tomorrow +will call itself civilized which does not give every single human being +college and vocational training free and under the best teaching force +procurable for love or money. + +This world has never taken the education of children seriously. Misled +by selfish dreamings of personal life forever, we have neglected the +true and practical immortality through the endless life of children's +children. Seeking counsels of our own souls' perfection, we have +despised and rejected the possible increasing perfection of unending +generations. Or if we are thrown back in pessimistic despair from making +living folk decent, we leap to idle speculations of a thousand years +hereafter instead of working steadily and persistently for the next +generation. + +All our problems center in the child. All our hopes, our dreams are for +our children. Has our own life failed? Let its lesson save the +children's lives from similar failure. Is democracy a failure? Train up +citizens that will make it succeed. Is wealth too crude, too foolish in +form, and too easily stolen? Train up workers with honor and consciences +and brains. Have we degraded service with menials? Abolish the mean +spirit and implant sacrifice. Do we despise women? Train them as workers +and thinkers and not as playthings, lest future generations ape our +worst mistake. Do we despise darker races? Teach the children its fatal +cost in spiritual degradation and murder, teach them that to hate +"niggers" or "chinks" is to crucify souls like their own. Is there +anything we would accomplish with human beings? Do it with the immortal +child, with a stretch of endless time for doing it and with infinite +possibilities to work on. + +Is this our attitude toward education? It is not--neither in England nor +America--in France nor Germany--with black nor white nor yellow folk. +Education to the modern world is a burden which we are driven to carry. +We shirk and complain. We do just as little as possible and only threat +or catastrophe induces us to do more than a minimum. If the ignorant +mass, panting to know, revolts, we dole them gingerly enough knowledge +to pacify them temporarily. If, as in the Great War, we discover +soldiers too ignorant to use our machines of murder and destruction, we +train them--to use machines of murder and destruction. If mounting +wealth calls for intelligent workmen, we rush tumultuously to train +workers--in order to increase our wealth. But of great, broad plans to +train all men for all things--to make a universe intelligent, busy, +good, creative and beautiful--where in this wide world is such an +educational program? To announce it is to invite gasps or Brobdingnagian +laughter. It cannot be done. It will cost too much. + +What has been done with man can be done with men, if the world tries +long enough and hard enough. And as to the cost--all the wealth of the +world, save that necessary for sheer decent existence and for the +maintenance of past civilization, is, and of right ought to be, the +property of the children for their education. + +I mean it. In one year, 1917, we spent $96,700,000,000 for war. We blew +it away to murder, maim, and destroy! Why? Because the blind, brutal +crime of powerful and selfish interests made this path through hell the +only visible way to heaven. We did it. We had to do it, and we are glad +the putrid horror is over. But, now, are we prepared to spend less to +make a world in which the resurgence of such devilish power will be +impossible? + +Do we really want war to cease? + +Then educate the children of this generation at a cost no whit less and +if necessary a hundred times as great as the cost of the Great War. + +Last year, 1917, education cost us $915,000,000. + +Next year it ought to cost us at least two thousand million dollars. We +should spend enough money to hire the best teaching force possible--the +best organizing and directing ability in the land, even if we have to +strip the railroads and meat trust. We should dot city and country with +the most efficient, sanitary, and beautiful school-houses the world +knows and we should give every American child common school, high +school, and college training and then vocational guidance in earning a +living. + +Is this a dream? + +Can we afford less? + +Consider our so-called educational "problems"; "How may we keep pupils +in the high school?" Feed and clothe them. "Shall we teach Latin, Greek, +and mathematics to the 'masses'?" If they are worth teaching to anybody, +the masses need them most. "Who shall go to college?" Everybody. "When +shall culture training give place to technical education for work?" +Never. + +These questions are not "problems." They are simply "excuses" for +spending less time and money on the next generation. Given ten millions +of dollars a year, what can we best do with the education of a million +children? The real answer is--kill nine hundred and ninety thousand of +them quickly and not gradually, and make thoroughly-trained men and +women of the other ten thousand. But who set the limit of ten million +dollars? Who says it shall not be ten thousand millions, as it ought to +be? You and I say it, and in saying it we sin against the Holy Ghost. + +We sin because in our befuddled brains we have linked money and +education inextricably. We assume that only the wealthy have a real +right to education when, in fact, being born is being given a right to +college training. Our wealth today is, we all know, distributed mainly +by chance inheritance and personal favor and yet we attempt to base the +right to education on this foundation. The result is grotesque! We bury +genius; we send it to jail; we ridicule and mock it, while we send +mediocrity and idiocy to college, gilded and crowned. For three hundred +years we have denied black Americans an education and now we exploit +them before a gaping world: See how ignorant and degraded they are! All +they are fit for is education for cotton-picking and dish-washing. When +Dunbar and Taylor happen along, we are torn between something like +shamefaced anger or impatient amazement. + +A world guilty of this last and mightiest war has no right to enjoy or +create until it has made the future safe from another Arkansas or +Rheims. To this there is but one patent way, proved and inescapable, +Education, and that not for me or for you but for the Immortal Child. +And that child is of all races and all colors. All children are the +children of all and not of individuals and families and races. The whole +generation must be trained and guided and out of it as out of a huge +reservoir must be lifted all genius, talent, and intelligence to serve +all the world. + + + + +Almighty Death[1] + + + Softly, quite softly-- + For I hear, above the murmur of the sea, + Faint and far-fallen footsteps, as of One + Who comes from out beyond the endless ends of Time, + With voice that downward looms thro' singing stars; + Its subtle sound I see thro' these long-darkened eyes, + I hear the Light He bringeth on His hands-- + Almighty Death! + Softly, oh, softly, lest He pass me by, + And that unquivering Light toward which my longing soul + And tortured body through these years have writhed, + Fade to the dun darkness of my days. + + Softly, full softly, let me rise and greet + The strong, low luting of that long-awaited call; + Swiftly be all my good and going gone, + And this vast veiled and vanquished vigor of my soul + Seek somehow otherwhere its rest and goal, + Where endless spaces stretch, + Where endless time doth moan, + Where endless light doth pour + Thro' the black kingdoms of eternal death. + + Then haply I may see what things I have not seen, + Then I may know what things I have not known; + Then may I do my dreams. + + Farewell! No sound of idle mourning let there be + To shudder this full silence--save the voice + Of children--little children, white and black, + Whispering the deeds I tried to do for them; + While I at last unguided and alone + Pass softly, full softly. + +[Footnote 1: For Joseph Pulitzer, October 29, 1911.] + + + + + +IX + +OF BEAUTY AND DEATH + + +For long years we of the world gone wild have looked into the face of +death and smiled. Through all our bitter tears we knew how beautiful it +was to die for that which our souls called sufficient. Like all true +beauty this thing of dying was so simple, so matter-of-fact. The boy +clothed in his splendid youth stood before us and laughed in his own +jolly way,--went and was gone. Suddenly the world was full of the +fragrance of sacrifice. We left our digging and burden-bearing; we +turned from our scraping and twisting of things and words; we paused +from our hurrying hither and thither and walking up and down, and asked +in half-whisper: this Death--is this Life? And is its beauty real or +false? And of this heart-questioning I am writing. + + * * * * * + +My friend, who is pale and positive, said to me yesterday, as the tired +sun was nodding: + +"You are too sensitive." + +I admit, I am--sensitive. I am artificial. I cringe or am bumptious or +immobile. I am intellectually dishonest, art-blind, and I lack humor. + +"Why don't you stop all this?" she retorts triumphantly. + +You will not let us. + +"There you go, again. You know that I--" + +Wait! I answer. Wait! + +I arise at seven. The milkman has neglected me. He pays little attention +to colored districts. My white neighbor glares elaborately. I walk +softly, lest I disturb him. The children jeer as I pass to work. The +women in the street car withdraw their skirts or prefer to stand. The +policeman is truculent. The elevator man hates to serve Negroes. My job +is insecure because the white union wants it and does not want me. I try +to lunch, but no place near will serve me. I go forty blocks to +Marshall's, but the Committee of Fourteen closes Marshall's; they say +white women frequent it. + +"Do all eating places discriminate?" + +No, but how shall I know which do not--except-- + +I hurry home through crowds. They mutter or get angry. I go to a +mass-meeting. They stare. I go to a church. "We don't admit niggers!" + +Or perhaps I leave the beaten track. I seek new work. "Our employees +would not work with you; our customers would object." + +I ask to help in social uplift. + +"Why--er--we will write you." + +I enter the free field of science. Every laboratory door is closed and +no endowments are available. + +I seek the universal mistress, Art; the studio door is locked. + +I write literature. "We cannot publish stories of colored folks of that +type." It's the only type I know. + +This is my life. It makes me idiotic. It gives me artificial problems. I +hesitate, I rush, I waver. In fine,--I am sensitive! + +My pale friend looks at me with disbelief and curling tongue. + +"Do you mean to sit there and tell me that this is what happens to you +each day?" + +Certainly not, I answer low. + +"Then you only fear it will happen?" + +I fear! + +"Well, haven't you the courage to rise above a--almost a craven fear?" + +Quite--quite craven is my fear, I admit; but the terrible thing +is--these things do happen! + +"But you just said--" + +They do happen. Not all each day,--surely not. But now and then--now +seldom, now, sudden; now after a week, now in a chain of awful minutes; +not everywhere, but anywhere--in Boston, in Atlanta. That's the hell of +it. Imagine spending your life looking for insults or for hiding places +from them--shrinking (instinctively and despite desperate bolsterings of +courage) from blows that are not always but ever; not each day, but each +week, each month, each year. Just, perhaps, as you have choked back the +craven fear and cried, "I am and will be the master of my--" + +"No more tickets downstairs; here's one to the smoking gallery." + +You hesitate. You beat back your suspicions. After all, a cigarette with +Charlie Chaplin--then a white man pushes by-- + +"Three in the orchestra." + +"Yes, sir." And in he goes. + +Suddenly your heart chills. You turn yourself away toward the golden +twinkle of the purple night and hesitate again. What's the use? Why not +always yield--always take what's offered,--always bow to force, whether +of cannon or dislike? Then the great fear surges in your soul, the real +fear--the fear beside which other fears are vain imaginings; the fear +lest right there and then you are losing your own soul; that you are +losing your own soul and the soul of a people; that millions of unborn +children, black and gold and mauve, are being there and then despoiled +by you because you are a coward and dare not fight! + +Suddenly that silly orchestra seat and the cavorting of a comedian with +funny feet become matters of life, death, and immortality; you grasp the +pillars of the universe and strain as you sway back to that befrilled +ticket girl. You grip your soul for riot and murder. You choke and +sputter, and she seeing that you are about to make a "fuss" obeys her +orders and throws the tickets at you in contempt. Then you slink to your +seat and crouch in the darkness before the film, with every tissue +burning! The miserable wave of reaction engulfs you. To think of +compelling puppies to take your hard-earned money; fattening hogs to +hate you and yours; forcing your way among cheap and tawdry idiots--God! +What a night of pleasure! + + * * * * * + +Here, then, is beauty and ugliness, a wide vision of world-sacrifice, a +fierce gleam of world-hate. Which is life and what is death and how +shall we face so tantalizing a contradiction? Any explanation must +necessarily be subtle and involved. No pert and easy word of +encouragement, no merely dark despair, can lay hold of the roots of +these things. And first and before all, we cannot forget that this world +is beautiful. Grant all its ugliness and sin--the petty, horrible snarl +of its putrid threads, which few have seen more near or more often than +I--notwithstanding all this, the beauty of this world is not to be +denied. + +Casting my eyes about I dare not let them rest on the beauty of Love and +Friend, for even if my tongue were cunning enough to sing this, the +revelation of reality here is too sacred and the fancy too untrue. Of +one world-beauty alone may we at once be brutally frank and that is the +glory of physical nature; this, though the last of beauties, is divine! + +And so, too, there are depths of human degradation which it is not fair +for us to probe. With all their horrible prevalence, we cannot call them +natural. But may we not compare the least of the world's beauty with the +least of its ugliness--not murder, starvation, and rapine, with love and +friendship and creation--but the glory of sea and sky and city, with the +little hatefulnesses and thoughtfulnesses of race prejudice, that out +of such juxtaposition we may, perhaps, deduce some rule of beauty and +life--or death? + + * * * * * + +There mountains hurl themselves against the stars and at their feet lie +black and leaden seas. Above float clouds--white, gray, and inken, while +the clear, impalpable air springs and sparkles like new wine. Last night +we floated on the calm bosom of the sea in the southernmost haven of +Mount Desert. The water flamed and sparkled. The sun had gone, but above +the crooked back of cumulus clouds, dark and pink with radiance, and on +the other sky aloft to the eastward piled the gorgeous-curtained mists +of evening. The radiance faded and a shadowy velvet veiled the +mountains, a humid depth of gloom behind which lurked all the mysteries +of life and death, while above, the clouds hung ashen and dull; lights +twinkled and flashed along the shore, boats glided in the twilight, and +the little puffing of motors droned away. Then was the hour to talk of +life and the meaning of life, while above gleamed silently, suddenly, +star on star. + +Bar Harbor lies beneath a mighty mountain, a great, bare, black mountain +that sleeps above the town; but as you leave, it rises suddenly, +threateningly, until far away on Frenchman's Bay it looms above the town +in withering vastness, as if to call all that little world petty save +itself. Beneath the cool, wide stare of that great mountain, men cannot +live as giddily as in some lesser summer's playground. Before the +unveiled face of nature, as it lies naked on the Maine coast, rises a +certain human awe. + +God molded his world largely and mightily off this marvelous coast and +meant that in the tired days of life men should come and worship here +and renew their spirit. This I have done and turning I go to work again. +As we go, ever the mountains of Mount Desert rise and greet us on our +going--somber, rock-ribbed and silent, looking unmoved on the moving +world, yet conscious of their everlasting strength. + +About us beats the sea--the sail-flecked, restless sea, humming its tune +about our flying keel, unmindful of the voices of men. The land sinks to +meadows, black pine forests, with here and there a blue and wistful +mountain. Then there are islands--bold rocks above the sea, curled +meadows; through and about them roll ships, weather-beaten and patched +of sail, strong-hulled and smoking, light gray and shining. All the +colors of the sea lie about us--gray and yellowing greens and doubtful +blues, blacks not quite black, tinted silvers and golds and dreaming +whites. Long tongues of dark and golden land lick far out into the +tossing waters, and the white gulls sail and scream above them. It is a +mighty coast--ground out and pounded, scarred, crushed, and carven in +massive, frightful lineaments. Everywhere stand the pines--the little +dark and steadfast pines that smile not, neither weep, but wait and +wait. Near us lie isles of flesh and blood, white cottages, tiled and +meadowed. Afar lie shadow-lands, high mist-hidden hills, mountains +boldly limned, yet shading to the sky, faint and unreal. + +We skirt the pine-clad shores, chary of men, and know how bitterly +winter kisses these lonely shores to fill yon row of beaked ice houses +that creep up the hills. We are sailing due westward and the sun, yet +two hours high, is blazoning a fiery glory on the sea that spreads and +gleams like some broad, jeweled trail, to where the blue and distant +shadow-land lifts its carven front aloft, leaving, as it gropes, shades +of shadows beyond. + + * * * * * + +Why do not those who are scarred in the world's battle and hurt by its +hardness travel to these places of beauty and drown themselves in the +utter joy of life? I asked this once sitting in a Southern home. Outside +the spring of a Georgia February was luring gold to the bushes and +languor to the soft air. Around me sat color in human flesh--brown that +crimsoned readily; dim soft-yellow that escaped description; cream-like +duskiness that shadowed to rich tints of autumn leaves. And yet a +suggested journey in the world brought no response. + +"I should think you would like to travel," said the white one. + +But no, the thought of a journey seemed to depress them. + +Did you ever see a "Jim-Crow" waiting-room? There are always exceptions, +as at Greensboro--but usually there is no heat in winter and no air in +summer; with undisturbed loafers and train hands and broken, +disreputable settees; to buy a ticket is torture; you stand and stand +and wait and wait until every white person at the "other window" is +waited on. Then the tired agent yells across, because all the tickets +and money are over there-- + +"What d'ye want? What? Where?" + +The agent browbeats and contradicts you, hurries and confuses the +ignorant, gives many persons the wrong change, compels some to purchase +their tickets on the train at a higher price, and sends you and me out +on the platform, burning with indignation and hatred! + +The "Jim-Crow" car is up next the baggage car and engine. It stops out +beyond the covering in the rain or sun or dust. Usually there is no step +to help you climb on and often the car is a smoker cut in two and you +must pass through the white smokers or else they pass through your part, +with swagger and noise and stares. Your compartment is a half or a +quarter or an eighth of the oldest car in service on the road. Unless it +happens to be a thorough express, the plush is caked with dirt, the +floor is grimy, and the windows dirty. An impertinent white newsboy +occupies two seats at the end of the car and importunes you to the point +of rage to buy cheap candy, Coco-Cola, and worthless, if not vulgar, +books. He yells and swaggers, while a continued stream of white men +saunters back and forth from the smoker to buy and hear. The white train +crew from the baggage car uses the "Jim-Crow" to lounge in and perform +their toilet. The conductor appropriates two seats for himself and his +papers and yells gruffly for your tickets before the train has scarcely +started. It is best not to ask him for information even in the gentlest +tones. His information is for white persons chiefly. It is difficult to +get lunch or clean water. Lunch rooms either don't serve niggers or +serve them at some dirty and ill-attended hole in the wall. As for +toilet rooms,--don't! If you have to change cars, be wary of junctions +which are usually without accommodation and filled with quarrelsome +white persons who hate a "darky dressed up." You are apt to have the +company of a sheriff and a couple of meek or sullen black prisoners on +part of your way and dirty colored section hands will pour in toward +night and drive you to the smallest corner. + +"No," said the little lady in the corner (she looked like an ivory cameo +and her dress flowed on her like a caress), "we don't travel much." + + * * * * * + +Pessimism is cowardice. The man who cannot frankly acknowledge the +"Jim-Crow" car as a fact and yet live and hope is simply afraid either +of himself or of the world. There is not in the world a more disgraceful +denial of human brotherhood than the "Jim-Crow" car of the southern +United States; but, too, just as true, there is nothing more beautiful +in the universe than sunset and moonlight on Montego Bay in far Jamaica. +And both things are true and both belong to this our world, and neither +can be denied. + + * * * * * + +The sun, prepared to cross that awful border which men call Night and +Death, marshals his hosts. I seem to see the spears of mighty horsemen +flash golden in the light; empurpled banners flame afar, and the low +thunder of marching hosts thrills with the thunder of the sea. Athwart +his own path, screening a face of fire, he throws cloud masses, masking +his trained guns. And then the miracle is done. The host passes with +roar too vast for human ear and the sun is set, leaving the frightened +moon and blinded stars. + +In the dusk the green-gold palms turn their star-like faces and stretch +their fan-like fingers, lifting themselves proudly, lest any lordly leaf +should know the taint of earth. + +Out from the isle the serpent hill thrusts its great length around the +bay, shouldering back the waters and the shadows. Ghost rains sweep +down, smearing his rugged sides, yet on he writhes, undulant with pine +and palm, gleaming until his low, sharp head and lambent tongue, grown +gray and pale and silver in the dying day, kisses the molten gold of the +golden sea. + +Then comes the moon. Like fireflies nesting in the hand of God gleams +the city, dim-swathed by fairy palms. A long, thin thumb, mist-mighty, +points shadowy to the Spanish Main, while through the fingers foam the +Seven Seas. Above the calm and gold-green moon, beneath the wind-wet +earth; and here, alone, my soul enchained, enchanted! + + * * * * * + +From such heights of holiness men turn to master the world. All the +pettiness of life drops away and it becomes a great battle before the +Lord. His trumpet,--where does it sound and whither? I go. I saw Montego +Bay at the beginning of the World War. The cry for service as high as +heaven, as wide as human feeling, seemed filling the earth. What were +petty slights, silly insults, paltry problems, beside this call to do +and dare and die? We black folk offered our services to fight. What +happened? Most Americans have forgotten the extraordinary series of +events which worked the feelings of black America to fever heat. + +First was the refusal to accept Negro volunteers for the army, except in +the four black regiments already established. While the nation was +combing the country for volunteers for the regular army, it would not +let the American Negro furnish even his proportionate quota of regular +soldiers. This led to some grim bantering among Negroes: + +"Why do you want to volunteer?" asked many. "Why should you fight for +this country?" + +Before we had chance to reply to this, there came the army draft bill +and the proposal by Vardaman and his ilk to except Negroes. We protested +to Washington in various ways, and while we were insisting that colored +men should be drafted just as other citizens, the bill went through with +two little "jokers." + +First, it provided that Negroes should be drafted, but trained in +"separate" units; and, secondly, it somewhat ambiguously permitted men +to be drafted for "labor." + +A wave of fear and unrest spread among Negroes and while we were looking +at both these provisions askance, suddenly we received the draft +registration blank. It directed persons "of African descent" to "tear +off the corner!" Probably never before in the history of the United +States has a portion of the citizens been so openly and crassly +discriminated against by action of the general government. It was +disheartening, and on top of it came the celebrated "German plots." It +was alleged in various parts of the country with singular unanimity that +Germans were working among the Negroes, and it was further intimated +that this would make the Negroes too dangerous an element to trust with +guns. To us, of course, it looked as though the discovery and the +proposition came from the same thinly-veiled sources. + +Considering carefully this series of happenings the American Negro +sensed an approaching crisis and faced a puzzling dilemma. Here was +evidently preparing fertile ground for the spread of disloyalty and +resentment among the black masses, as they were forced to choose +apparently between forced labor or a "Jim-Crow" draft. Manifestly when a +minority group is thus segregated and forced out of the nation, they can +in reason do but one thing--take advantage of the disadvantage. In this +case we demanded colored officers for the colored troops. + +General Wood was early approached and asked to admit suitable candidates +to Plattsburg. He refused. We thereupon pressed the government for a +"separate" camp for the training of Negro officers. Not only did the War +Department hesitate at this request, but strong opposition arose among +colored people themselves. They said we were going too far. "We will +obey the law, but to ask for voluntary segregation is to insult +ourselves." But strong, sober second thought came to our rescue. We said +to our protesting brothers: "We face a condition, not a theory. There is +not the slightest chance of our being admitted to white camps; +therefore, it is either a case of a 'Jim-Crow' officers' training camp +or no colored officers. Of the two things no colored officers would be +the greater calamity." + +Thus we gradually made up our minds. But the War Department still +hesitated. It was besieged, and when it presented its final argument, +"We have no place for such a camp," the trustees of Howard University +said: "Take our campus." Eventually twelve hundred colored cadets were +assembled at Fort Des Moines for officers' training. + +The city of Des Moines promptly protested, but it finally changed its +mind. Des Moines never before had seen such a class of colored men. They +rapidly became popular with all classes and many encomiums were passed +upon their conduct. Their commanding colonel pronounced their work first +class and declared that they presented excellent material for officers. + +Meantime, with one accord, the thought of the colored people turned +toward Colonel Young, their highest officer in the regular army. Charles +Young is a heroic figure. He is the typical soldier,--silent, +uncomplaining, brave, and efficient! From his days at West Point +throughout his thirty years of service he has taken whatever task was +assigned him and performed it efficiently; and there is no doubt but +that the army has been almost merciless in the requirements which it has +put upon this splendid officer. He came through all with flying colors. +In Haiti, in Liberia, in western camps, in the Sequoia Forests of +California, and finally with Pershing in Mexico,--in every case he +triumphed. Just at the time we were looking to the United States +government to call him to head the colored officers' training at Des +Moines, he was retired from the army, because of "high blood pressure!" +There is no disputing army surgeons and their judgment in this case may +be justified, but coming at the time it did, nearly every Negro in the +United States believed that the "high blood pressure" that retired +Colonel Young was in the prejudiced heads of the Southern oligarchy who +were determined that no American Negro should ever wear the stars of a +General. + +To say that Negroes of the United States were disheartened at the +retirement of Colonel Young is to put it mildly,--but there was more +trouble. The provision that Negroes must be trained separately looked +simple and was simple in places where there were large Negro +contingents, but in the North with solitary Negroes drafted here and +there we had some extraordinary developments. Regiments appeared with +one Negro where the Negro had to be separated like a pest and put into a +house or even a village by himself while the commander frantically +telegraphed to Washington. Small wonder that one poor fellow in Ohio +solved the problem by cutting his throat. The whole process of drafting +Negroes had to be held up until the government could find methods and +places for assembling them. + +Then came Houston. In a moment the nation forgot the whole record of one +of the most celebrated regiments in the United States Army and its +splendid service in the Indian Wars and in the Philippines. It was the +first regiment mobilized in the Spanish-American War and it was the +regiment that volunteered to a man to clean up the yellow fever camps +when others hesitated. It was one of the regiments to which Pershing +said in December: + +"Men, I am authorized by Congress to tell you all that our people back +in the States are mightily glad and proud at the way the soldiers have +conducted themselves while in Mexico, and I, General Pershing, can say +with pride that a finer body of men never stood under the flag of our +nation than we find here tonight." + +The nation, also, forgot the deep resentment mixed with the pale ghost +of fear which Negro soldiers call up in the breasts of the white South. +It is not so much that they fear that the Negro will strike if he gets a +chance, but rather that they assume with curious unanimity that he has +_reason_ to strike, that any other persons in his circumstances or +treated as he is would rebel. Instead of seeking to relieve the cause of +such a possible feeling, most of them strain every effort to bottle up +the black man's resentment. Is it inconceivable that now and then it +bursts all bounds, as at Brownsville and Houston? + +So in the midst of this mental turmoil came Houston and East St. Louis. +At Houston black soldiers, goaded and insulted, suddenly went wild and +"shot up" the town. At East St. Louis white strikers on war work killed +and mobbed Negro workingmen, and as a result 19 colored soldiers were +hanged and 51 imprisoned for life for killing 17 whites at Houston, +while for killing 125 Negroes in East St. Louis, 20 white men were +imprisoned, none for more than 15 years, and 10 colored men with them. + + * * * * * + +Once upon a time I took a great journey in this land to three of the +ends of our world and over seven thousand mighty miles. I saw the grim +desert and the high ramparts of the Rocky Mountains. Three days I flew +from the silver beauty of Seattle to the somber whirl of Kansas City. +Three days I flew from the brute might of Chicago to the air of the +Angels in California, scented with golden flowers, where the homes of +men crouch low and loving on the good, broad earth, as though they were +kissing her blossoms. Three days I flew through the empire of Texas, but +all these shall be tales untold, for in all this journey I saw but one +thing that lived and will live eternal in my soul,--the Grand Cañon. + +It is a sudden void in the bosom of the earth, down to its entrails--a +wound where the dull titanic knife has turned and twisted in the hole, +leaving its edges livid, scarred, jagged, and pulsing over the white, +and red, and purple of its mighty flesh, while down below--down, down +below, in black and severed vein, boils the dull and sullen flood of the +Colorado. + +It is awful. There can be nothing like it. It is the earth and sky gone +stark and raving mad. The mountains up-twirled, disbodied and inverted, +stand on their peaks and throw their bowels to the sky. Their earth is +air; their ether blood-red rock engreened. You stand upon their roots +and fall into their pinnacles, a mighty mile. + +Behold this mauve and purple mocking of time and space! See yonder peak! +No human foot has trod it. Into that blue shadow only the eye of God has +looked. Listen to the accents of that gorge which mutters: "Before +Abraham was, I am." Is yonder wall a hedge of black or is it the rampart +between heaven and hell? I see greens,--is it moss or giant pines? I see +specks that may be boulders. Ever the winds sigh and drop into those +sun-swept silences. Ever the gorge lies motionless, unmoved, until I +fear. It is a grim thing, unholy, terrible! It is human--some mighty +drama unseen, unheard, is playing there its tragedies or mocking comedy, +and the laugh of endless years is shrieking onward from peak to peak, +unheard, unechoed, and unknown. + +One throws a rock into the abyss. It gives back no sound. It falls on +silence--the voice of its thunders cannot reach so far. It is not--it +cannot be a mere, inert, unfeeling, brute fact--its grandeur is too +serene--its beauty too divine! It is not red, and blue, and green, but, +ah! the shadows and the shades of all the world, glad colorings touched +with a hesitant spiritual delicacy. What does it mean--what does it +mean? Tell me, black and boiling water! + +It is not real. It is but shadows. The shading of eternity. Last night +yonder tesselated palace was gloom--dark, brooding thought and sin, +while hither rose the mountains of the sun, golden, blazing, +ensanguined. It was a dream. This blue and brilliant morning shows all +those burning peaks alight, while here, shapeless, mistful, brood the +shadowed towers. + +I have been down into the entrails of earth--down, down by straight and +staring cliffs--down by sounding waters and sun-strewn meadows; down by +green pastures and still waters, by great, steep chasms--down by the +gnarled and twisted fists of God to the deep, sad moan of the yellow +river that did this thing of wonder,--a little winding river with death +in its depth and a crown of glory in its flying hair. + +I have seen what eye of man was never meant to see. I have profaned the +sanctuary. I have looked upon the dread disrobing of the Night, and yet +I live. Ere I hid my head she was standing in her cavern halls, glowing +coldly westward--her feet were blackness: her robes, empurpled, flowed +mistily from shoulder down in formless folds of folds; her head, +pine-crowned, was set with jeweled stars. I turned away and dreamed--the +cañon,--the awful, its depths called; its heights shuddered. Then +suddenly I arose and looked. Her robes were falling. At dim-dawn they +hung purplish-green and black. Slowly she stripped them from her gaunt +and shapely limbs--her cold, gray garments shot with shadows stood +revealed. Down dropped the black-blue robes, gray-pearled and slipped, +leaving a filmy, silken, misty thing, and underneath I glimpsed her +limbs of utter light. + + * * * * * + +My God! For what am I thankful this night? For nothing. For nothing but +the most commonplace of commonplaces; a table of gentlewomen and +gentlemen--soft-spoken, sweet-tempered, full of human sympathy, who made +me, a stranger, one of them. Ours was a fellowship of common books, +common knowledge, mighty aims. We could laugh and joke and think as +friends--and the Thing--the hateful, murderous, dirty Thing which in +American we call "Nigger-hatred" was not only not there--it could not +even be understood. It was a curious monstrosity at which civilized folk +laughed or looked puzzled. There was no elegant and elaborate +condescension of--"We once had a colored servant"--"My father was an +Abolitionist"--"I've always been interested in _your people_"--there was +only the community of kindred souls, the delicate reverence for the +Thought that led, the quick deference to the guest. You left in quiet +regret, knowing that they were not discussing you behind your back with +lies and license. God! It was simply human decency and I had to be +thankful for it because I am an American Negro, and white America, with +saving exceptions, is cruel to everything that has black blood--and +this was Paris, in the years of salvation, 1919. Fellow blacks, we must +join the democracy of Europe. + + * * * * * + +Toul! Dim through the deepening dark of early afternoon, I saw its +towers gloom dusky toward the murk of heaven. We wound in misty roads +and dropped upon the city through the great throats of its walled +bastions. There lay France--a strange, unknown, unfamiliar France. The +city was dispossessed. Through its streets--its narrow, winding streets, +old and low and dark, carven and quaint,--poured thousands upon +thousands of strange feet of khaki-clad foreigners, and the echoes threw +back awkward syllables that were never French. Here was France beaten to +her knees yet fighting as never nation fought before, calling in her +death agony across the seas till her help came and with all its strut +and careless braggadocio saved the worthiest nation of the world from +the wickedest fate ever plotted by Fools. + + * * * * * + +Tim Brimm was playing by the town-pump. Tim Brimm and the bugles of +Harlem blared in the little streets of Maron in far Lorraine. The tiny +streets were seas of mud. Dank mist and rain sifted through the cold air +above the blue Moselle. Soldiers--soldiers everywhere--black soldiers, +boys of Washington, Alabama, Philadelphia, Mississippi. Wild and sweet +and wooing leapt the strains upon the air. French children gazed in +wonder--women left their washing. Up in the window stood a black Major, +a Captain, a Teacher, and I--with tears behind our smiling eyes. Tim +Brimm was playing by the town-pump. + +The audience was framed in smoke. It rose ghost-like out of +memories--bitter memories of the officer near dead of pneumonia whose +pain was lighted up by the nurses waiting to know whether he must be +"Jim-Crowed" with privates or not. Memories of that great last morning +when the thunders of hell called the Ninety-second to its last drive. +Memories of bitter humiliations, determined triumphs, great victories, +and bugle-calls that sounded from earth to heaven. Like memories framed +in the breath of God, my audience peered in upon me--good, brown faces +with great, kind, beautiful eyes--black soldiers of America rescuing +beloved France--and the words came in praise and benediction there in +the "Y," with its little stock of cigarettes and candies and its rusty +wood stove. + +"_Alors_," said Madame, "_quatre sont morts_"--four dead--four tall, +strong sons dead for France--sons like the sweet and blue-eyed daughter +who was hiding her brave smile in the dusk. It was a tiny stone house +whose front window lipped the passing sidewalk where ever tramped the +feet of black soldiers marching home. There was a cavernous wardrobe, a +great fireplace invaded by a new and jaunty iron stove. Vast, thick +piles of bedding rose in yonder corner. Without was the crowded kitchen +and up a half-stair was our bedroom that gave upon a tiny court with +arched stone staircase and one green tree. We were a touching family +party held together by a great sorrow and a great joy. How we laughed +over the salad that got brandy instead of vinegar--how we ate the golden +pile of fried potatoes and how we pored over the post-card from the +Lieutenant of the Senegalese--dear little vale of crushed and risen +France, in the day when Negroes went "over the top" at Pont-à-Mousson. + + * * * * * + +Paris, Paris by purple façade of the opera, the crowd on the Boulevard +des Italiens and the great swing of the Champs Elysées. But not the +Paris the world knows. Paris with its soul cut to the core--feverish, +crowded, nervous, hurried; full of uniforms and mourning bands, with +cafés closed at 9:30--no sugar, scarce bread, and tears so interwined +with joy that there is scant difference. Paris has been dreaming a +nightmare, and though she awakes, the grim terror is upon her--it lies +on the sand-closed art treasures of the Louvre. Only the flowers are +there, always the flowers, the Roses of England and the Lilies of +France. + + * * * * * + +New York! Behind the Liberty that faces free France rise the white +cliffs of Manhattan, tier on tier, with a curving pinnacle, towers +square and twin, a giant inkwell daintily stoppered, an ancient pyramid +enthroned; beneath, low ramparts wide and mighty; while above, +faint-limned against the turbulent sky, looms the vast grace of that +Cathedral of the Purchased and Purchasing Poor, topping the world and +pointing higher. + +Yonder the gray cobwebs of the Brooklyn bridges leap the sea, and here +creep the argosies from all earth's ends. We move to this swift home on +dun and swelling waters and hear as we come the heartbeats of the new +world. + + * * * * * + +New York and night from the Brooklyn Bridge: The bees and fireflies flit +and twinkle in their vast hives; curved clouds like the breath of gods +hover between the towers and the moon. One hears the hiss of lightnings, +the deep thunder of human things, and a fevered breathing as of some +attendant and invincible Powers. The glow of burning millions melts +outward into dim and fairy outlines until afar the liquid music born of +rushing crowds drips like a benediction on the sea. + + * * * * * + +New York and morning: the sun is kissing the timid dew in Central Park, +and from the Fountain of Plenty one looks along that world street, Fifth +Avenue, and walks toward town. The earth life and curves graciously down +from the older mansions of princes to the newer shops of luxury. Egypt +and Abyssinia, Paris and Damascus, London and India caress you by the +way; churches stand aloof while the shops swell to emporiums. But all +this is nothing. Everything is mankind. Humanity stands and flies and +walks and rolls about--the poor, the priceless, the world-known and the +forgotten; child and grandfather, king and leman--the pageant of the +world goes by, set in a frame of stone and jewels, clothed in scarlet +and rags. Princes Street and the Elysian Fields, the Strand and the +Ringstrasse--these are the Ways of the World today. + + * * * * * + +New York and twilight, there where the Sixth Avenue "L" rises and leaps +above the tenements into the free air at 110th Street. It circles like a +bird with heaven and St. John's above and earth and the sweet green and +gold of the Park beneath. Beyond lie all the blue mists and mysteries of +distance; beneath, the city rushes and crawls. Behind echo all the roar +and war and care and maze of the wide city set in its sullen darkening +walls, flashing weird and crimson farewells. Out at the sides the stars +twinkle. + + * * * * * + +Again New York and Night and Harlem. A dark city of fifty thousand rises +like magic from the earth. Gone is the white world, the pale lips, the +lank hair; gone is the West and North--the East and South is here +triumphant. The street is crowd and leisure and laughter. Everywhere +black eyes, black and brown, and frizzled hair curled and sleek, and +skins that riot with luscious color and deep, burning blood. Humanity is +packed dense in high piles of close-knit homes that lie in layers above +gray shops of food and clothes and drink, with here and there a +moving-picture show. Orators declaim on the corners, lovers lark in the +streets, gamblers glide by the saloons, workers lounge wearily home. +Children scream and run and frolic, and all is good and human and +beautiful and ugly and evil, even as Life is elsewhere. + + * * * * * + +And then--the Veil. It drops as drops the night on southern seas--vast, +sudden, unanswering. There is Hate behind it, and Cruelty and Tears. As +one peers through its intricate, unfathomable pattern of ancient, old, +old design, one sees blood and guilt and misunderstanding. And yet it +hangs there, this Veil, between Then and Now, between Pale and Colored +and Black and White--between You and Me. Surely it is a thought-thing, +tenuous, intangible; yet just as surely is it true and terrible and not +in our little day may you and I lift it. We may feverishly unravel its +edges and even climb slow with giant shears to where its ringed and +gilded top nestles close to the throne of God. But as we work and climb +we shall see through streaming eyes and hear with aching ears, lynching +and murder, cheating and despising, degrading and lying, so flashed and +fleshed through this vast hanging darkness that the Doer never sees the +Deed and the Victim knows not the Victor and Each hates All in wild and +bitter ignorance. Listen, O Isles, to these Voices from within the Veil, +for they portray the most human hurt of the Twentieth Cycle of that poor +Jesus who was called the Christ! + + * * * * * + +There is something in the nature of Beauty that demands an end. Ugliness +may be indefinite. It may trail off into gray endlessness. But Beauty +must be complete--whether it be a field of poppies or a great life,--it +must end, and the End is part and triumph of the Beauty. I know there +are those who envisage a beauty eternal. But I cannot. I can dream of +great and never-ending processions of beautiful things and visions and +acts. But each must be complete or it cannot for me exist. + +On the other hand, Ugliness to me is eternal, not in the essence but in +its incompleteness; but its eternity does not daunt me, for its eternal +unfulfilment is a cause of joy. There is in it nothing new or +unexpected; it is the old evil stretching out and ever seeking the end +it cannot find; it may coil and writhe and recur in endless battle to +days without end, but it is the same human ill and bitter hurt. But +Beauty is fulfilment. It satisfies. It is always new and strange. It is +the reasonable thing. Its end is Death--the sweet silence of perfection, +the calm and balance of utter music. Therein is the triumph of Beauty. + +So strong is the spell of beauty that there are those who, contradicting +their own knowledge and experience, try to say that all is beauty. They +are called optimists, and they lie. All is not beauty. Ugliness and hate +and ill are here with all their contradiction and illogic; they will +always be here--perhaps, God send, with lessened volume and force, but +here and eternal, while beauty triumphs in its great completion--Death. +We cannot conjure the end of all ugliness in eternal beauty, for beauty +by its very being and definition has in each definition its ends and +limits; but while beauty lies implicit and revealed in its end, ugliness +writhes on in darkness forever. So the ugliness of continual birth +fulfils itself and conquers gloriously only in the beautiful end, Death. + + * * * * * + +At last to us all comes happiness, there in the Court of Peace, where +the dead lie so still and calm and good. If we were not dead we would +lie and listen to the flowers grow. We would hear the birds sing and see +how the rain rises and blushes and burns and pales and dies in beauty. +We would see spring, summer, and the red riot of autumn, and then in +winter, beneath the soft white snow, sleep and dream of dreams. But we +know that being dead, our Happiness is a fine and finished thing and +that ten, a hundred, and a thousand years, we shall lie at rest, unhurt +in the Court of Peace. + + + + +_The Prayers of God_ + + + Name of God's Name! + Red murder reigns; + All hell is loose; + On gold autumnal air + Walk grinning devils, barbed and hoofed; + While high on hills of hate, + Black-blossomed, crimson-sky'd, + Thou sittest, dumb. + + Father Almighty! + This earth is mad! + Palsied, our cunning hands; + Rotten, our gold; + Our argosies reel and stagger + Over empty seas; + All the long aisles + Of Thy Great Temples, God, + Stink with the entrails + Of our souls. + And Thou art dumb. + + Above the thunder of Thy Thunders, Lord, + Lightening Thy Lightnings, + Rings and roars + The dark damnation + Of this hell of war. + Red piles the pulp of hearts and heads + And little children's hands. + + Allah! + Elohim! + Very God of God! + + Death is here! + Dead are the living; deep--dead the dead. + Dying are earth's unborn-- + The babes' wide eyes of genius and of joy, + Poems and prayers, sun-glows and earth-songs, + Great-pictured dreams, + Enmarbled phantasies, + High hymning heavens--all + In this dread night + Writhe and shriek and choke and die + This long ghost-night-- + While Thou art dumb. + + Have mercy! + Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners! + Stand forth, unveil Thy Face, + Pour down the light + That seethes above Thy Throne, + And blaze this devil's dance to darkness! + Hear! + Speak! + In Christ's Great Name-- + + I hear! + Forgive me, God! + Above the thunder I hearkened; + Beneath the silence, now,-- + I hear! + + (Wait, God, a little space. + It is so strange to talk with Thee-- + Alone!) + + This gold? + I took it. + Is it Thine? + Forgive; I did not know. + + Blood? Is it wet with blood? + 'Tis from my brother's hands. + (I know; his hands are mine.) + It flowed for Thee, O Lord. + + War? Not so; not war-- + Dominion, Lord, and over black, not white; + Black, brown, and fawn, + And not Thy Chosen Brood, O God, + We murdered. + To build Thy Kingdom, + To drape our wives and little ones, + And set their souls a-glitter-- + For this we killed these lesser breeds + And civilized their dead, + Raping red rubber, diamonds, cocoa, gold! + + For this, too, once, and in Thy Name, + I lynched a Nigger-- + + (He raved and writhed, + I heard him cry, + I felt the life-light leap and lie, + I saw him crackle there, on high, + I watched him wither!) + + _Thou?_ + _Thee?_ + _I lynched Thee?_ + + Awake me, God! I sleep! + What was that awful word Thou saidst? + That black and riven thing--was it Thee? + That gasp--was it Thine? + This pain--is it Thine? + Are, then, these bullets piercing Thee? + Have all the wars of all the world, + Down all dim time, drawn blood from Thee? + Have all the lies and thefts and hates-- + Is this Thy Crucifixion, God, + And not that funny, little cross, + With vinegar and thorns? + Is this Thy kingdom here, not there, + This stone and stucco drift of dreams? + + Help! + I sense that low and awful cry-- + + Who cries? + Who weeps? + With silent sob that rends and tears-- + Can God sob? + + Who prays? + I hear strong prayers throng by, + Like mighty winds on dusky moors-- + Can God pray? + + Prayest Thou, Lord, and to me? + _Thou_ needest me? + Thou _needest_ me? + Thou needest _me_? + Poor, wounded soul! + Of this I never dreamed. I thought-- + + _Courage, God, + I come!_ + + + + + +X + +THE COMET + + +He stood a moment on the steps of the bank, watching the human river +that swirled down Broadway. Few noticed him. Few ever noticed him save +in a way that stung. He was outside the world--"nothing!" as he said +bitterly. Bits of the words of the walkers came to him. + +"The comet?" + +"The comet----" + +Everybody was talking of it. Even the president, as he entered, smiled +patronizingly at him, and asked: + +"Well, Jim, are you scared?" + +"No," said the messenger shortly. + +"I thought we'd journeyed through the comet's tail once," broke in the +junior clerk affably. + +"Oh, that was Halley's," said the president; "this is a new comet, quite +a stranger, they say--wonderful, wonderful! I saw it last night. Oh, by +the way, Jim," turning again to the messenger, "I want you to go down +into the lower vaults today." + +The messenger followed the president silently. Of course, they wanted +_him_ to go down to the lower vaults. It was too dangerous for more +valuable men. He smiled grimly and listened. + +"Everything of value has been moved out since the water began to seep +in," said the president; "but we miss two volumes of old records. +Suppose you nose around down there,--it isn't very pleasant, I suppose." + +"Not very," said the messenger, as he walked out. + +"Well, Jim, the tail of the new comet hits us at noon this time," said +the vault clerk, as he passed over the keys; but the messenger passed +silently down the stairs. Down he went beneath Broadway, where the dim +light filtered through the feet of hurrying men; down to the dark +basement beneath; down into the blackness and silence beneath that +lowest cavern. Here with his dark lantern he groped in the bowels of the +earth, under the world. + +He drew a long breath as he threw back the last great iron door and +stepped into the fetid slime within. Here at last was peace, and he +groped moodily forward. A great rat leaped past him and cobwebs crept +across his face. He felt carefully around the room, shelf by shelf, on +the muddied floor, and in crevice and corner. Nothing. Then he went back +to the far end, where somehow the wall felt different. He sounded and +pushed and pried. Nothing. He started away. Then something brought him +back. He was sounding and working again when suddenly the whole black +wall swung as on mighty hinges, and blackness yawned beyond. He peered +in; it was evidently a secret vault--some hiding place of the old bank +unknown in newer times. He entered hesitatingly. It was a long, narrow +room with shelves, and at the far end, an old iron chest. On a high +shelf lay the two missing volumes of records, and others. He put them +carefully aside and stepped to the chest. It was old, strong, and rusty. +He looked at the vast and old-fashioned lock and flashed his light on +the hinges. They were deeply incrusted with rust. Looking about, he +found a bit of iron and began to pry. The rust had eaten a hundred +years, and it had gone deep. Slowly, wearily, the old lid lifted, and +with a last, low groan lay bare its treasure--and he saw the dull sheen +of gold! + +"Boom!" + +A low, grinding, reverberating crash struck upon his ear. He started up +and looked about. All was black and still. He groped for his light and +swung it about him. Then he knew! The great stone door had swung to. He +forgot the gold and looked death squarely in the face. Then with a sigh +he went methodically to work. The cold sweat stood on his forehead; but +he searched, pounded, pushed, and worked until after what seemed endless +hours his hand struck a cold bit of metal and the great door swung again +harshly on its hinges, and then, striking against something soft and +heavy, stopped. He had just room to squeeze through. There lay the body +of the vault clerk, cold and stiff. He stared at it, and then felt sick +and nauseated. The air seemed unaccountably foul, with a strong, +peculiar odor. He stepped forward, clutched at the air, and fell +fainting across the corpse. + +He awoke with a sense of horror, leaped from the body, and groped up the +stairs, calling to the guard. The watchman sat as if asleep, with the +gate swinging free. With one glance at him the messenger hurried up to +the sub-vault. In vain he called to the guards. His voice echoed and +re-echoed weirdly. Up into the great basement he rushed. Here another +guard lay prostrate on his face, cold and still. A fear arose in the +messenger's heart. He dashed up to the cellar floor, up into the bank. +The stillness of death lay everywhere and everywhere bowed, bent, and +stretched the silent forms of men. The messenger paused and glanced +about. He was not a man easily moved; but the sight was appalling! +"Robbery and murder," he whispered slowly to himself as he saw the +twisted, oozing mouth of the president where he lay half-buried on his +desk. Then a new thought seized him: If they found him here alone--with +all this money and all these dead men--what would his life be worth? He +glanced about, tiptoed cautiously to a side door, and again looked +behind. Quietly he turned the latch and stepped out into Wall Street. + +How silent the street was! Not a soul was stirring, and yet it was +high-noon--Wall Street? Broadway? He glanced almost wildly up and down, +then across the street, and as he looked, a sickening horror froze in +his limbs. With a choking cry of utter fright he lunged, leaned giddily +against the cold building, and stared helplessly at the sight. + +In the great stone doorway a hundred men and women and children lay +crushed and twisted and jammed, forced into that great, gaping doorway +like refuse in a can--as if in one wild, frantic rush to safety, they +had rushed and ground themselves to death. Slowly the messenger crept +along the walls, wetting his parched mouth and trying to comprehend, +stilling the tremor in his limbs and the rising terror in his heart. He +met a business man, silk-hatted and frock-coated, who had crept, too, +along that smooth wall and stood now stone dead with wonder written on +his lips. The messenger turned his eyes hastily away and sought the +curb. A woman leaned wearily against the signpost, her head bowed +motionless on her lace and silken bosom. Before her stood a street car, +silent, and within--but the messenger but glanced and hurried on. A +grimy newsboy sat in the gutter with the "last edition" in his uplifted +hand: "Danger!" screamed its black headlines. "Warnings wired around the +world. The Comet's tail sweeps past us at noon. Deadly gases expected. +Close doors and windows. Seek the cellar." The messenger read and +staggered on. Far out from a window above, a girl lay with gasping face +and sleevelets on her arms. On a store step sat a little, sweet-faced +girl looking upward toward the skies, and in the carriage by her +lay--but the messenger looked no longer. The cords gave way--the terror +burst in his veins, and with one great, gasping cry he sprang +desperately forward and ran,--ran as only the frightened run, shrieking +and fighting the air until with one last wail of pain he sank on the +grass of Madison Square and lay prone and still. + +When he rose, he gave no glance at the still and silent forms on the +benches, but, going to a fountain, bathed his face; then hiding himself +in a corner away from the drama of death, he quietly gripped himself and +thought the thing through: The comet had swept the earth and this was +the end. Was everybody dead? He must search and see. + +He knew that he must steady himself and keep calm, or he would go +insane. First he must go to a restaurant. He walked up Fifth Avenue to a +famous hostelry and entered its gorgeous, ghost-haunted halls. He beat +back the nausea, and, seizing a tray from dead hands, hurried into the +street and ate ravenously, hiding to keep out the sights. + +"Yesterday, they would not have served me," he whispered, as he forced +the food down. + +Then he started up the street,--looking, peering, telephoning, ringing +alarms; silent, silent all. Was nobody--nobody--he dared not think the +thought and hurried on. + +Suddenly he stopped still. He had forgotten. My God! How could he have +forgotten? He must rush to the subway--then he almost laughed. No--a +car; if he could find a Ford. He saw one. Gently he lifted off its +burden, and took his place on the seat. He tested the throttle. There +was gas. He glided off, shivering, and drove up the street. Everywhere +stood, leaned, lounged, and lay the dead, in grim and awful silence. On +he ran past an automobile, wrecked and overturned; past another, filled +with a gay party whose smiles yet lingered on their death-struck lips; +on past crowds and groups of cars, pausing by dead policemen; at 42nd +Street he had to detour to Park Avenue to avoid the dead congestion. He +came back on Fifth Avenue at 57th and flew past the Plaza and by the +park with its hushed babies and silent throng, until as he was rushing +past 72nd Street he heard a sharp cry, and saw a living form leaning +wildly out an upper window. He gasped. The human voice sounded in his +ears like the voice of God. + +"Hello--hello--help, in God's name!" wailed the woman. "There's a dead +girl in here and a man and--and see yonder dead men lying in the street +and dead horses--for the love of God go and bring the officers----" And +the words trailed off into hysterical tears. + +He wheeled the car in a sudden circle, running over the still body of a +child and leaping on the curb. Then he rushed up the steps and tried the +door and rang violently. There was a long pause, but at last the heavy +door swung back. They stared a moment in silence. She had not noticed +before that he was a Negro. He had not thought of her as white. She was +a woman of perhaps twenty-five--rarely beautiful and richly gowned, with +darkly-golden hair, and jewels. Yesterday, he thought with bitterness, +she would scarcely have looked at him twice. He would have been dirt +beneath her silken feet. She stared at him. Of all the sorts of men she +had pictured as coming to her rescue she had not dreamed of one like +him. Not that he was not human, but he dwelt in a world so far from +hers, so infinitely far, that he seldom even entered her thought. Yet as +she looked at him curiously he seemed quite commonplace and usual. He +was a tall, dark workingman of the better class, with a sensitive face +trained to stolidity and a poor man's clothes and hands. His face was +soft and slow and his manner at once cold and nervous, like fires long +banked, but not out. + +So a moment each paused and gauged the other; then the thought of the +dead world without rushed in and they started toward each other. + +"What has happened?" she cried. "Tell me! Nothing stirs. All is silence! +I see the dead strewn before my window as winnowed by the breath of +God,--and see----" She dragged him through great, silken hangings to +where, beneath the sheen of mahogany and silver, a little French maid +lay stretched in quiet, everlasting sleep, and near her a butler lay +prone in his livery. + +The tears streamed down the woman's cheeks and she clung to his arm +until the perfume of her breath swept his face and he felt the tremors +racing through her body. + +"I had been shut up in my dark room developing pictures of the comet +which I took last night; when I came out--I saw the dead! + +"What has happened?" she cried again. + +He answered slowly: + +"Something--comet or devil--swept across the earth this morning +and--many are dead!" + +"Many? Very many?" + +"I have searched and I have seen no other living soul but you." + +She gasped and they stared at each other. + +"My--father!" she whispered. + +"Where is he?" + +"He started for the office." + +"Where is it?" + +"In the Metropolitan Tower." + +"Leave a note for him here and come." + +Then he stopped. + +"No," he said firmly--"first, we must go--to Harlem." + +"Harlem!" she cried. Then she understood. She tapped her foot at first +impatiently. She looked back and shuddered. Then she came resolutely +down the steps. + +"There's a swifter car in the garage in the court," she said. + +"I don't know how to drive it," he said. + +"I do," she answered. + +In ten minutes they were flying to Harlem on the wind. The Stutz rose +and raced like an airplane. They took the turn at 110th Street on two +wheels and slipped with a shriek into 135th. + +He was gone but a moment. Then he returned, and his face was gray. She +did not look, but said: + +"You have lost--somebody?" + +"I have lost--everybody," he said, simply--"unless----" + +He ran back and was gone several minutes--hours they seemed to her. + +"Everybody," he said, and he walked slowly back with something film-like +in his hand which he stuffed into his pocket. + +"I'm afraid I was selfish," he said. But already the car was moving +toward the park among the dark and lined dead of Harlem--the brown, +still faces, the knotted hands, the homely garments, and the +silence--the wild and haunting silence. Out of the park, and down Fifth +Avenue they whirled. In and out among the dead they slipped and +quivered, needing no sound of bell or horn, until the great, square +Metropolitan Tower hove in sight. Gently he laid the dead elevator boy +aside; the car shot upward. The door of the office stood open. On the +threshold lay the stenographer, and, staring at her, sat the dead clerk. +The inner office was empty, but a note lay on the desk, folded and +addressed but unsent: + + Dear Daughter: + + I've gone for a hundred mile spin in Fred's new Mercedes. Shall not + be back before dinner. I'll bring Fred with me. + + J.B.H. + +"Come," she cried nervously. "We must search the city." + +Up and down, over and across, back again--on went that ghostly search. +Everywhere was silence and death--death and silence! They hunted from +Madison Square to Spuyten Duyvel; they rushed across the Williamsburg +Bridge; they swept over Brooklyn; from the Battery and Morningside +Heights they scanned the river. Silence, silence everywhere, and no +human sign. Haggard and bedraggled they puffed a third time slowly down +Broadway, under the broiling sun, and at last stopped. He sniffed the +air. An odor--a smell--and with the shifting breeze a sickening stench +filled their nostrils and brought its awful warning. The girl settled +back helplessly in her seat. + +"What can we do?" she cried. + +It was his turn now to take the lead, and he did it quickly. + +"The long distance telephone--the telegraph and the cable--night rockets +and then--flight!" + +She looked at him now with strength and confidence. He did not look like +men, as she had always pictured men; but he acted like one and she was +content. In fifteen minutes they were at the central telephone exchange. +As they came to the door he stepped quickly before her and pressed her +gently back as he closed it. She heard him moving to and fro, and knew +his burdens--the poor, little burdens he bore. When she entered, he was +alone in the room. The grim switchboard flashed its metallic face in +cryptic, sphinx-like immobility. She seated herself on a stool and +donned the bright earpiece. She looked at the mouthpiece. She had never +looked at one so closely before. It was wide and black, pimpled with +usage; inert; dead; almost sarcastic in its unfeeling curves. It +looked--she beat back the thought--but it looked,--it persisted in +looking like--she turned her head and found herself alone. One moment +she was terrified; then she thanked him silently for his delicacy and +turned resolutely, with a quick intaking of breath. + +"Hello!" she called in low tones. She was calling to the world. The +world _must_ answer. Would the world _answer_? Was the world---- + +Silence! + +She had spoken too low. + +"Hello!" she cried, full-voiced. + +She listened. Silence! Her heart beat quickly. She cried in clear, +distinct, loud tones: "Hello--hello--hello!" + +What was that whirring? Surely--no--was it the click of a receiver? + +She bent close, she moved the pegs in the holes, and called and called, +until her voice rose almost to a shriek, and her heart hammered. It was +as if she had heard the last flicker of creation, and the evil was +silence. Her voice dropped to a sob. She sat stupidly staring into the +black and sarcastic mouthpiece, and the thought came again. Hope lay +dead within her. Yes, the cable and the rockets remained; but the +world--she could not frame the thought or say the word. It was too +mighty--too terrible! She turned toward the door with a new fear in her +heart. For the first time she seemed to realize that she was alone in +the world with a stranger, with something more than a stranger,--with a +man alien in blood and culture--unknown, perhaps unknowable. It was +awful! She must escape--she must fly; he must not see her again. Who +knew what awful thoughts-- + +She gathered her silken skirts deftly about her young, smooth +limbs--listened, and glided into a sidehall. A moment she shrank back: +the hall lay filled with dead women; then she leaped to the door and +tore at it, with bleeding fingers, until it swung wide. She looked out. +He was standing at the top of the alley,--silhouetted, tall and black, +motionless. Was he looking at her or away? She did not know--she did not +care. She simply leaped and ran--ran until she found herself alone amid +the dead and the tall ramparts of towering buildings. + +She stopped. She was alone. Alone! Alone on the streets--alone in the +city--perhaps alone in the world! There crept in upon her the sense of +deception--of creeping hands behind her back--of silent, moving things +she could not see,--of voices hushed in fearsome conspiracy. She looked +behind and sideways, started at strange sounds and heard still stranger, +until every nerve within her stood sharp and quivering, stretched to +scream at the barest touch. She whirled and flew back, whimpering like a +child, until she found that narrow alley again and the dark, silent +figure silhouetted at the top. She stopped and rested; then she walked +silently toward him, looked at him timidly; but he said nothing as he +handed her into the car. Her voice caught as she whispered: + +"Not--that." + +And he answered slowly: "No--not that!" + +They climbed into the car. She bent forward on the wheel and sobbed, +with great, dry, quivering sobs, as they flew toward the cable office on +the east side, leaving the world of wealth and prosperity for the world +of poverty and work. In the world behind them were death and silence, +grave and grim, almost cynical, but always decent; here it was hideous. +It clothed itself in every ghastly form of terror, struggle, hate, and +suffering. It lay wreathed in crime and squalor, greed and lust. Only in +its dread and awful silence was it like to death everywhere. + +Yet as the two, flying and alone, looked upon the horror of the world, +slowly, gradually, the sense of all-enveloping death deserted them. They +seemed to move in a world silent and asleep,--not dead. They moved in +quiet reverence, lest somehow they wake these sleeping forms who had, at +last, found peace. They moved in some solemn, world-wide _Friedhof_, +above which some mighty arm had waved its magic wand. All nature slept +until--until, and quick with the same startling thought, they looked +into each other's eyes--he, ashen, and she, crimson, with unspoken +thought. To both, the vision of a mighty beauty--of vast, unspoken +things, swelled in their souls; but they put it away. + +Great, dark coils of wire came up from the earth and down from the sun +and entered this low lair of witchery. The gathered lightnings of the +world centered here, binding with beams of light the ends of the earth. +The doors gaped on the gloom within. He paused on the threshold. + +"Do you know the code?" she asked. + +"I know the call for help--we used it formerly at the bank." + +She hardly heard. She heard the lapping of the waters far below,--the +dark and restless waters--the cold and luring waters, as they called. He +stepped within. Slowly she walked to the wall, where the water called +below, and stood and waited. Long she waited, and he did not come. Then +with a start she saw him, too, standing beside the black waters. Slowly +he removed his coat and stood there silently. She walked quickly to him +and laid her hand on his arm. He did not start or look. The waters +lapped on in luring, deadly rhythm. He pointed down to the waters, and +said quietly: + +"The world lies beneath the waters now--may I go?" + +She looked into his stricken, tired face, and a great pity surged within +her heart. She answered in a voice clear and calm, "No." + +Upward they turned toward life again, and he seized the wheel. The +world was darkening to twilight, and a great, gray pall was falling +mercifully and gently on the sleeping dead. The ghastly glare of reality +seemed replaced with the dream of some vast romance. The girl lay +silently back, as the motor whizzed along, and looked half-consciously +for the elf-queen to wave life into this dead world again. She forgot to +wonder at the quickness with which he had learned to drive her car. It +seemed natural. And then as they whirled and swung into Madison Square +and at the door of the Metropolitan Tower she gave a low cry, and her +eyes were great! Perhaps she had seen the elf-queen? + +The man led her to the elevator of the tower and deftly they ascended. +In her father's office they gathered rugs and chairs, and he wrote a +note and laid it on the desk; then they ascended to the roof and he made +her comfortable. For a while she rested and sank to dreamy somnolence, +watching the worlds above and wondering. Below lay the dark shadows of +the city and afar was the shining of the sea. She glanced at him timidly +as he set food before her and took a shawl and wound her in it, touching +her reverently, yet tenderly. She looked up at him with thankfulness in +her eyes, eating what he served. He watched the city. She watched him. +He seemed very human,--very near now. + +"Have you had to work hard?" she asked softly. + +"Always," he said. + +"I have always been idle," she said. "I was rich." + +"I was poor," he almost echoed. + +"The rich and the poor are met together," she began, and he finished: + +"The Lord is the Maker of them all." + +"Yes," she said slowly; "and how foolish our human distinctions +seem--now," looking down to the great dead city stretched below, +swimming in unlightened shadows. + +"Yes--I was not--human, yesterday," he said. + +She looked at him. "And your people were not my people," she said; "but +today----" She paused. He was a man,--no more; but he was in some larger +sense a gentleman,--sensitive, kindly, chivalrous, everything save his +hands and--his face. Yet yesterday---- + +"Death, the leveler!" he muttered. + +"And the revealer," she whispered gently, rising to her feet with great +eyes. He turned away, and after fumbling a moment sent a rocket into the +darkening air. It arose, shrieked, and flew up, a slim path of light, +and scattering its stars abroad, dropped on the city below. She scarcely +noticed it. A vision of the world had risen before her. Slowly the +mighty prophecy of her destiny overwhelmed her. Above the dead past +hovered the Angel of Annunciation. She was no mere woman. She was +neither high nor low, white nor black, rich nor poor. She was primal +woman; mighty mother of all men to come and Bride of Life. She looked +upon the man beside her and forgot all else but his manhood, his strong, +vigorous manhood--his sorrow and sacrifice. She saw him glorified. He +was no longer a thing apart, a creature below, a strange outcast of +another clime and blood, but her Brother Humanity incarnate, Son of God +and great All-Father of the race to be. + +He did not glimpse the glory in her eyes, but stood looking outward +toward the sea and sending rocket after rocket into the unanswering +darkness. Dark-purple clouds lay banked and billowed in the west. Behind +them and all around, the heavens glowed in dim, weird radiance that +suffused the darkening world and made almost a minor music. Suddenly, as +though gathered back in some vast hand, the great cloud-curtain fell +away. Low on the horizon lay a long, white star--mystic, wonderful! And +from it fled upward to the pole, like some wan bridal veil, a pale, wide +sheet of flame that lighted all the world and dimmed the stars. + +In fascinated silence the man gazed at the heavens and dropped his +rockets to the floor. Memories of memories stirred to life in the dead +recesses of his mind. The shackles seemed to rattle and fall from his +soul. Up from the crass and crushing and cringing of his caste leaped +the lone majesty of kings long dead. He arose within the shadows, tall, +straight, and stern, with power in his eyes and ghostly scepters +hovering to his grasp. It was as though some mighty Pharaoh lived again, +or curled Assyrian lord. He turned and looked upon the lady, and found +her gazing straight at him. + +Silently, immovably, they saw each other face to face--eye to eye. Their +souls lay naked to the night. It was not lust; it was not love--it was +some vaster, mightier thing that needed neither touch of body nor thrill +of soul. It was a thought divine, splendid. + +Slowly, noiselessly, they moved toward each other--the heavens above, +the seas around, the city grim and dead below. He loomed from out the +velvet shadows vast and dark. Pearl-white and slender, she shone beneath +the stars. She stretched her jeweled hands abroad. He lifted up his +mighty arms, and they cried each to the other, almost with one voice, +"The world is dead." + +"Long live the----" + +"Honk! Honk!" Hoarse and sharp the cry of a motor drifted clearly up +from the silence below. They started backward with a cry and gazed upon +each other with eyes that faltered and fell, with blood that boiled. + +"Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk!" came the mad cry again, and almost from their +feet a rocket blazed into the air and scattered its stars upon them. She +covered her eyes with her hands, and her shoulders heaved. He dropped +and bowed, groped blindly on his knees about the floor. A blue flame +spluttered lazily after an age, and she heard the scream of an answering +rocket as it flew. + +Then they stood still as death, looking to opposite ends of the earth. + +"Clang--crash--clang!" + +The roar and ring of swift elevators shooting upward from below made the +great tower tremble. A murmur and babel of voices swept in upon the +night. All over the once dead city the lights blinked, flickered, and +flamed; and then with a sudden clanging of doors the entrance to the +platform was filled with men, and one with white and flying hair rushed +to the girl and lifted her to his breast. "My daughter!" he sobbed. + +Behind him hurried a younger, comelier man, carefully clad in motor +costume, who bent above the girl with passionate solicitude and gazed +into her staring eyes until they narrowed and dropped and her face +flushed deeper and deeper crimson. + +"Julia," he whispered; "my darling, I thought you were gone forever." + +She looked up at him with strange, searching eyes. + +"Fred," she murmured, almost vaguely, "is the world--gone?" + +"Only New York," he answered; "it is terrible--awful! You know,--but +you, how did you escape--how have you endured this horror? Are you well? +Unharmed?" + +"Unharmed!" she said. + +"And this man here?" he asked, encircling her drooping form with one arm +and turning toward the Negro. Suddenly he stiffened and his hand flew to +his hip. "Why!" he snarled. "It's--a--nigger--Julia! Has he--has he +dared----" + +She lifted her head and looked at her late companion curiously and then +dropped her eyes with a sigh. + +"He has dared--all, to rescue me," she said quietly, "and I--thank +him--much." But she did not look at him again. As the couple turned +away, the father drew a roll of bills from his pockets. + +"Here, my good fellow," he said, thrusting the money into the man's +hands, "take that,--what's your name?" + +"Jim Davis," came the answer, hollow-voiced. + +"Well, Jim, I thank you. I've always liked your people. If you ever want +a job, call on me." And they were gone. + +The crowd poured up and out of the elevators, talking and whispering. + +"Who was it?" + +"Are they alive?" + +"How many?" + +"Two!" + +"Who was saved?" + +"A white girl and a nigger--there she goes." + +"A nigger? Where is he? Let's lynch the damned----" + +"Shut up--he's all right-he saved her." + +"Saved hell! He had no business----" + +"Here he comes." + +Into the glare of the electric lights the colored man moved slowly, with +the eyes of those that walk and sleep. + +"Well, what do you think of that?" cried a bystander; "of all New York, +just a white girl and a nigger!" + +The colored man heard nothing. He stood silently beneath the glare of +the light, gazing at the money in his hand and shrinking as he gazed; +slowly he put his other hand into his pocket and brought out a baby's +filmy cap, and gazed again. A woman mounted to the platform and looked +about, shading her eyes. She was brown, small, and toil-worn, and in one +arm lay the corpse of a dark baby. The crowd parted and her eyes fell on +the colored man; with a cry she tottered toward him. + +"Jim!" + +He whirled and, with a sob of joy, caught her in his arms. + + + + +_A Hymn to the Peoples_ + + + O Truce of God! + And primal meeting of the Sons of Man, + Foreshadowing the union of the World! + From all the ends of earth we come! + Old Night, the elder sister of the Day, + Mother of Dawn in the golden East, + Meets in the misty twilight with her brood, + Pale and black, tawny, red and brown, + The mighty human rainbow of the world, + Spanning its wilderness of storm. + + Softly in sympathy the sunlight falls, + Rare is the radiance of the moon; + And on the darkest midnight blaze the stars-- + The far-flown shadows of whose brilliance + Drop like a dream on the dim shores of Time, + Forecasting Days that are to these + As day to night. + + So sit we all as one. + So, gloomed in tall and stone-swathed groves, + The Buddha walks with Christ! + And Al-Koran and Bible both be holy! + + Almighty Word! + In this Thine awful sanctuary, + First and flame-haunted City of the Widened World, + Assoil us, Lord of Lands and Seas! + + We are but weak and wayward men, + Distraught alike with hatred and vainglory; + Prone to despise the Soul that breathes within-- + High visioned hordes that lie and steal and kill, + Sinning the sin each separate heart disclaims, + Clambering upon our riven, writhing selves, + Besieging Heaven by trampling men to Hell! + We be blood-guilty! Lo, our hands be red! + Not one may blame the other in this sin! + But here--here in the white Silence of the Dawn, + Before the Womb of Time, + With bowed hearts all flame and shame, + We face the birth-pangs of a world: + We hear the stifled cry of Nations all but born-- + The wail of women ravished of their stunted brood! + We see the nakedness of Toil, the poverty of Wealth, + We know the Anarchy of Empire, and doleful Death of Life! + And hearing, seeing, knowing all, we cry: + + Save us, World-Spirit, from our lesser selves! + Grant us that war and hatred cease, + Reveal our souls in every race and hue! + Help us, O Human God, in this Thy Truce, + To make Humanity divine! + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Darkwater, by W. E. B. 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DuBois. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + .poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em;} + .poem span.i12 {display: block; margin-left: 12em;} + .poem span.i3 {display: block; margin-left: 3em;} + .poem span.i5 {display: block; margin-left: 5em;} + .poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em;} + .poem span.i7 {display: block; margin-left: 7em;} + .poem span.i8 {display: block; margin-left: 8em;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Darkwater, by W. E. B. Du Bois + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Darkwater + Voices From Within The Veil + +Author: W. E. B. Du Bois + +Release Date: February 28, 2005 [EBook #15210] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DARKWATER *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Audrey Longhurst, and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + +<h1>DARKWATER</h1> + +<h2>Voices from within the Veil</h2> +<h2>W.E.B. DU BOIS</h2> +<p><br /><br /></p> + + + +<div class="center">Originally published in 1920 by Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York.</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 85%;" /> +<h3><a name="AD_NINAM" id="AD_NINAM" />AD NINAM</h3> + +<h3>May 12, 1896</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 85%;" /> +<h2><a name="POSTSCRIPT" id="POSTSCRIPT" />POSTSCRIPT</h2> + + +<p>These are the things of which men think, who live: of their own selves +and the dwelling place of their fathers; of their neighbors; of work and +service; of rule and reason and women and children; of Beauty and Death +and War. To this thinking I have only to add a point of view: I have +been in the world, but not of it. I have seen the human drama from a +veiled corner, where all the outer tragedy and comedy have reproduced +themselves in microcosm within. From this inner torment of souls the +human scene without has interpreted itself to me in unusual and even +illuminating ways. For this reason, and this alone, I venture to write +again on themes on which great souls have already said greater words, in +the hope that I may strike here and there a half-tone, newer even if +slighter, up from the heart of my problem and the problems of my people.</p> + +<p>Between the sterner flights of logic, I have sought to set some little +alightings of what may be poetry. They are tributes to Beauty, unworthy +to stand alone; yet perversely, in my mind, now at the end, I know not +whether I mean the Thought for the Fancy—or the Fancy for the Thought, +or why the book trails off to playing, rather than standing strong on +unanswering fact. But this is alway—is it not?—the Riddle of Life.</p> + +<p>Many of my words appear here transformed from other publications and I +thank the <i>Atlantic</i>, the <i>Independent</i>, the <i>Crisis</i>, and the <i>Journal +of Race Development</i> for letting me use them again.</p> + +<p> +W.E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS.<br /> +New York, 1919.<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 85%;" /> +<h2><a name="Contents" id="Contents" /><b>Contents</b></h2> + +<div><table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="5" summary="Contents"> + +<tr><td></td><td><a href="#POSTSCRIPT">POSTSCRIPT</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><a href="#Credo">Credo</a><br /></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Chapter_I">I</a></td><td><a href="#Chapter_I">THE SHADOW OF YEAR</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><a href="#A_Litany_at_Atlanta"><i>A Litany at Atlanta</i></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Chapter_II">II</a></td><td><a href="#Chapter_II">THE SOULS OF WHITE FOLK</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><a href="#The_Riddle_of_the_Sphinx"><i>The Riddle of the Sphinx</i></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Chapter_III">III</a></td><td><a href="#Chapter_III">THE HANDS OF ETHIOPIA</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><a href="#The_Princess_of_the_Hither_Isles"><i>The Princess of the Hither Isles</i></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Chapter_IV">IV</a></td><td><a href="#Chapter_IV">OF WORK AND WEALTH</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><a href="#The_Second_Coming"><i>The Second Coming</i></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Chapter_V">V</a></td><td><a href="#Chapter_V">"THE SERVANT IN THE HOUSE"</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><a href="#Jesus_Christ_in_Texas"><i>Jesus Christ in Texas</i></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Chapter_VI">VI</a></td><td><a href="#Chapter_VI">OF THE RULING OF MEN</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><a href="#The_Call"><i>The Call</i></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Chapter_VII">VII</a></td><td><a href="#Chapter_VII">THE DAMNATION OF WOMEN</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><a href="#Children_of_the_Moon"><i>Children of the Moon</i></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Chapter_VIII">VIII</a></td><td><a href="#Chapter_VIII">THE IMMORTAL CHILD</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><a href="#Almighty_Death"><i>Almighty Death</i></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Chapter_IX">IX</a></td><td><a href="#Chapter_IX">OF BEAUTY AND DEATH</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><a href="#The_Prayers_of_God"><i>The Prayers of God</i></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Chapter_X">X</a></td><td><a href="#Chapter_X">THE COMET</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><a href="#A_Hymn_to_the_Peoples"><i>A Hymn to the Peoples</i></a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<div><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1" /></div> + +<hr style="width: 85%;" /> +<h2><a name="Credo" id="Credo" /><i>Credo</i></h2> + + +<p>I believe in God, who made of one blood all nations that on earth do +dwell. I believe that all men, black and brown and white, are brothers, +varying through time and opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but +differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and the +possibility of infinite development.</p> + +<p>Especially do I believe in the Negro Race: in the beauty of its genius, +the sweetness of its soul, and its strength in that meekness which shall +yet inherit this turbulent earth.</p> + +<p>I believe in Pride of race and lineage and self: in pride of self so +deep as to scorn injustice to other selves; in pride of lineage so great +as to despise no man's father; in pride of race so chivalrous as neither +to offer bastardy to the weak nor beg wedlock of the strong, knowing +that men may be brothers in Christ, even though they be not +brothers-in-law.</p> + +<p>I believe in Service—humble, reverent service, from the blackening of +boots to the whitening of souls; for Work is Heaven, Idleness Hell, and +Wage is the "Well done!" of the Master, who summoned all them that labor +and are heavy laden, making no distinction between the black, sweating +cotton hands of Georgia and the first families of Virginia, since all +distinction not based on deed is devilish and not divine.</p> + +<p>I believe in the Devil and his angels, who wantonly work to narrow the +opportunity of struggling human beings, especially if they be black; who +spit in the faces of the fallen, strike them that cannot strike again, +believe the worst and work to prove it, hating the image which their +Maker stamped on a brother's soul.</p> + +<p>I believe in the Prince of Peace. I believe that War is Murder. I +believe that armies and navies are at bottom the tinsel and braggadocio +of oppression and wrong, and I believe that the wicked conquest of +weaker and darker nations by nations whiter and stronger but foreshadows +the death of that strength.<a name="Page_2" id="Page_2" /></p> + +<p>I believe in Liberty for all men: the space to stretch their arms and +their souls, the right to breathe and the right to vote, the freedom to +choose their friends, enjoy the sunshine, and ride on the railroads, +uncursed by color; thinking, dreaming, working as they will in a kingdom +of beauty and love.</p> + +<p>I believe in the Training of Children, black even as white; the leading +out of little souls into the green pastures and beside the still waters, +not for pelf or peace, but for life lit by some large vision of beauty +and goodness and truth; lest we forget, and the sons of the fathers, +like Esau, for mere meat barter their birthright in a mighty nation.</p> + +<p>Finally, I believe in Patience—patience with the weakness of the Weak +and the strength of the Strong, the prejudice of the Ignorant and the +ignorance of the Blind; patience with the tardy triumph of Joy and the +mad chastening of Sorrow.<a name="Page_3" id="Page_3" /></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 85%;" /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_I" id="Chapter_I" />I</h2> + +<h3>THE SHADOW OF YEARS</h3> + + +<p>I was born by a golden river and in the shadow of two great hills, five +years after the Emancipation Proclamation. The house was quaint, with +clapboards running up and down, neatly trimmed, and there were five +rooms, a tiny porch, a rosy front yard, and unbelievably delicious +strawberries in the rear. A South Carolinian, lately come to the +Berkshire Hills, owned all this—tall, thin, and black, with golden +earrings, and given to religious trances. We were his transient tenants +for the time.</p> + +<p>My own people were part of a great clan. Fully two hundred years before, +Tom Burghardt had come through the western pass from the Hudson with his +Dutch captor, "Coenraet Burghardt," sullen in his slavery and achieving +his freedom by volunteering for the Revolution at a time of sudden +alarm. His wife was a little, black, Bantu woman, who never became +reconciled to this strange land; she clasped her knees and rocked and +crooned:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Do bana coba—gene me, gene me!<br /></span> +<span>Ben d'nuli, ben d'le—"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Tom died about 1787, but of him came many sons, and one, Jack, who +helped in the War of 1812. Of Jack and his wife, Violet, was born a +mighty family, splendidly named: Harlow and Ira, Cloë, Lucinda, Maria, +and Othello! I dimly remember my grandfather, Othello,—or "Uncle +Tallow,"—a brown man, strong-voiced and redolent with tobacco, who sat +stiffly in a great high chair because his hip was broken. He was +probably a bit lazy and given to wassail. At any rate, grandmother had a +shrewish tongue and often berated him. This grandmother was Sarah—"Aunt +Sally"—a stern, tall, Dutch-African woman, beak-nosed, <a name="Page_4" id="Page_4" />but +beautiful-eyed and golden-skinned. Ten or more children were theirs, of +whom the youngest was Mary, my mother.</p> + +<p>Mother was dark shining bronze, with a tiny ripple in her black hair, +black-eyed, with a heavy, kind face. She gave one the impression of +infinite patience, but a curious determination was concealed in her +softness. The family were small farmers on Egremont Plain, between Great +Barrington and Sheffield, Massachusetts. The bits of land were too small +to support the great families born on them and we were always poor. I +never remember being cold or hungry, but I do remember that shoes and +coal, and sometimes flour, caused mother moments of anxious thought in +winter, and a new suit was an event!</p> + +<p>At about the time of my birth economic pressure was transmuting the +family generally from farmers to "hired" help. Some revolted and +migrated westward, others went cityward as cooks and barbers. Mother +worked for some years at house service in Great Barrington, and after a +disappointed love episode with a cousin, who went to California, she met +and married Alfred Du Bois and went to town to live by the golden river +where I was born.</p> + +<p>Alfred, my father, must have seemed a splendid vision in that little +valley under the shelter of those mighty hills. He was small and +beautiful of face and feature, just tinted with the sun, his curly hair +chiefly revealing his kinship to Africa. In nature he was a +dreamer,—romantic, indolent, kind, unreliable. He had in him the making +of a poet, an adventurer, or a Beloved Vagabond, according to the life +that closed round him; and that life gave him all too little. His +father, Alexander Du Bois, cloaked under a stern, austere demeanor a +passionate revolt against the world. He, too, was small, but squarish. I +remember him as I saw him first, in his home in New Bedford,—white hair +close-cropped; a seamed, hard face, but high in tone, with a gray eye +that could twinkle or glare.</p> + +<p>Long years before him Louis XIV drove two Huguenots, Jacques and Louis +Du Bois, into wild Ulster County, New York. One of them in the third or +fourth generation had a descendant, Dr. James Du Bois, a gay, rich +bachelor, who made his money in the Bahamas, where he and the Gilberts +had plantations. There he took a beautiful little mulatto slave as his +mistress, and two sons were born: Alexander in 1803 and John, later. +They were fine, straight, clear-eyed boys, white enough to "pass." He +brought them to America and put Alexander in the celebrated Cheshire +School, in Connecticut. Here he often visited him, but one last time, +fell dead. He left no will, and his relations made short shrift of these +sons. They gathered in the property, apprenticed grandfather to a +shoemaker; then dropped him.</p> + +<p>Grandfather took his bitter dose like a thoroughbred. Wild as was his +<a name="Page_5" id="Page_5" />inner revolt against this treatment, he uttered no word against the +thieves and made no plea. He tried his fortunes here and in Haiti, +where, during his short, restless sojourn, my own father was born. +Eventually, grandfather became chief steward on the passenger boat +between New York and New Haven; later he was a small merchant in +Springfield; and finally he retired and ended his days at New Bedford. +Always he held his head high, took no insults, made few friends. He was +not a "Negro"; he was a man! Yet the current was too strong even for +him. Then even more than now a colored man had colored friends or none +at all, lived in a colored world or lived alone. A few fine, strong, +black men gained the heart of this silent, bitter man in New York and +New Haven. If he had scant sympathy with their social clannishness, he +was with them in fighting discrimination. So, when the white +Episcopalians of Trinity Parish, New Haven, showed plainly that they no +longer wanted black Folks as fellow Christians, he led the revolt which +resulted in St. Luke's Parish, and was for years its senior warden. He +lies dead in the Grove Street Cemetery, beside Jehudi Ashmun.</p> + +<p>Beneath his sternness was a very human man. Slyly he wrote +poetry,—stilted, pleading things from a soul astray. He loved women in +his masterful way, marrying three beautiful wives in succession and +clinging to each with a certain desperate, even if unsympathetic, +affection. As a father he was, naturally, a failure,—hard, domineering, +unyielding. His four children reacted characteristically: one was until +past middle life a thin spinster, the mental image of her father; one +died; one passed over into the white world and her children's children +are now white, with no knowledge of their Negro blood; the fourth, my +father, bent before grandfather, but did not break—better if he had. He +yielded and flared back, asked forgiveness and forgot why, became the +harshly-held favorite, who ran away and rioted and roamed and loved and +married my brown mother.</p> + +<p>So with some circumstance having finally gotten myself born, with a +flood of Negro blood, a strain of French, a bit of Dutch, but, thank +God! no "Anglo-Saxon," I come to the days of my childhood.</p> + +<p>They were very happy. Early we moved back to Grandfather Burghardt's +home,—I barely remember its stone fireplace, big kitchen, and +delightful woodshed. Then this house passed to other branches of the +clan and we moved to rented quarters in town,—to one delectable place +"upstairs," with a wide yard full of shrubbery, and a brook; to another +house abutting a railroad, with infinite interests and astonishing +playmates; and finally back to the quiet street on which I was +born,—down a long lane and in a homely, cozy cottage, with a +living-room, a tiny sitting-room, a pantry, and two attic bedrooms. Here +mother and I lived until she died, in 1884, for father early began his +<a name="Page_6" id="Page_6" />restless wanderings. I last remember urgent letters for us to come to +New Milford, where he had started a barber shop. Later he became a +preacher. But mother no longer trusted his dreams, and he soon faded out +of our lives into silence.</p> + +<p>From the age of five until I was sixteen I went to a school on the same +grounds,—down a lane, into a widened yard, with a big choke-cherry tree +and two buildings, wood and brick. Here I got acquainted with my world, +and soon had my criterions of judgment.</p> + +<p>Wealth had no particular lure. On the other hand, the shadow of wealth +was about us. That river of my birth was golden because of the woolen +and paper waste that soiled it. The gold was theirs, not ours; but the +gleam and glint was for all. To me it was all in order and I took it +philosophically. I cordially despised the poor Irish and South Germans, +who slaved in the mills, and annexed the rich and well-to-do as my +natural companions. Of such is the kingdom of snobs!</p> + +<p>Most of our townfolk were, naturally, the well-to-do, shading downward, +but seldom reaching poverty. As playmate of the children I saw the homes +of nearly every one, except a few immigrant New Yorkers, of whom none of +us approved. The homes I saw impressed me, but did not overwhelm me. +Many were bigger than mine, with newer and shinier things, but they did +not seem to differ in kind. I think I probably surprised my hosts more +than they me, for I was easily at home and perfectly happy and they +looked to me just like ordinary people, while my brown face and frizzled +hair must have seemed strange to them.</p> + +<p>Yet I was very much one of them. I was a center and sometimes the leader +of the town gang of boys. We were noisy, but never very bad,—and, +indeed, my mother's quiet influence came in here, as I realize now. She +did not try to make me perfect. To her I was already perfect. She simply +warned me of a few things, especially saloons. In my town the saloon was +the open door to hell. The best families had their drunkards and the +worst had little else.</p> + +<p>Very gradually,—I cannot now distinguish the steps, though here and +there I remember a jump or a jolt—but very gradually I found myself +assuming quite placidly that I was different from other children. At +first I think I connected the difference with a manifest ability to get +my lessons rather better than most and to recite with a certain happy, +almost taunting, glibness, which brought frowns here and there. Then, +slowly, I realized that some folks, a few, even several, actually +considered my brown skin a misfortune; once or twice I became painfully +aware that some human beings even thought it a crime. I was not for a +moment daunted,—although, of course, there were some days of secret +tears—rather I was spurred to tireless effort. If they beat me at +anything, I was grimly determined to make them sweat for it! Once I +remember <a name="Page_7" id="Page_7" />challenging a great, hard farmer-boy to battle, when I knew he +could whip me; and he did. But ever after, he was polite.</p> + +<p>As time flew I felt not so much disowned and rejected as rather drawn up +into higher spaces and made part of a mightier mission. At times I +almost pitied my pale companions, who were not of the Lord's anointed +and who saw in their dreams no splendid quests of golden fleeces.</p> + +<p>Even in the matter of girls my peculiar phantasy asserted itself. +Naturally, it was in our town voted bad form for boys of twelve and +fourteen to show any evident weakness for girls. We tolerated them +loftily, and now and then they played in our games, when I joined in +quite as naturally as the rest. It was when strangers came, or summer +boarders, or when the oldest girls grew up that my sharp senses noted +little hesitancies in public and searchings for possible public opinion. +Then I flamed! I lifted my chin and strode off to the mountains, where I +viewed the world at my feet and strained my eyes across the shadow of +the hills.</p> + +<p>I was graduated from high school at sixteen, and I talked of "Wendell +Phillips." This was my first sweet taste of the world's applause. There +were flowers and upturned faces, music and marching, and there was my +mother's smile. She was lame, then, and a bit drawn, but very happy. It +was her great day and that very year she lay down with a sigh of content +and has not yet awakened. I felt a certain gladness to see her, at last, +at peace, for she had worried all her life. Of my own loss I had then +little realization. That came only with the after-years. Now it was the +choking gladness and solemn feel of wings! At last, I was going beyond +the hills and into the world that beckoned steadily.</p> + +<p>There came a little pause,—a singular pause. I was given to understand +that I was almost too young for the world. Harvard was the goal of my +dreams, but my white friends hesitated and my colored friends were +silent. Harvard was a mighty conjure-word in that hill town, and even +the mill owners' sons had aimed lower. Finally it was tactfully +explained that the place for me was in the South among my people. A +scholarship had been already arranged at Fisk, and my summer earnings +would pay the fare. My relatives grumbled, but after a twinge I felt a +strange delight! I forgot, or did not thoroughly realize, the curious +irony by which I was not looked upon as a real citizen of my birth-town, +with a future and a career, and instead was being sent to a far land +among strangers who were regarded as (and in truth were) "mine own +people."</p> + +<p>Ah! the wonder of that journey, with its faint spice of adventure, as I +entered the land of slaves; the never-to-be-forgotten marvel of that +first supper at Fisk with the world "colored" and opposite two of the +most beautiful beings God ever revealed to the eyes of seventeen. I +promptly lost my appetite, but I was deliriously happy!<a name="Page_8" id="Page_8" /></p> + +<p>As I peer back through the shadow of my years, seeing not too clearly, +but through the thickening veil of wish and after-thought, I seem to +view my life divided into four distinct parts: the Age of Miracles, the +Days of Disillusion, the Discipline of Work and Play, and the Second +Miracle Age.</p> + +<p>The Age of Miracles began with Fisk and ended with Germany. I was +bursting with the joy of living. I seemed to ride in conquering might. I +was captain of my soul and master of fate! I <i>willed</i> to do! It was +done. I <i>wished!</i> The wish came true.</p> + +<p>Now and then out of the void flashed the great sword of hate to remind +me of the battle. I remember once, in Nashville, brushing by accident +against a white woman on the street. Politely and eagerly I raised my +hat to apologize. That was thirty-five years ago. From that day to this +I have never knowingly raised my hat to a Southern white woman.</p> + +<p>I suspect that beneath all of my seeming triumphs there were many +failures and disappointments, but the realities loomed so large that +they swept away even the memory of other dreams and wishes. Consider, +for a moment, how miraculous it all was to a boy of seventeen, just +escaped from a narrow valley: I willed and lo! my people came dancing +about me,—riotous in color, gay in laughter, full of sympathy, need, +and pleading; darkly delicious girls—"colored" girls—sat beside me and +actually talked to me while I gazed in tongue-tied silence or babbled in +boastful dreams. Boys with my own experiences and out of my own world, +who knew and understood, wrought out with me great remedies. I studied +eagerly under teachers who bent in subtle sympathy, feeling themselves +some shadow of the Veil and lifting it gently that we darker souls might +peer through to other worlds.</p> + +<p>I willed and lo! I was walking beneath the elms of Harvard,—the name of +allurement, the college of my youngest, wildest visions! I needed money; +scholarships and prizes fell into my lap,—not all I wanted or strove +for, but all I needed to keep in school. Commencement came and standing +before governor, president, and grave, gowned men, I told them certain +astonishing truths, waving my arms and breathing fast! They applauded +with what now seems to me uncalled-for fervor, but then! I walked home +on pink clouds of glory! I asked for a fellowship and got it. I +announced my plan of studying in Germany, but Harvard had no more +fellowships for me. A friend, however, told me of the Slater Fund and +how the Board was looking for colored men worth educating. No thought of +modest hesitation occurred to me. I rushed at the chance.</p> + +<p>The trustees of the Slater Fund excused themselves politely. They +acknowledged that they had in the past looked for colored boys of +ability to educate, but, being unsuccessful, they had stopped searching. +I went <a name="Page_9" id="Page_9" />at them hammer and tongs! I plied them with testimonials and +mid-year and final marks. I intimated plainly, impudently, that they +were "stalling"! In vain did the chairman, Ex-President Hayes, explain +and excuse. I took no excuses and brushed explanations aside. I wonder +now that he did not brush me aside, too, as a conceited meddler, but +instead he smiled and surrendered.</p> + +<p>I crossed the ocean in a trance. Always I seemed to be saying, "It is +not real; I must be dreaming!" I can live it again—the little, Dutch +ship—the blue waters—the smell of new-mown hay—Holland and the Rhine. +I saw the Wartburg and Berlin; I made the Harzreise and climbed the +Brocken; I saw the Hansa towns and the cities and dorfs of South +Germany; I saw the Alps at Berne, the Cathedral at Milan, Florence, +Rome, Venice, Vienna, and Pesth; I looked on the boundaries of Russia; +and I sat in Paris and London.</p> + +<p>On mountain and valley, in home and school, I met men and women as I had +never met them before. Slowly they became, not white folks, but folks. +The unity beneath all life clutched me. I was not less fanatically a +Negro, but "Negro" meant a greater, broader sense of humanity and +world-fellowship. I felt myself standing, not against the world, but +simply against American narrowness and color prejudice, with the +greater, finer world at my back urging me on.</p> + +<p>I builded great castles in Spain and lived therein. I dreamed and loved +and wandered and sang; then, after two long years, I dropped suddenly +back into "nigger"-hating America!</p> + +<p>My Days of Disillusion were not disappointing enough to discourage me. I +was still upheld by that fund of infinite faith, although dimly about me +I saw the shadow of disaster. I began to realize how much of what I had +called Will and Ability was sheer Luck! <i>Suppose</i> my good mother had +preferred a steady income from my child labor rather than bank on the +precarious dividend of my higher training? <i>Suppose</i> that pompous old +village judge, whose dignity we often ruffled and whose apples we stole, +had had his way and sent me while a child to a "reform" school to learn +a "trade"? <i>Suppose</i> Principal Hosmer had been born with no faith in +"darkies," and instead of giving me Greek and Latin had taught me +carpentry and the making of tin pans? <i>Suppose</i> I had missed a Harvard +scholarship? <i>Suppose</i> the Slater Board had then, as now, distinct ideas +as to where the education of Negroes should stop? Suppose <i>and</i> suppose! +As I sat down calmly on flat earth and looked at my life a certain great +fear seized me. Was I the masterful captain or the pawn of laughing +sprites? Who was I to fight a world of color prejudice? I raise my hat +to myself when I remember that, even with these thoughts, I did not +hesitate or waver; but just went doggedly to work, and therein lay +whatever salvation I have achieved.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10" />First came the task of earning a living. I was not nice or hard to +please. I just got down on my knees and begged for work, anything and +anywhere. I wrote to Hampton, Tuskegee, and a dozen other places. They +politely declined, with many regrets. The trustees of a backwoods +Tennessee town considered me, but were eventually afraid. Then, +suddenly, Wilberforce offered to let me teach Latin and Greek at $750 a +year. I was overjoyed!</p> + +<p>I did not know anything about Latin and Greek, but I did know of +Wilberforce. The breath of that great name had swept the water and +dropped into southern Ohio, where Southerners had taken their cure at +Tawawa Springs and where white Methodists had planted a school; then +came the little bishop, Daniel Payne, who made it a school of the +African Methodists. This was the school that called me, and when +re-considered offers from Tuskegee and Jefferson City followed, I +refused; I was so thankful for that first offer.</p> + +<p>I went to Wilberforce with high ideals. I wanted to help to build a +great university. I was willing to work night as well as day. I taught +Latin, Greek, English, and German. I helped in the discipline, took part +in the social life, begged to be allowed to lecture on sociology, and +began to write books. But I found myself against a stone wall. Nothing +stirred before my impatient pounding! Or if it stirred, it soon slept +again.</p> + +<p>Of course, I was too impatient! The snarl of years was not to be undone +in days. I set at solving the problem before I knew it. Wilberforce was +a colored church-school. In it were mingled the problems of +poorly-prepared pupils, an inadequately-equipped plant, the natural +politics of bishoprics, and the provincial reactions of a country town +loaded with traditions. It was my first introduction to a Negro world, +and I was at once marvelously inspired and deeply depressed. I was +inspired with the children,—had I not rubbed against the children of +the world and did I not find here the same eagerness, the same joy of +life, the same brains as in New England, France, and Germany? But, on +the other hand, the ropes and myths and knots and hindrances; the +thundering waves of the white world beyond beating us back; the scalding +breakers of this inner world,—its currents and back eddies—its +meanness and smallness—its sorrow and tragedy—its screaming farce!</p> + +<p>In all this I was as one bound hand and foot. Struggle, work, fight as I +would, I seemed to get nowhere and accomplish nothing. I had all the +wild intolerance of youth, and no experience in human tangles. For the +first time in my life I realized that there were limits to my will to +do. The Day of Miracles was past, and a long, gray road of dogged work +lay ahead.</p> + +<p>I had, naturally, my triumphs here and there. I defied the bishops in +<a name="Page_11" id="Page_11" />the matter of public extemporaneous prayer and they yielded. I bearded +the poor, hunted president in his den, and yet was re-elected to my +position. I was slowly winning a way, but quickly losing faith in the +value of the way won. Was this the place to begin my life work? Was this +the work which I was best fitted to do? What business had I, anyhow, to +teach Greek when I had studied men? I grew sure that I had made a +mistake. So I determined to leave Wilberforce and try elsewhere. Thus, +the third period of my life began.</p> + +<p>First, in 1896, I married—a slip of a girl, beautifully dark-eyed +and thorough and good as a German housewife. Then I accepted a job to +make a study of Negroes in Philadelphia for the University of +Pennsylvania,—one year at six hundred dollars. How did I dare these +two things? I do not know. Yet they spelled salvation. To remain at +Wilberforce without doing my ideals meant spiritual death. Both my +wife and I were homeless. I dared a home and a temporary job. But it +was a different daring from the days of my first youth. I was ready +to admit that the best of men might fail. I meant still to be captain +of my soul, but I realized that even captains are not omnipotent in +uncharted and angry seas.</p> + +<p>I essayed a thorough piece of work in Philadelphia. I labored morning, +noon, and night. Nobody ever reads that fat volume on "The Philadelphia +Negro," but they treat it with respect, and that consoles me. The +colored people of Philadelphia received me with no open arms. They had a +natural dislike to being studied like a strange species. I met again and +in different guise those curious cross-currents and inner social +whirlings of my own people. They set me to groping. I concluded that I +did not know so much as I might about my own people, and when President +Bumstead invited me to Atlanta University the next year to teach +sociology and study the American Negro, I accepted gladly, at a salary +of twelve hundred dollars.</p> + +<p>My real life work was done at Atlanta for thirteen years, from my +twenty-ninth to my forty-second birthday. They were years of great +spiritual upturning, of the making and unmaking of ideals, of hard work +and hard play. Here I found myself. I lost most of my mannerisms. I grew +more broadly human, made my closest and most holy friendships, and +studied human beings. I became widely-acquainted with the real condition +of my people. I realized the terrific odds which faced them. At +Wilberforce I was their captious critic. In Philadelphia I was their +cold and scientific investigator, with microscope and probe. It took but +a few years of Atlanta to bring me to hot and indignant defense. I saw +the race-hatred of the whites as I had never dreamed of it +before,—naked and unashamed! The faint discrimination of my hopes and +intangible <a name="Page_12" id="Page_12" />dislikes paled into nothing before this great, red monster +of cruel oppression. I held back with more difficulty each day my +mounting indignation against injustice and misrepresentation.</p> + +<p>With all this came the strengthening and hardening of my own character. +The billows of birth, love, and death swept over me. I saw life through +all its paradox and contradiction of streaming eyes and mad merriment. I +emerged into full manhood, with the ruins of some ideals about me, but +with others planted above the stars; scarred and a bit grim, but hugging +to my soul the divine gift of laughter and withal determined, even unto +stubbornness, to fight the good fight.</p> + +<p>At last, forbear and waver as I would, I faced the great Decision. My +life's last and greatest door stood ajar. What with all my dreaming, +studying, and teaching was I going to <i>do</i> in this fierce fight? Despite +all my youthful conceit and bumptiousness, I found developed beneath it +all a reticence and new fear of forwardness, which sprang from searching +criticisms of motive and high ideals of efficiency; but contrary to my +dream of racial solidarity and notwithstanding my deep desire to serve +and follow and think, rather than to lead and inspire and decide, I +found myself suddenly the leader of a great wing of people fighting +against another and greater wing.</p> + +<p>Nor could any effort of mine keep this fight from sinking to the +personal plane. Heaven knows I tried. That first meeting of a knot of +enthusiasts, at Niagara Falls, had all the earnestness of self-devotion. +At the second meeting, at Harper's Ferry, it arose to the solemnity of a +holy crusade and yet without and to the cold, hard stare of the world it +seemed merely the envy of fools against a great man, Booker Washington.</p> + +<p>Of the movement I was willy-nilly leader. I hated the role. For the +first time I faced criticism and <i>cared</i>. Every ideal and habit of my +life was cruelly misjudged. I who had always overstriven to give credit +for good work, who had never consciously stooped to envy was accused by +honest colored people of every sort of small and petty jealousy, while +white people said I was ashamed of my race and wanted to be white! And +this of me, whose one life fanaticism had been belief in my Negro blood!</p> + +<p>Away back in the little years of my boyhood I had sold the Springfield +<i>Republican</i> and written for Mr. Fortune's <i>Globe</i>. I dreamed of being +an editor myself some day. I am an editor. In the great, slashing days +of college life I dreamed of a strong organization to fight the battles +of the Negro race. The National Association for the Advancement of +Colored People is such a body, and it grows daily. In the dark days at +Wilberforce I planned a time when I could speak freely to my people and +of them, interpreting between two worlds. I am speaking now. In the +study at Atlanta I grew to fear lest my radical beliefs should so hurt +the college <a name="Page_13" id="Page_13" />that either my silence or the institution's ruin would +result. Powers and principalities have not yet curbed my tongue and +Atlanta still lives.</p> + +<p>It all came—this new Age of Miracles—because a few persons in 1909 +determined to celebrate Lincoln's Birthday properly by calling for the +final emancipation of the American Negro. I came at their call. My +salary even for a year was not assured, but it was the "Voice without +reply." The result has been the National Association for the Advancement +of Colored People and <i>The Crisis</i> and this book, which I am finishing +on my Fiftieth Birthday.</p> + +<p>Last year I looked death in the face and found its lineaments not +unkind. But it was not my time. Yet in nature some time soon and in the +fullness of days I shall die, quietly, I trust, with my face turned +South and eastward; and, dreaming or dreamless, I shall, I am sure, +enjoy death as I have enjoyed life.<a name="Page_14" id="Page_14" /></p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 55%;" /> +<h3><a name="A_Litany_at_Atlanta" id="A_Litany_at_Atlanta" /><i>A Litany at Atlanta</i></h3> + +<p>O Silent God, Thou whose voice afar in mist and mystery hath left our +ears an-hungered in these fearful days—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Hear us, good Lord!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Listen to us, Thy children: our faces dark with doubt are made a mockery +in Thy Sanctuary. With uplifted hands we front Thy Heaven, O God, +crying:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>We are not better than our fellows, Lord; we are but weak and human men. +When our devils do deviltry, curse Thou the doer and the deed,—curse +them as we curse them, do to them all and more than ever they have done +to innocence and weakness, to womanhood and home.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And yet, whose is the deeper guilt? Who made these devils? Who nursed +them in crime and fed them on injustice? Who ravished and debauched +their mothers and their grandmothers? Who bought and sold their crime +and waxed fat and rich on public iniquity?</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Thou knowest, good God!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Is this Thy Justice, O Father, that guile be easier than innocence and +the innocent be crucified for the guilt of the untouched guilty?</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Justice, O Judge of men!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Wherefore do we pray? Is not the God of the Fathers dead? Have not seers +seen in Heaven's halls Thine hearsed and lifeless form stark amidst the +black and rolling smoke of sin, where all along bow bitter forms of +endless dead?</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Awake, Thou that sleepest!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Thou art not dead, but flown afar, up hills of endless light, through +blazing corridors of suns, where worlds do swing of good and gentle men, +of women strong and free—far from the cozenage, black hypocrisy, and +chaste prostitution of this shameful speck of dust!</p> + +<p><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15" /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Turn again, O Lord; leave us not to perish in our sin!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>From lust of body and lust of blood,—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Great God, deliver us!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>From lust of power and lust of gold,—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Great God, deliver us!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>From the leagued lying of despot and of brute,—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Great God, deliver us!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>A city lay in travail, God our Lord, and from her loins sprang twin +Murder and Black Hate. Red was the midnight; clang, crack, and cry of +death and fury filled the air and trembled underneath the stars where +church spires pointed silently to Thee. And all this was to sate the +greed of greedy men who hide behind the veil of vengeance!</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Bend us Thine ear, O Lord!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In the pale, still morning we looked upon the deed. We stopped our ears +and held our leaping hands, but they—did they not wag their heads and +leer and cry with bloody jaws: <i>Cease from Crime!</i> The word was mockery, +for thus they train a hundred crimes while we do cure one.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Turn again our captivity, O Lord!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Behold this maimed and broken thing, dear God; it was an humble black +man, who toiled and sweat to save a bit from the pittance paid him. They +told him: <i>Work and Rise!</i> He worked. Did this man sin? Nay, but someone +told how someone said another did—one whom he had never seen nor known. +Yet for that man's crime this man lieth maimed and murdered, his wife +naked to shame, his children to poverty and evil.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Hear us, O heavenly Father!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Doth not this justice of hell stink in Thy nostrils, O God? How long +shall the mounting flood of innocent blood roar in Thine ears and pound +in our hearts for vengeance? Pile the pale frenzy of blood-crazed +brutes, who do such deeds, high on Thine Altar, Jehovah Jireh, and burn +it in hell forever and forever!</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Forgive us, good Lord; we know not what we say!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Bewildered we are and passion-tossed, mad with the madness of a mobbed +and mocked and murdered people; straining at the armposts of Thy throne, +we raise our shackled hands and charge Thee, God, by the bones of our +stolen fathers, by the tears of our dead mothers, by the very blood of +Thy crucified Christ: What meaneth this? Tell us the plan; give us the +sign!</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Keep not Thou silent, O God!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Sit not longer blind, Lord God, deaf to our prayer and dumb to our dumb +suffering. Surely Thou, too, art not white, O Lord, a pale, bloodless, +heartless thing!</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Ah! Christ of all the Pities!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Forgive the thought! Forgive these wild, blasphemous words! Thou <a name="Page_16" id="Page_16" />art +still the God of our black fathers and in Thy Soul's Soul sit some soft +darkenings of the evening, some shadowings of the velvet night.</p> + +<p>But whisper—speak—call, great God, for Thy silence is white terror to +our hearts! The way, O God, show us the way and point us the path!</p> + +<p>Whither? North is greed and South is blood; within, the coward, and +without, the liar. Whither? To death?</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Amen! Welcome, dark sleep!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Whither? To life? But not this life, dear God, not this. Let the cup +pass from us, tempt us not beyond our strength, for there is that +clamoring and clawing within, to whose voice we would not listen, yet +shudder lest we must,—and it is red. Ah! God! It is a red and awful +shape.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Selah!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In yonder East trembles a star.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the Lord!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Thy Will, O Lord, be done!</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Kyrie Eleison!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Lord, we have done these pleading, wavering words.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>We bow our heads and hearken soft to the sobbing of women and little +children.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Our voices sink in silence and in night.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Hear us, good Lord!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In night, O God of a godless land!</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Amen!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In silence, O Silent God.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Selah!</i></span><br /> +<a name="Page_17" id="Page_17" /></p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 85%;" /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_II" id="Chapter_II" />II</h2> + +<h3>THE SOULS OF WHITE FOLK</h3> + + +<p>High in the tower, where I sit above the loud complaining of the human +sea, I know many souls that toss and whirl and pass, but none there are +that intrigue me more than the Souls of White Folk.</p> + +<p>Of them I am singularly clairvoyant. I see in and through them. I view +them from unusual points of vantage. Not as a foreigner do I come, for I +am native, not foreign, bone of their thought and flesh of their +language. Mine is not the knowledge of the traveler or the colonial +composite of dear memories, words and wonder. Nor yet is my knowledge +that which servants have of masters, or mass of class, or capitalist of +artisan. Rather I see these souls undressed and from the back and side. +I see the working of their entrails. I know their thoughts and they know +that I know. This knowledge makes them now embarrassed, now furious. +They deny my right to live and be and call me misbirth! My word is to +them mere bitterness and my soul, pessimism. And yet as they preach and +strut and shout and threaten, crouching as they clutch at rags of facts +and fancies to hide their nakedness, they go twisting, flying by my +tired eyes and I see them ever stripped,—ugly, human.</p> + +<p>The discovery of personal whiteness among the world's peoples is a very +modern thing,—a nineteenth and twentieth century matter, indeed. The +ancient world would have laughed at such a distinction. The Middle Age +regarded skin color with mild curiosity; and even up into the eighteenth +century we were hammering our national manikins into one, great, +Universal Man, with fine frenzy which ignored color and race even more +than birth. Today we have changed all that, and the world in a sudden, +emotional conversion has discovered that it is white and by that token, +wonderful!</p> + +<p>This assumption that of all the hues of God whiteness alone is +<a name="Page_18" id="Page_18" />inherently and obviously better than brownness or tan leads to curious +acts; even the sweeter souls of the dominant world as they discourse +with me on weather, weal, and woe are continually playing above their +actual words an obligato of tune and tone, saying:</p> + +<p>"My poor, un-white thing! Weep not nor rage. I know, too well, that the +curse of God lies heavy on you. Why? That is not for me to say, but be +brave! Do your work in your lowly sphere, praying the good Lord that +into heaven above, where all is love, you may, one day, be born—white!"</p> + +<p>I do not laugh. I am quite straight-faced as I ask soberly:</p> + +<p>"But what on earth is whiteness that one should so desire it?" Then +always, somehow, some way, silently but clearly, I am given to +understand that whiteness is the ownership of the earth forever and +ever, Amen!</p> + +<p>Now what is the effect on a man or a nation when it comes passionately +to believe such an extraordinary dictum as this? That nations are coming +to believe it is manifest daily. Wave on wave, each with increasing +virulence, is dashing this new religion of whiteness on the shores of +our time. Its first effects are funny: the strut of the Southerner, the +arrogance of the Englishman amuck, the whoop of the hoodlum who +vicariously leads your mob. Next it appears dampening generous +enthusiasm in what we once counted glorious; to free the slave is +discovered to be tolerable only in so far as it freed his master! Do we +sense somnolent writhings in black Africa or angry groans in India or +triumphant banzais in Japan? "To your tents, O Israel!" These nations +are not white!</p> + +<p>After the more comic manifestations and the chilling of generous +enthusiasm come subtler, darker deeds. Everything considered, the title +to the universe claimed by White Folk is faulty. It ought, at least, to +look plausible. How easy, then, by emphasis and omission to make +children believe that every great soul the world ever saw was a white +man's soul; that every great thought the world ever knew was a white +man's thought; that every great deed the world ever did was a white +man's deed; that every great dream the world ever sang was a white man's +dream. In fine, that if from the world were dropped everything that +could not fairly be attributed to White Folk, the world would, if +anything, be even greater, truer, better than now. And if all this be a +lie, is it not a lie in a great cause?</p> + +<p>Here it is that the comedy verges to tragedy. The first minor note is +struck, all unconsciously, by those worthy souls in whom consciousness +of high descent brings burning desire to spread the gift abroad,—the +obligation of nobility to the ignoble. Such sense of duty assumes two +things: a real possession of the heritage and its frank appreciation by +the humble-born. So long, then, as humble black folk, voluble with +thanks, receive barrels of old clothes from lordly and generous whites, +there is <a name="Page_19" id="Page_19" />much mental peace and moral satisfaction. But when the black +man begins to dispute the white man's title to certain alleged bequests +of the Fathers in wage and position, authority and training; and when +his attitude toward charity is sullen anger rather than humble jollity; +when he insists on his human right to swagger and swear and waste,—then +the spell is suddenly broken and the philanthropist is ready to believe +that Negroes are impudent, that the South is right, and that Japan wants +to fight America.</p> + +<p>After this the descent to Hell is easy. On the pale, white faces which +the great billows whirl upward to my tower I see again and again, often +and still more often, a writing of human hatred, a deep and passionate +hatred, vast by the very vagueness of its expressions. Down through the +green waters, on the bottom of the world, where men move to and fro, I +have seen a man—an educated gentleman—grow livid with anger because a +little, silent, black woman was sitting by herself in a Pullman car. He +was a white man. I have seen a great, grown man curse a little child, +who had wandered into the wrong waiting-room, searching for its mother: +"Here, you damned black—" He was white. In Central Park I have seen the +upper lip of a quiet, peaceful man curl back in a tigerish snarl of rage +because black folk rode by in a motor car. He was a white man. We have +seen, you and I, city after city drunk and furious with ungovernable +lust of blood; mad with murder, destroying, killing, and cursing; +torturing human victims because somebody accused of crime happened to be +of the same color as the mob's innocent victims and because that color +was not white! We have seen,—Merciful God! in these wild days and in +the name of Civilization, Justice, and Motherhood,—what have we not +seen, right here in America, of orgy, cruelty, barbarism, and murder +done to men and women of Negro descent.</p> + +<p>Up through the foam of green and weltering waters wells this great mass +of hatred, in wilder, fiercer violence, until I look down and know that +today to the millions of my people no misfortune could happen,—of death +and pestilence, failure and defeat—that would not make the hearts of +millions of their fellows beat with fierce, vindictive joy! Do you doubt +it? Ask your own soul what it would say if the next census were to +report that half of black America was dead and the other half dying.</p> + +<p>Unfortunate? Unfortunate. But where is the misfortune? Mine? Am I, in my +blackness, the sole sufferer? I suffer. And yet, somehow, above the +suffering, above the shackled anger that beats the bars, above the hurt +that crazes there surges in me a vast pity,—pity for a people +imprisoned and enthralled, hampered and made miserable for such a cause, +for such a phantasy!</p> + +<p>Conceive this nation, of all human peoples, engaged in a crusade to +<a name="Page_20" id="Page_20" />make the "World Safe for Democracy"! Can you imagine the United States +protesting against Turkish atrocities in Armenia, while the Turks are +silent about mobs in Chicago and St. Louis; what is Louvain compared +with Memphis, Waco, Washington, Dyersburg, and Estill Springs? In short, +what is the black man but America's Belgium, and how could America +condemn in Germany that which she commits, just as brutally, within her +own borders?</p> + +<p>A true and worthy ideal frees and uplifts a people; a false ideal +imprisons and lowers. Say to men, earnestly and repeatedly: "Honesty is +best, knowledge is power; do unto others as you would be done by." Say +this and act it and the nation must move toward it, if not to it. But +say to a people: "The one virtue is to be white," and the people rush to +the inevitable conclusion, "Kill the 'nigger'!"</p> + +<p>Is not this the record of present America? Is not this its headlong +progress? Are we not coming more and more, day by day, to making the +statement "I am white," the one fundamental tenet of our practical +morality? Only when this basic, iron rule is involved is our defense of +right nation-wide and prompt. Murder may swagger, theft may rule and +prostitution may flourish and the nation gives but spasmodic, +intermittent and lukewarm attention. But let the murderer be black or +the thief brown or the violator of womanhood have a drop of Negro blood, +and the righteousness of the indignation sweeps the world. Nor would +this fact make the indignation less justifiable did not we all know that +it was blackness that was condemned and not crime.</p> + +<p>In the awful cataclysm of World War, where from beating, slandering, and +murdering us the white world turned temporarily aside to kill each +other, we of the Darker Peoples looked on in mild amaze.</p> + +<p>Among some of us, I doubt not, this sudden descent of Europe into hell +brought unbounded surprise; to others, over wide area, it brought the +<i>Schaden Freude</i> of the bitterly hurt; but most of us, I judge, looked +on silently and sorrowfully, in sober thought, seeing sadly the prophecy +of our own souls.</p> + +<p>Here is a civilization that has boasted much. Neither Roman nor Arab, +Greek nor Egyptian, Persian nor Mongol ever took himself and his own +perfectness with such disconcerting seriousness as the modern white man. +We whose shame, humiliation, and deep insult his aggrandizement so often +involved were never deceived. We looked at him clearly, with world-old +eyes, and saw simply a human thing, weak and pitiable and cruel, even as +we are and were.</p> + +<p>These super-men and world-mastering demi-gods listened, however, to no +low tongues of ours, even when we pointed silently to their feet of +clay. Perhaps we, as folk of simpler soul and more primitive type, have +been most struck in the welter of recent years by the utter failure <a name="Page_21" id="Page_21" />of +white religion. We have curled our lips in something like contempt as we +have witnessed glib apology and weary explanation. Nothing of the sort +deceived us. A nation's religion is its life, and as such white +Christianity is a miserable failure.</p> + +<p>Nor would we be unfair in this criticism: We know that we, too, have +failed, as you have, and have rejected many a Buddha, even as you have +denied Christ; but we acknowledge our human frailty, while you, claiming +super-humanity, scoff endlessly at our shortcomings.</p> + +<p>The number of white individuals who are practising with even reasonable +approximation the democracy and unselfishness of Jesus Christ is so +small and unimportant as to be fit subject for jest in Sunday +supplements and in <i>Punch</i>, <i>Life</i>, <i>Le Rire</i>, and <i>Fliegende Blätter</i>. +In her foreign mission work the extraordinary self-deception of white +religion is epitomized: solemnly the white world sends five million +dollars worth of missionary propaganda to Africa each year and in the +same twelve months adds twenty-five million dollars worth of the vilest +gin manufactured. Peace to the augurs of Rome!</p> + +<p>We may, however, grant without argument that religious ideals have +always far outrun their very human devotees. Let us, then, turn to more +mundane matters of honor and fairness. The world today is trade. The +world has turned shopkeeper; history is economic history; living is +earning a living. Is it necessary to ask how much of high emprise and +honorable conduct has been found here? Something, to be sure. The +establishment of world credit systems is built on splendid and +realizable faith in fellow-men. But it is, after all, so low and +elementary a step that sometimes it looks merely like honor among +thieves, for the revelations of highway robbery and low cheating in the +business world and in all its great modern centers have raised in the +hearts of all true men in our day an exceeding great cry for revolution +in our basic methods and conceptions of industry and commerce.</p> + +<p>We do not, for a moment, forget the robbery of other times and races +when trade was a most uncertain gamble; but was there not a certain +honesty and frankness in the evil that argued a saner morality? There +are more merchants today, surer deliveries, and wider well-being, but +are there not, also, bigger thieves, deeper injustice, and more +calloused selfishness in well-being? Be that as it may,—certainly the +nicer sense of honor that has risen ever and again in groups of +forward-thinking men has been curiously and broadly blunted. Consider +our chiefest industry,—fighting. Laboriously the Middle Ages built its +rules of fairness—equal armament, equal notice, equal conditions. What +do we see today? Machine-guns against assegais; conquest sugared with +religion; mutilation and rape masquerading as culture,—all this, with +vast applause at the superiority of white over black soldiers!</p> + +<p><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22" />War is horrible! This the dark world knows to its awful cost. But has +it just become horrible, in these last days, when under essentially +equal conditions, equal armament, and equal waste of wealth white men +are fighting white men, with surgeons and nurses hovering near?</p> + +<p>Think of the wars through which we have lived in the last decade: in +German Africa, in British Nigeria, in French and Spanish Morocco, in +China, in Persia, in the Balkans, in Tripoli, in Mexico, and in a dozen +lesser places—were not these horrible, too? Mind you, there were for +most of these wars no Red Cross funds.</p> + +<p>Behold little Belgium and her pitiable plight, but has the world +forgotten Congo? What Belgium now suffers is not half, not even a tenth, +of what she has done to black Congo since Stanley's great dream of 1880. +Down the dark forests of inmost Africa sailed this modern Sir Galahad, +in the name of "the noble-minded men of several nations," to introduce +commerce and civilization. What came of it? "Rubber and murder, slavery +in its worst form," wrote Glave in 1895.</p> + +<p>Harris declares that King Leopold's régime meant the death of twelve +million natives, "but what we who were behind the scenes felt most +keenly was the fact that the real catastrophe in the Congo was +desolation and murder in the larger sense. The invasion of family life, +the ruthless destruction of every social barrier, the shattering of +every tribal law, the introduction of criminal practices which struck +the chiefs of the people dumb with horror—in a word, a veritable +avalanche of filth and immorality overwhelmed the Congo tribes."</p> + +<p>Yet the fields of Belgium laughed, the cities were gay, art and science +flourished; the groans that helped to nourish this civilization fell on +deaf ears because the world round about was doing the same sort of thing +elsewhere on its own account.</p> + +<p>As we saw the dead dimly through rifts of battlesmoke and heard faintly +the cursings and accusations of blood brothers, we darker men said: This +is not Europe gone mad; this is not aberration nor insanity; this <i>is</i> +Europe; this seeming Terrible is the real soul of white culture—back of +all culture,—stripped and visible today. This is where the world has +arrived,—these dark and awful depths and not the shining and ineffable +heights of which it boasted. Here is whither the might and energy of +modern humanity has really gone.</p> + +<p>But may not the world cry back at us and ask: "What better thing have +you to show? What have you done or would do better than this if you had +today the world rule? Paint with all riot of hateful colors the thin +skin of European culture,—is it not better than any culture that arose +in Africa or Asia?"</p> + +<p>It is. Of this there is no doubt and never has been; but why is it +better? Is it better because Europeans are better, nobler, greater, and +more <a name="Page_23" id="Page_23" />gifted than other folk? It is not. Europe has never produced and +never will in our day bring forth a single human soul who cannot be +matched and over-matched in every line of human endeavor by Asia and +Africa. Run the gamut, if you will, and let us have the Europeans who in +sober truth over-match Nefertari, Mohammed, Rameses and Askia, +Confucius, Buddha, and Jesus Christ. If we could scan the calendar of +thousands of lesser men, in like comparison, the result would be the +same; but we cannot do this because of the deliberately educated +ignorance of white schools by which they remember Napoleon and forget +Sonni Ali.</p> + +<p>The greatness of Europe has lain in the width of the stage on which she +has played her part, the strength of the foundations on which she has +builded, and a natural, human ability no whit greater (if as great) than +that of other days and races. In other words, the deeper reasons for the +triumph of European civilization lie quite outside and beyond +Europe,—back in the universal struggles of all mankind.</p> + +<p>Why, then, is Europe great? Because of the foundations which the mighty +past have furnished her to build upon: the iron trade of ancient, black +Africa, the religion and empire-building of yellow Asia, the art and +science of the "dago" Mediterranean shore, east, south, and west, as +well as north. And where she has builded securely upon this great past +and learned from it she has gone forward to greater and more splendid +human triumph; but where she has ignored this past and forgotten and +sneered at it, she has shown the cloven hoof of poor, crucified +humanity,—she has played, like other empires gone, the world fool!</p> + +<p>If, then, European triumphs in culture have been greater, so, too, may +her failures have been greater. How great a failure and a failure in +what does the World War betoken? Was it national jealousy of the sort of +the seventeenth century? But Europe has done more to break down national +barriers than any preceding culture. Was it fear of the balance of power +in Europe? Hardly, save in the half-Asiatic problems of the Balkans. +What, then, does Hauptmann mean when he says: "Our jealous enemies +forged an iron ring about our breasts and we knew our breasts had to +expand,—that we had to split asunder this ring or else we had to cease +breathing. But Germany will not cease to breathe and so it came to pass +that the iron ring was forced apart."</p> + +<p>Whither is this expansion? What is that breath of life, thought to be so +indispensable to a great European nation? Manifestly it is expansion +overseas; it is colonial aggrandizement which explains, and alone +adequately explains, the World War. How many of us today fully realize +the current theory of colonial expansion, of the relation of Europe +which is white, to the world which is black and brown and yellow? +Bluntly put, that theory is this: It is the duty of white Europe to +divide up the darker world and administer it for Europe's good.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24" />This Europe has largely done. The European world is using black and +brown men for all the uses which men know. Slowly but surely white +culture is evolving the theory that "darkies" are born beasts of burden +for white folk. It were silly to think otherwise, cries the cultured +world, with stronger and shriller accord. The supporting arguments grow +and twist themselves in the mouths of merchant, scientist, soldier, +traveler, writer, and missionary: Darker peoples are dark in mind as +well as in body; of dark, uncertain, and imperfect descent; of frailer, +cheaper stuff; they are cowards in the face of mausers and maxims; they +have no feelings, aspirations, and loves; they are fools, illogical +idiots,—"half-devil and half-child."</p> + +<p>Such as they are civilization must, naturally, raise them, but soberly +and in limited ways. They are not simply dark white men. They are not +"men" in the sense that Europeans are men. To the very limited extent of +their shallow capacities lift them to be useful to whites, to raise +cotton, gather rubber, fetch ivory, dig diamonds,—and let them be paid +what men think they are worth—white men who know them to be well-nigh +worthless.</p> + +<p>Such degrading of men by men is as old as mankind and the invention of +no one race or people. Ever have men striven to conceive of their +victims as different from the victors, endlessly different, in soul and +blood, strength and cunning, race and lineage. It has been left, +however, to Europe and to modern days to discover the eternal world-wide +mark of meanness,—color!</p> + +<p>Such is the silent revolution that has gripped modern European culture +in the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its zenith came in +Boxer times: White supremacy was all but world-wide, Africa was dead, +India conquered, Japan isolated, and China prostrate, while white +America whetted her sword for mongrel Mexico and mulatto South America, +lynching her own Negroes the while. Temporary halt in this program was +made by little Japan and the white world immediately sensed the peril of +such "yellow" presumption! What sort of a world would this be if yellow +men must be treated "white"? Immediately the eventual overthrow of Japan +became a subject of deep thought and intrigue, from St. Petersburg to +San Francisco, from the Key of Heaven to the Little Brother of the Poor.</p> + +<p>The using of men for the benefit of masters is no new invention of +modern Europe. It is quite as old as the world. But Europe proposed to +apply it on a scale and with an elaborateness of detail of which no +former world ever dreamed. The imperial width of the thing,—the +heaven-defying audacity—makes its modern newness.</p> + +<p>The scheme of Europe was no sudden invention, but a way out of +long-pressing difficulties. It is plain to modern white civilization +that the subjection of the white working classes cannot much longer be +<a name="Page_25" id="Page_25" />maintained. Education, political power, and increased knowledge of the +technique and meaning of the industrial process are destined to make a +more and more equitable distribution of wealth in the near future. The +day of the very rich is drawing to a close, so far as individual white +nations are concerned. But there is a loophole. There is a chance for +exploitation on an immense scale for inordinate profit, not simply to +the very rich, but to the middle class and to the laborers. This chance +lies in the exploitation of darker peoples. It is here that the golden +hand beckons. Here are no labor unions or votes or questioning onlookers +or inconvenient consciences. These men may be used down to the very +bone, and shot and maimed in "punitive" expeditions when they revolt. In +these dark lands "industrial development" may repeat in exaggerated form +every horror of the industrial history of Europe, from slavery and rape +to disease and maiming, with only one test of success,—dividends!</p> + +<p>This theory of human culture and its aims has worked itself through warp +and woof of our daily thought with a thoroughness that few realize. +Everything great, good, efficient, fair, and honorable is "white"; +everything mean, bad, blundering, cheating, and dishonorable is +"yellow"; a bad taste is "brown"; and the devil is "black." The changes +of this theme are continually rung in picture and story, in newspaper +heading and moving-picture, in sermon and school book, until, of course, +the King can do no wrong,—a White Man is always right and a Black Man +has no rights which a white man is bound to respect.</p> + +<p>There must come the necessary despisings and hatreds of these savage +half-men, this unclean <i>canaille</i> of the world—these dogs of men. All +through the world this gospel is preaching. It has its literature, it +has its secret propaganda and above all—it pays!</p> + +<p>There's the rub,—it pays. Rubber, ivory, and palm-oil; tea, coffee, and +cocoa; bananas, oranges, and other fruit; cotton, gold, and +copper—they, and a hundred other things which dark and sweating bodies +hand up to the white world from pits of slime, pay and pay well, but of +all that the world gets the black world gets only the pittance that the +white world throws it disdainfully.</p> + +<p>Small wonder, then, that in the practical world of things-that-be there +is jealousy and strife for the possession of the labor of dark millions, +for the right to bleed and exploit the colonies of the world where this +golden stream may be had, not always for the asking, but surely for the +whipping and shooting. It was this competition for the labor of yellow, +brown, and black folks that was the cause of the World War. Other causes +have been glibly given and other contributing causes there doubtless +were, but they were subsidiary and subordinate to this vast quest of the +dark world's wealth and toil.</p> + +<p>Colonies, we call them, these places where "niggers" are cheap and <a name="Page_26" id="Page_26" />the +earth is rich; they are those outlands where like a swarm of hungry +locusts white masters may settle to be served as kings, wield the lash +of slave-drivers, rape girls and wives, grow as rich as Croesus and send +homeward a golden stream. They belt the earth, these places, but they +cluster in the tropics, with its darkened peoples: in Hong Kong and +Anam, in Borneo and Rhodesia, in Sierra Leone and Nigeria, in Panama and +Havana—these are the El Dorados toward which the world powers stretch +itching palms.</p> + +<p>Germany, at last one and united and secure on land, looked across the +seas and seeing England with sources of wealth insuring a luxury and +power which Germany could not hope to rival by the slower processes of +exploiting her own peasants and workingmen, especially with these +workers half in revolt, immediately built her navy and entered into a +desperate competition for possession of colonies of darker peoples. To +South America, to China, to Africa, to Asia Minor, she turned like a +hound quivering on the leash, impatient, suspicious, irritable, with +blood-shot eyes and dripping fangs, ready for the awful word. England +and France crouched watchfully over their bones, growling and wary, but +gnawing industriously, while the blood of the dark world whetted their +greedy appetites. In the background, shut out from the highway to the +seven seas, sat Russia and Austria, snarling and snapping at each other +and at the last Mediterranean gate to the El Dorado, where the Sick Man +enjoyed bad health, and where millions of serfs in the Balkans, Russia, +and Asia offered a feast to greed well-nigh as great as Africa.</p> + +<p>The fateful day came. It had to come. The cause of war is preparation +for war; and of all that Europe has done in a century there is nothing +that has equaled in energy, thought, and time her preparation for +wholesale murder. The only adequate cause of this preparation was +conquest and conquest, not in Europe, but primarily among the darker +peoples of Asia and Africa; conquest, not for assimilation and uplift, +but for commerce and degradation. For this, and this mainly, did Europe +gird herself at frightful cost for war.</p> + +<p>The red day dawned when the tinder was lighted in the Balkans and +Austro-Hungary seized a bit which brought her a step nearer to the +world's highway; she seized one bit and poised herself for another. Then +came that curious chorus of challenges, those leaping suspicions, raking +all causes for distrust and rivalry and hatred, but saying little of the +real and greatest cause.</p> + +<p>Each nation felt its deep interests involved. But how? Not, surely, in +the death of Ferdinand the Warlike; not, surely, in the old, +half-forgotten <i>revanche</i> for Alsace-Lorraine; not even in the +neutrality of Belgium. No! But in the possession of land overseas, in +the right to <a name="Page_27" id="Page_27" />colonies, the chance to levy endless tribute on the darker +world,—on coolies in China, on starving peasants in India, on black +savages in Africa, on dying South Sea Islanders, on Indians of the +Amazon—all this and nothing more.</p> + +<p>Even the broken reed on which we had rested high hopes of eternal +peace,—the guild of the laborers—the front of that very important +movement for human justice on which we had builded most, even this flew +like a straw before the breath of king and kaiser. Indeed, the flying +had been foreshadowed when in Germany and America "international" +Socialists had all but read yellow and black men out of the kingdom of +industrial justice. Subtly had they been bribed, but effectively: Were +they not lordly whites and should they not share in the spoils of rape? +High wages in the United States and England might be the skilfully +manipulated result of slavery in Africa and of peonage in Asia.</p> + +<p>With the dog-in-the-manger theory of trade, with the determination to +reap inordinate profits and to exploit the weakest to the utmost there +came a new imperialism,—the rage for one's own nation to own the earth +or, at least, a large enough portion of it to insure as big profits as +the next nation. Where sections could not be owned by one dominant +nation there came a policy of "open door," but the "door" was open to +"white people only." As to the darkest and weakest of peoples there was +but one unanimity in Europe,—that which Hen Demberg of the German +Colonial Office called the agreement with England to maintain white +"prestige" in Africa,—the doctrine of the divine right of white people +to steal.</p> + +<p>Thus the world market most wildly and desperately sought today is the +market where labor is cheapest and most helpless and profit is most +abundant. This labor is kept cheap and helpless because the white world +despises "darkies." If one has the temerity to suggest that these +workingmen may walk the way of white workingmen and climb by votes and +self-assertion and education to the rank of men, he is howled out of +court. They cannot do it and if they could, they shall not, for they are +the enemies of the white race and the whites shall rule forever and +forever and everywhere. Thus the hatred and despising of human beings +from whom Europe wishes to extort her luxuries has led to such jealousy +and bickering between European nations that they have fallen afoul of +each other and have fought like crazed beasts. Such is the fruit of +human hatred.</p> + +<p>But what of the darker world that watches? Most men belong to this +world. With Negro and Negroid, East Indian, Chinese, and Japanese they +form two-thirds of the population of the world. A belief in humanity is +a belief in colored men. If the uplift of mankind must be done by men, +then the destinies of this world will rest ultimately in the hands of +darker nations.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28" />What, then, is this dark world thinking? It is thinking that as wild +and awful as this shameful war was, <i>it is nothing to compare with that +fight for freedom which black and brown and yellow men must and will +make unless their oppression and humiliation and insult at the hands of +the White World cease. The Dark World is going to submit to its present +treatment just as long as it must and not one moment longer.</i></p> + +<p>Let me say this again and emphasize it and leave no room for mistaken +meaning: The World War was primarily the jealous and avaricious struggle +for the largest share in exploiting darker races. As such it is and must +be but the prelude to the armed and indignant protest of these despised +and raped peoples. Today Japan is hammering on the door of justice, +China is raising her half-manacled hands to knock next, India is +writhing for the freedom to knock, Egypt is sullenly muttering, the +Negroes of South and West Africa, of the West Indies, and of the United +States are just awakening to their shameful slavery. Is, then, this war +the end of wars? Can it be the end, so long as sits enthroned, even in +the souls of those who cry peace, the despising and robbing of darker +peoples? If Europe hugs this delusion, then this is not the end of world +war,—it is but the beginning!</p> + +<p>We see Europe's greatest sin precisely where we found Africa's and +Asia's,—in human hatred, the despising of men; with this difference, +however: Europe has the awful lesson of the past before her, has the +splendid results of widened areas of tolerance, sympathy, and love among +men, and she faces a greater, an infinitely greater, world of men than +any preceding civilization ever faced.</p> + +<p>It is curious to see America, the United States, looking on herself, +first, as a sort of natural peacemaker, then as a moral protagonist in +this terrible time. No nation is less fitted for this rôle. For two or +more centuries America has marched proudly in the van of human +hatred,—making bonfires of human flesh and laughing at them hideously, +and making the insulting of millions more than a matter of +dislike,—rather a great religion, a world war-cry: Up white, down +black; to your tents, O white folk, and world war with black and +parti-colored mongrel beasts!</p> + +<p>Instead of standing as a great example of the success of democracy and +the possibility of human brotherhood America has taken her place as an +awful example of its pitfalls and failures, so far as black and brown +and yellow peoples are concerned. And this, too, in spite of the fact +that there has been no actual failure; the Indian is not dying out, the +Japanese and Chinese have not menaced the land, and the experiment of +Negro suffrage has resulted in the uplift of twelve million people at a +rate probably unparalleled in history. But what of this? America, Land +of Democracy, wanted to believe in the failure of democracy so far as +darker peoples were concerned. Absolutely without excuse she established +a caste system, <a name="Page_29" id="Page_29" />rushed into preparation for war, and conquered tropical +colonies. She stands today shoulder to shoulder with Europe in Europe's +worst sin against civilization. She aspires to sit among the great +nations who arbitrate the fate of "lesser breeds without the law" and +she is at times heartily ashamed even of the large number of "new" white +people whom her democracy has admitted to place and power. Against this +surging forward of Irish and German, of Russian Jew, Slav and "dago" her +social bars have not availed, but against Negroes she can and does take +her unflinching and immovable stand, backed by this new public policy of +Europe. She trains her immigrants to this despising of "niggers" from +the day of their landing, and they carry and send the news back to the +submerged classes in the fatherlands.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>All this I see and hear up in my tower, above the thunder of the seven +seas. From my narrowed windows I stare into the night that looms beneath +the cloud-swept stars. Eastward and westward storms are +breaking,—great, ugly whirlwinds of hatred and blood and cruelty. I +will not believe them inevitable. I will not believe that all that was +must be, that all the shameful drama of the past must be done again +today before the sunlight sweeps the silver seas.</p> + +<p>If I cry amid this roar of elemental forces, must my cry be in vain, +because it is but a cry,—a small and human cry amid Promethean gloom?</p> + +<p>Back beyond the world and swept by these wild, white faces of the awful +dead, why will this Soul of White Folk,—this modern Prometheus,—hang +bound by his own binding, tethered by a fable of the past? I hear his +mighty cry reverberating through the world, "I am white!" Well and good, +O Prometheus, divine thief! Is not the world wide enough for two colors, +for many little shinings of the sun? Why, then, devour your own vitals +if I answer even as proudly, "I am black!"</p> + + + +<div><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30" /></div> +<hr style="width: 55%;" /> +<h3><a name="The_Riddle_of_the_Sphinx" id="The_Riddle_of_the_Sphinx" /><i>The Riddle of the Sphinx</i></h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>Dark daughter of the lotus leaves that watch the Southern Sea!<br /></span> +<span>Wan spirit of a prisoned soul a-panting to be free!<br /></span> +<span class="i3">The muttered music of thy streams, the whisper of the deep,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Have kissed each other in God's name and kissed a world to sleep.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>The will of the world is a whistling wind, sweeping a cloud-swept sky,<br /></span> +<span>And not from the East and not from the West knelled that<br /></span> +<span class="i5">soul-waking cry,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">But out of the South,—the sad, black South—it screamed from<br /></span> +<span class="i7">the top of the sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Crying: "Awake, O ancient race!" Wailing, "O woman, arise!"<br /></span> +<span>And crying and sighing and crying again as a voice in the<br /></span> +<span class="i6">midnight cries,—<br /></span> +<span>But the burden of white men bore her back and the white world<br /></span> +<span class="i6">stifled her sighs.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>The white world's vermin and filth:<br /></span> +<span class="i5">All the dirt of London,<br /></span> +<span class="i5">All the scum of New York;<br /></span> +<span class="i5">Valiant spoilers of women<br /></span> +<span class="i5">And conquerers of unarmed men;<br /></span> +<span class="i5">Shameless breeders of bastards,<br /></span> +<span class="i5">Drunk with the greed of gold,<br /></span> +<span class="i5">Baiting their blood-stained hooks<br /></span> +<span class="i5">With cant for the souls of the simple;<br /></span> +<span class="i5">Bearing the white man's burden<br /></span> +<span class="i5">Of liquor and lust and lies!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31" />Unthankful we wince in the East,<br /></span> +<span>Unthankful we wail from the westward,<br /></span> +<span>Unthankfully thankful, we curse,<br /></span> +<span>In the unworn wastes of the wild:<br /></span> +<span class="i8">I hate them, Oh!<br /></span> +<span class="i8">I hate them well,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">I hate them, Christ!<br /></span> +<span class="i8">As I hate hell!<br /></span> +<span class="i8">If I were God,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">I'd sound their knell<br /></span> +<span class="i8">This day!<br /></span> +<span>Who raised the fools to their glory,<br /></span> +<span>But black men of Egypt and Ind,<br /></span> +<span>Ethiopia's sons of the evening,<br /></span> +<span>Indians and yellow Chinese,<br /></span> +<span>Arabian children of morning,<br /></span> +<span>And mongrels of Rome and Greece?<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Ah, well!<br /></span> +<span>And they that raised the boasters<br /></span> +<span>Shall drag them down again,—<br /></span> +<span>Down with the theft of their thieving<br /></span> +<span>And murder and mocking of men;<br /></span> +<span>Down with their barter of women<br /></span> +<span>And laying and lying of creeds;<br /></span> +<span>Down with their cheating of childhood<br /></span> +<span>And drunken orgies of war,—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">down<br /></span> +<span class="i10">down<br /></span> +<span class="i12">deep down,<br /></span> +<span>Till the devil's strength be shorn,<br /></span> +<span>Till some dim, darker David, a-hoeing of his corn,<br /></span> +<span>And married maiden, mother of God,<br /></span> +<span>Bid the black Christ be born!<br /></span> +<span>Then shall our burden be manhood,<br /></span> +<span>Be it yellow or black or white;<br /></span> +<span>And poverty and justice and sorrow,<br /></span> +<span>The humble, and simple and strong<br /></span> +<span>Shall sing with the sons of morning<br /></span> +<span>And daughters of even-song:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Black mother of the iron hills that ward the blazing sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wild spirit of a storm-swept soul, a-struggling to be free,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where 'neath the bloody finger-marks thy riven bosom quakes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thicken the thunders of God's Voice and lo! a world awakes!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 85%;" /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_III" id="Chapter_III" /><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32" />III</h2> + +<h3>THE HANDS OF ETHIOPIA</h3> + + +<p>"<i>Semper novi quid ex Africa</i>," cried the Roman proconsul, and he voiced +the verdict of forty centuries. Yet there are those who would write +world history and leave out of account this most marvelous of +continents. Particularly today most men assume that Africa is far afield +from the center of our burning social problems and especially from our +problem of world war.</p> + +<p>Always Africa is giving us something new or some metempsychosis of a +world-old thing. On its black bosom arose one of the earliest, if not +the earliest, of self-protecting civilizations, which grew so mightily +that it still furnishes superlatives to thinking and speaking men. Out +of its darker and more remote forest fastnesses came, if we may credit +many recent scientists, the first welding of iron, and we know that +agriculture and trade flourished there when Europe was a wilderness.</p> + +<p>Nearly every human empire that has arisen in the world, material and +spiritual, has found some of its greatest crises on this continent of +Africa, from Greece to Great Britain. As Mommsen says: "It was through +Africa that Christianity became the religion of the world." In Africa +the last flood of Germanic invasions spent itself within hearing of the +last gasp of Byzantium, and it was through Africa that Islam came to +play its great rôle of conqueror and civilizer.</p> + +<p>With the Renaissance and the widened world of modern thought Africa came +no less suddenly with her new-old gift. Shakespeare's "Ancient Pistol" +cries:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>A foutre for the world and worldlings base!<br /></span> +<span>I speak of Africa and golden joys!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33" />He echoes a legend of gold from the days of Punt and Ophir to those of +Ghana, the Gold Coast, and the Rand. This thought had sent the world's +greed scurrying down the hot, mysterious coasts of Africa to the Good +Hope of gain, until for the first time a real world-commerce was born, +albeit it started as a commerce mainly in the bodies and souls of men.</p> + +<p>The present problem of problems is nothing more than democracy beating +itself helplessly against the color bar,—purling, seeping, seething, +foaming to burst through, ever and again overwhelming the emerging +masses of white men in its rolling backwaters and held back by those who +dream of future kingdoms of greed built on black and brown and yellow +slavery.</p> + +<p>The indictment of Africa against Europe is grave. For four hundred years +white Europe was the chief support of that trade in human beings which +first and last robbed black Africa of a hundred million human beings, +transformed the face of her social life, overthrew organized government, +distorted ancient industry, and snuffed out the lights of cultural +development. Today instead of removing laborers from Africa to distant +slavery, industry built on a new slavery approaches Africa to deprive +the natives of their land, to force them to toil, and to reap all the +profit for the white world.</p> + +<p>It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader of the essential facts +underlying these broad assertions. A recent law of the Union of South +Africa assigns nearly two hundred and fifty million acres of the best of +natives' land to a million and a half whites and leaves thirty-six +million acres of swamp and marsh for four and a half-million blacks. In +Rhodesia over ninety million acres have been practically confiscated. In +the Belgian Congo all the land was declared the property of the state.</p> + +<p>Slavery in all but name has been the foundation of the cocoa industry in +St. Thome and St. Principe and in the mines of the Rand. Gin has been +one of the greatest of European imports, having increased fifty per +cent. in ten years and reaching a total of at least twenty-five million +dollars a year today. Negroes of ability have been carefully gotten rid +of, deposed from authority, kept out of positions of influence, and +discredited in their people's eyes, while a caste of white overseers and +governing officials has appeared everywhere.</p> + +<p>Naturally, the picture is not all lurid. David Livingstone has had his +successors and Europe has given Africa something of value in the +beginning of education and industry. Yet the balance of iniquity is +desperately large; but worse than that, it has aroused no world protest. +A great Englishman, familiar with African problems for a generation, +says frankly today: "There does not exist any real international +conscience to which you can appeal."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34" />Moreover, that treatment shows no certain signs of abatement. Today in +England the Empire Resources Development Committee proposes to treat +African colonies as "crown estates" and by intensive scientific +exploitation of both land and labor to make these colonies pay the +English national debt after the war! German thinkers, knowing the +tremendous demand for raw material which would follow the war, had +similar plans of exploitation. "It is the clear, common sense of the +African situation," says H.G. Wells, "that while these precious regions +of raw material remain divided up between a number of competitive +European imperialisms, each resolutely set upon the exploitation of its +'possessions' to its own advantage and the disadvantage of the others, +there can be no permanent peace in the world. It is impossible."</p> + +<p>We, then, who fought the war against war; who in a hell of blood and +suffering held hardly our souls in leash by the vision of a world +organized for peace; who are looking for industrial democracy and for +the organization of Europe so as to avoid incentives to war,—we, least +of all, should be willing to leave the backward world as the greatest +temptation, not only to wars based on international jealousies, but to +the most horrible of wars,—which arise from the revolt of the maddened +against those who hold them in common contempt.</p> + +<p>Consider, my reader,—if you were today a man of some education and +knowledge, but born a Japanese or a Chinaman, an East Indian or a Negro, +what would you do and think? What would be in the present chaos your +outlook and plan for the future? Manifestly, you would want freedom for +your people,—freedom from insult, from segregation, from poverty, from +physical slavery. If the attitude of the European and American worlds is +in the future going to be based essentially upon the same policies as in +the past, then there is but one thing for the trained man of darker +blood to do and that is definitely and as openly as possible to organize +his world for war against Europe. He may have to do it by secret, +underground propaganda, as in Egypt and India and eventually in the +United States; or by open increase of armament, as in Japan; or by +desperate efforts at modernization, as in China; but he must do it. He +represents the vast majority of mankind. To surrender would be far worse +than physical death. There is no way out unless the white world gives up +such insult as its modern use of the adjective "yellow" indicates, or +its connotation of "chink" and "nigger" implies; either it gives up the +plan of color serfdom which its use of the other adjective "white" +implies, as indicating everything decent and every part of the world +worth living in,—or trouble is written in the stars!</p> + +<p>It is, therefore, of singular importance after disquieting delay to see +the real Pacifist appear. Both England and Germany have recently been +basing their claims to parts of black Africa on the wishes and interests +<a name="Page_35" id="Page_35" />of the black inhabitants. Lloyd George has declared "the general +principle of national self-determination applicable at least to German +Africa," while Chancellor Hertling once welcomed a discussion "on the +reconstruction of the world's colonial possessions."</p> + +<p>The demand that an Africa for Africans shall replace the present +barbarous scramble for exploitation by individual states comes from +singularly different sources. Colored America demands that "the +conquered German colonies should not be returned to Germany, neither +should they be held by the Allies. Here is the opportunity for the +establishment of a nation that may never recur. Thousands of colored +men, sick of white arrogance and hypocrisy, see in this their race's +only salvation."</p> + +<p>Sir Harry H. Johnston recently said: "If we are to talk, as we do, +sentimentally but justly about restoring the nationhood of Poland, about +giving satisfaction to the separatist feeling in Ireland, and about what +is to be done for European nations who are oppressed, then we can hardly +exclude from this feeling the countries of Africa."</p> + +<p>Laborers, black laborers, on the Canal Zone write: "Out of this chaos +may be the great awakening of our race. There is cause for rejoicing. If +we fail to embrace this opportunity now, we fail to see how we will be +ever able to solve the race question. It is for the British Negro, the +French Negro, and the American Negro to rise to the occasion and start a +national campaign, jointly and collectively, with this aim in view."</p> + +<p>From British West Africa comes the bitter complaint "that the West +Africans should have the right or opportunity to settle their future for +themselves is a thing which hardly enters the mind of the European +politician. That the Balkan States should be admitted to the Council of +Peace and decide the government under which they are to live is taken as +a matter of course because they are Europeans, but no extra-European is +credited, even by the extremist advocates of human equality, with any +right except to humbly accept the fate which Europe shall decide for +him."</p> + +<p>Here, then, is the danger and the demand; and the real Pacifist will +seek to organize, not simply the masses in white nations, guarding +against exploitation and profiteering, but will remember that no +permanent relief can come but by including in this organization the +lowest and the most exploited races in the world. World philanthropy, +like national philanthropy, must come as uplift and prevention and not +merely as alleviation and religious conversion. Reverence for humanity, +as such, must be installed in the world, and Africa should be the +talisman.</p> + +<p>Black Africa, including British, French, Belgian, Portuguese, Italian, +and Spanish possessions and the independent states of Abyssinia and +Liberia and leaving out of account Egypt and North Africa, on the one +hand, and South Africa, on the other, has an area of 8,200,000 square +<a name="Page_36" id="Page_36" />miles and a population well over one hundred millions of black men, +with less than one hundred thousand whites.</p> + +<p>Commercial exploitation in Africa has already larger results to show +than most people realize. Annually $200,000,000 worth of goods was +coming out of black Africa before the World War, including a third of +the world's supply of rubber, a quarter of all of the world's cocoa, and +practically all of the world's cloves, gum-arabic, and palm-oil. In +exchange there was being returned to Africa one hundred millions in +cotton cloth, twenty-five millions in iron and steel, and as much in +foods, and probably twenty-five millions in liquors.</p> + +<p>Here are the beginnings of a modern industrial system: iron and steel +for permanent investment, bound to yield large dividends; cloth as the +cheapest exchange for invaluable raw material; liquor to tickle the +appetites of the natives and render the alienation of land and the +breakdown of customary law easier; eventually forced and contract labor +under white drivers to increase and systematize the production of raw +materials. These materials are capable of indefinite expansion: cotton +may yet challenge the southern United States, fruits and vegetables, +hides and skins, lumber and dye-stuffs, coffee and tea, grain and +tobacco, and fibers of all sorts can easily follow organized and +systematic toil.</p> + +<p>Is it a paradise of industry we thus contemplate? It is much more likely +to be a hell. Under present plans there will be no voice or law or +custom to protect labor, no trades unions, no eight-hour laws, no +factory legislation,—nothing of that great body of legislation built up +in modern days to protect mankind from sinking to the level of beasts of +burden. All the industrial deviltry, which civilization has been driving +to the slums and the backwaters, will have a voiceless continent to +conceal it. If the slave cannot be taken from Africa, slavery can be +taken to Africa.</p> + +<p>Who are the folk who live here? They are brown and black, curly and +crisp-haired, short and tall, and longheaded. Out of them in days +without date flowed the beginnings of Egypt; among them rose, later, +centers of culture at Ghana, Melle, and Timbuktu. Kingdoms and empires +flourished in Songhay and Zymbabwe, and art and industry in Yoruba and +Benin. They have fought every human calamity in its most hideous form +and yet today they hold some similar vestiges of a mighty past,—their +work in iron, their weaving and carving, their music and singing, their +tribal government, their town-meeting and marketplace, their desperate +valor in war.</p> + +<p>Missionaries and commerce have left some good with all their evil. In +black Africa today there are more than a thousand government schools and +some thirty thousand mission schools, with a more or less regular +attendance of three-quarters of a million school children. In a <a name="Page_37" id="Page_37" />few +cases training of a higher order is given chiefs' sons and selected +pupils. These beginnings of education are not much for so vast a land +and there is no general standard or set plan of development, but, after +all, the children of Africa are beginning to learn.</p> + +<p>In black Africa today only one-seventeenth of the land and a ninth of +the people in Liberia and Abyssinia are approximately independent, +although menaced and policed by European capitalism. Half the land and +the people are in domains under Portugal, France, and Belgium, held with +the avowed idea of exploitation for the benefit of Europe under a system +of caste and color serfdom. Out of this dangerous nadir of development +stretch two paths: one is indicated by the condition of about three per +cent of the people who in Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and French +Senegal, are tending toward the path of modern development; the other +path, followed by a fourth of the land and people, has local +self-government and native customs and might evolve, if undisturbed, a +native culture along their own peculiar lines. A tenth of the land, +sparsely settled, is being monopolized and held for whites to make an +African Australia. To these later folk must be added the four and +one-half millions of the South African Union, who by every modern device +are being forced into landless serfdom.</p> + +<p>Before the World War tendencies were strongly toward the destruction of +independent Africa, the industrial slavery of the mass of the blacks and +the encouragement of white immigration, where possible, to hold the +blacks in subjection.</p> + +<p>Against this idea let us set the conception of a new African World +State, a Black Africa, applying to these peoples the splendid +pronouncements which have of late been so broadly and perhaps carelessly +given the world: recognizing in Africa the declaration of the American +Federation of Labor, that "no people must be forced under sovereignty +under which it does not wish to live"; recognizing in President Wilson's +message to the Russians, the "principle of the undictated development of +all peoples"; recognizing the resolution of the recent conference of the +Aborigines Protection Society of England, "that in any reconstruction of +Africa, which may result from this war, the interests of the native +inhabitants and also their wishes, in so far as those wishes can be +clearly ascertained, should be recognized as among the principal factors +upon which the decision of their destiny should be based." In other +words, recognizing for the first time in the history of the modern world +that black men are human.</p> + +<p>It may not be possible to build this state at once. With the victory of +the Entente Allies, the German colonies, with their million of square +miles and one-half million black inhabitants, should form such a +nucleus. It would give Black Africa its physical beginnings. Beginning +with <a name="Page_38" id="Page_38" />the German colonies two other sets of colonies could be added, for +obvious reasons. Neither Portugal nor Belgium has shown any particular +capacity for governing colonial peoples. Valid excuses may in both cases +be advanced, but it would certainly be fair to Belgium to have her start +her great task of reorganization after the World War with neither the +burden nor the temptation of colonies; and in the same way Portugal has, +in reality, the alternative of either giving up her colonies to an +African State or to some other European State in the near future. These +two sets of colonies would add 1,700,000 square miles and eighteen +million inhabitants. It would not, however, be fair to despoil Germany, +Belgium, and Portugal of their colonies unless, as Count Hertling once +demanded, the whole question of colonies be opened.</p> + +<p>How far shall the modern world recognize nations which are not nations, +but combinations of a dominant caste and a suppressed horde of serfs? +Will it not be possible to rebuild a world with compact nations, empires +of self-governing elements, and colonies of backward peoples under +benevolent international control?</p> + +<p>The great test would be easy. Does England propose to erect in India and +Nigeria nations brown and black which shall be eventually independent, +self-governing entities, with a full voice in the British Imperial +Government? If not, let these states either have independence at once +or, if unfitted for that, be put under international tutelage and +guardianship. It is possible that France, with her great heart, may +welcome a Black France,—an enlarged Senegal in Africa; but it would +seem that eventually all Africa south of twenty degrees north latitude +and north of the Union of South Africa should be included in a new +African State. Somaliland and Eritrea should be given to Abyssinia, and +then with Liberia we would start with two small, independent African +states and one large state under international control.</p> + +<p>Does this sound like an impossible dream? No one could be blamed for so +regarding it before 1914. I, myself, would have agreed with them. But +since the nightmare of 1914-1918, since we have seen the impossible +happen and the unspeakable become so common as to cease to stir us; in a +day when Russia has dethroned her Czar, England has granted the suffrage +to women and is in the act of giving Home Rule to Ireland; when Germany +has adopted parliamentary government; when Jerusalem has been delivered +from the Turks; and the United States has taken control of its +railroads,—is it really so far-fetched to think of an Africa for the +Africans, guided by organized civilization?</p> + +<p>No one would expect this new state to be independent and self-governing +from the start. Contrary, however, to present schemes for Africa the +world would expect independence and self-government as the only possible +end of the experiment At first we can conceive of no <a name="Page_39" id="Page_39" />better way of +governing this state than through that same international control by +which we hope to govern the world for peace. A curious and instructive +parallel has been drawn by Simeon Strunsky: "Just as the common +ownership of the northwest territory helped to weld the colonies into +the United States, so could not joint and benevolent domination of +Africa and of other backward parts of the world be a cornerstone upon +which the future federation of the world could be built?"</p> + +<p>From the British Labor Party comes this declaration: "With regard to the +colonies of the several belligerents in tropical Africa, from sea to +sea, the British Labor Movement disclaims all sympathy with the +imperialist idea that these should form the booty of any nation, should +be exploited for the profit of the capitalists, or should be used for +the promotion of the militarists' aims of government. In view of the +fact that it is impracticable here to leave the various peoples +concerned to settle their own destinies it is suggested that the +interests of humanity would be best served by the full and frank +abandonment by all the belligerents of any dreams of an African Empire; +the transfer of the present colonies of the European Powers in tropical +Africa, however, and the limits of this area may be defined to the +proposed Supernational Authority, or League of Nations."</p> + +<p>Lloyd George himself has said in regard to the German colonies a word +difficult to restrict merely to them: "I have repeatedly declared that +they are held at the disposal of a conference, whose decision must have +primary regard to the wishes and interests of the native inhabitants of +such colonies. None of those territories is inhabited by Europeans. The +governing considerations, therefore, must be that the inhabitants should +be placed under the control of an administration acceptable to +themselves, one of whose main purposes will be to prevent their +exploitation for the benefit of European capitalists or governments."</p> + +<p>The special commission for the government of this African State must, +naturally, be chosen with great care and thought. It must represent, not +simply governments, but civilization, science, commerce, social reform, +religious philanthropy without sectarian propaganda. It must include, +not simply white men, but educated and trained men of Negro blood. The +guiding principles before such a commission should be clearly +understood. In the first place, it ought by this time to be realized by +the labor movement throughout the world that no industrial democracy can +be built on industrial despotism, whether the two systems are in the +same country or in different countries, since the world today so nearly +approaches a common industrial unity. If, therefore, it is impossible in +any single land to uplift permanently skilled labor without also raising +common labor, so, too, there can be no permanent uplift of American or +European labor as long as African laborers are slaves.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40" />Secondly, this building of a new African State does not mean the +segregation in it of all the world's black folk. It is too late in the +history of the world to go back to the idea of absolute racial +segregation. The new African State would not involve any idea of a vast +transplantation of the twenty-seven million Negroids of the western +world, of Africa, or of the gathering there of Negroid Asia. The Negroes +in the United States and the other Americas have earned the right to +fight out their problems where they are, but they could easily furnish +from time to time technical experts, leaders of thought, and +missionaries of culture for their backward brethren in the new Africa.</p> + +<p>With these two principles, the practical policies to be followed out in +the government of the new states should involve a thorough and complete +system of modern education, built upon the present government, religion, +and customary laws of the natives. There should be no violent tampering +with the curiously efficient African institutions of local +self-government through the family and the tribe; there should be no +attempt at sudden "conversion" by religious propaganda. Obviously +deleterious customs and unsanitary usages must gradually be abolished, +but the general government, set up from without, must follow the example +of the best colonial administrators and build on recognized, established +foundations rather than from entirely new and theoretical plans.</p> + +<p>The real effort to modernize Africa should be through schools rather +than churches. Within ten years, twenty million black children ought to +be in school. Within a generation young Africa should know the essential +outlines of modern culture and groups of bright African students could +be going to the world's great universities. From the beginning the +actual general government should use both colored and white officials +and later natives should be worked in. Taxation and industry could +follow the newer ideals of industrial democracy, avoiding private land +monopoly and poverty, and promoting co-operation in production and the +socialization of income. Difficulties as to capital and revenue would be +far less than many imagine. If a capable English administrator of +British Nigeria could with $1,500 build up a cocoa industry of twenty +million dollars annually, what might not be done in all Africa, without +gin, thieves, and hypocrisy?</p> + +<p>Capital could not only be accumulated in Africa, but attracted from the +white world, with one great difference from present usage: no return so +fabulous would be offered that civilized lands would be tempted to +divert to colonial trade and invest materials and labor needed by the +masses at home, but rather would receive the same modest profits as +legitimate home industry offers.</p> + +<p>There is no sense in asserting that the ideal of an African State, thus +<a name="Page_41" id="Page_41" />governed and directed toward independence and self-government, is +impossible of realization. The first great essential is that the +civilized world believe in its possibility. By reason of a crime +(perhaps the greatest crime in human history) the modern world has been +systematically taught to despise colored peoples. Men of education and +decency ask, and ask seriously, if it is really possible to uplift +Africa. Are Negroes human, or, if human, developed far enough to absorb, +even under benevolent tutelage, any appreciable part of modern culture? +Has not the experiment been tried in Haiti and Liberia, and failed?</p> + +<p>One cannot ignore the extraordinary fact that a world campaign beginning +with the slave-trade and ending with the refusal to capitalize the word +"Negro," leading through a passionate defense of slavery by attributing +every bestiality to blacks and finally culminating in the evident modern +profit which lies in degrading blacks,—all this has unconsciously +trained millions of honest, modern men into the belief that black folk +are sub-human. This belief is not based on science, else it would be +held as a postulate of the most tentative kind, ready at any time to be +withdrawn in the face of facts; the belief is not based on history, for +it is absolutely contradicted by Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and +Arabian experience; nor is the belief based on any careful survey of the +social development of men of Negro blood to-day in Africa and America. +It is simply passionate, deep-seated heritage, and as such can be moved +by neither argument nor fact. Only faith in humanity will lead the world +to rise above its present color prejudice.</p> + +<p>Those who do believe in men, who know what black men have done in human +history, who have taken pains to follow even superficially the story of +the rise of the Negro in Africa, the West Indies, and the Americas of +our day know that our modern contempt of Negroes rests upon no +scientific foundation worth a moment's attention. It is nothing more +than a vicious habit of mind. It could as easily be overthrown as our +belief in war, as our international hatreds, as our old conception of +the status of women, as our fear of educating the masses, and as our +belief in the necessity of poverty. We can, if we will, inaugurate on +the Dark Continent a last great crusade for humanity. With Africa +redeemed Asia would be safe and Europe indeed triumphant.</p> + +<p>I have not mentioned North and South Africa, because my eye was centered +on the main mass of the Negro race. Yet it is clear that for the +development of Central Africa, Egypt should be free and independent, +there along the highway to a free and independent India; while Morocco, +Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli must become a part of Europe, with modern +development and home rule. South Africa, stripped of its black serfs and +their lands, must admit the resident natives and colored folk to its +body politic as equals.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42" />The hands which Ethiopia shall soon stretch out unto God are not mere +hands of helplessness and supplication, but rather are they hands of +pain and promise; hard, gnarled, and muscled for the world's real work; +they are hands of fellowship for the half-submerged masses of a +distempered world; they are hands of helpfulness for an agonized God!</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Twenty centuries before Christ a great cloud swept over seas and settled +on Africa, darkening and well-nigh blotting out the culture of the land +of Egypt. For half a thousand years it rested there, until a black +woman, Queen Nefertari, "the most venerated figure in Egyptian history," +rose to the throne of the Pharaohs and redeemed the world and her +people. Twenty centuries after Christ, Black Africa,—prostrated, raped, +and shamed, lies at the feet of the conquering Philistines of Europe. +Beyond the awful sea a black woman is weeping and waiting, with her sons +on her breast. What shall the end be? The world-old and fearful +things,—war and wealth, murder and luxury? Or shall it be a new +thing,—a new peace and a new democracy of all races,—a great humanity +of equal men? "<i>Semper novi quid ex Africa</i>!"<a name="Page_43" id="Page_43" /></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 55%;" /> +<h3><a name="The_Princess_of_the_Hither_Isles" id="The_Princess_of_the_Hither_Isles" /><i>The Princess of the Hither Isles</i></h3> + + +<p>Her soul was beautiful, wherefore she kept it veiled in lightly-laced +humility and fear, out of which peered anxiously and anon the white and +blue and pale-gold of her face,-beautiful as daybreak or as the laughing +of a child. She sat in the Hither Isles, well walled between the This +and Now, upon a low and silver throne, and leaned upon its armposts, +sadly looking upward toward the sun. Now the Hither Isles are flat and +cold and swampy, with drear-drab light and all manner of slimy, creeping +things, and piles of dirt and clouds of flying dust and sordid scraping +and feeding and noise.</p> + +<p>She hated them and ever as her hands and busy feet swept back the dust +and slime her soul sat silver-throned, staring toward the great hill to +the westward, which shone so brilliant-golden beneath the sunlight and +above the sea.</p> + +<p>The sea moaned and with it moaned the princess' soul, for she was +lonely,—very, very lonely, and full weary of the monotone of life. So +she was glad to see a moving in Yonder Kingdom on the mountainside, +where the sun shone warm, and when the king of Yonder Kingdom, silken in +robe and golden-crowned and warded by his hound, walked down along the +restless waters and sat beside the armpost of her throne, she wondered +why she could not love him and fly with him up the shining mountain's +side, out of the dirt and dust that nested between the This and Now. She +looked at him and tried to be glad, for he was bonny and good to look +upon, this king of Yonder Kingdom,—tall and straight, thin-lipped and +white and tawny. So, again, this last day, she strove to burn life into +his singularly sodden clay,—to put his icy soul aflame wherewith to +warm her own, to set his senses singing. Vacantly he heard her winged +words, staring and curling his long mustaches with vast thoughtfulness. +Then he said:</p> + +<p>"We've found more gold in Yonder Kingdom."</p> + +<p>"<a name="Page_44" id="Page_44" />Hell seize your gold!" blurted the princess.</p> + +<p>"No,—it's mine," he maintained stolidly.</p> + +<p>She raised her eyes. "It belongs," she said, "to the Empire of the Sun."</p> + +<p>"Nay,—the Sun belongs to us," said the king calmly as he glanced to +where Yonder Kingdom blushed above the sea. She glanced, too, and a +softness crept into her eyes.</p> + +<p>"No, no," she murmured as with hesitating pause she raised her eyes +above the sea, above the hill, up into the sky where the sun hung silent +and splendid. Its robes were heaven's blue, lined and broidered in +living flame, and its crown was one vast jewel, glistening in glittering +glory that made the sun's own face a blackness,—the blackness of utter +light. With blinded, tear-filled eyes she peered into that formless +black and burning face and sensed in its soft, sad gleam unfathomed +understanding. With sudden, wild abandon she stretched her arms toward +it appealing, beseeching, entreating, and lo!</p> + +<p>"Niggers and dagoes," said the king of Yonder Kingdom, glancing +carelessly backward and lighting in his lips a carefully rolled wisp of +fragrant tobacco. She looked back, too, but in half-wondering terror, +for it seemed—</p> + +<p>A beggar man was creeping across the swamp, shuffling through the dirt +and slime. He was little and bald and black, rough-clothed, sodden with +dirt, and bent with toil. Yet withal something she sensed about him and +it seemed,—</p> + +<p>The king of Yonder Kingdom lounged more comfortably beside the silver +throne and let curl a tiny trail of light-blue smoke.</p> + +<p>"I hate beggars," he said, "especially brown and black ones." And he +then pointed at the beggar's retinue and laughed,—an unpleasant laugh, +welded of contempt and amusement. The princess looked and shrank on her +throne. He, the beggar man, was—was what? But his retinue,—that +squalid, sordid, parti-colored band of vacant, dull-faced filth and +viciousness—was writhing over the land, and he and they seemed almost +crouching underneath the scorpion lash of one tall skeleton, that looked +like Death, and the twisted woman whom men called Pain. Yet they all +walked as one.</p> + +<p>The King of Yonder Kingdom laughed, but the princess shrank on her +throne, and the king on seeing her thus took a gold-piece from out of +his purse and tossed it carelessly to the passing throng. She watched it +with fascinated eyes,—how it rose and sailed and whirled and struggled +in the air, then seemed to burst, and upward flew its light and sheen +and downward dropped its dross. She glanced at the king, but he was +lighting a match. She watched the dross wallow in the slime, but the +sunlight fell on the back of the beggar's neck, and he turned his head.</p> + +<p>The beggar passing afar turned his head and the princess straightened +<a name="Page_45" id="Page_45" />on her throne; he turned his head and she shivered forward on her +silver seat; he looked upon her full and slow and suddenly she saw +within that formless black and burning face the same soft, glad gleam of +utter understanding, seen so many times before. She saw the suffering of +endless years and endless love that softened it. She saw the burning +passion of the sun and with it the cold, unbending duty-deeds of upper +air. All she had seen and dreamed of seeing in the rising, blazing sun +she saw now again and with it myriads more of human tenderness, of +longing, and of love. So, then, she knew. She rose as to a dream come +true, with solemn face and waiting eyes.</p> + +<p>With her rose the king of Yonder Kingdom, almost eagerly.</p> + +<p>"You'll come?" he cried. "You'll come and see my gold?" And then in +sudden generosity, he added: "You'll have a golden throne,-up there-when +we marry."</p> + +<p>But she, looking up and on with radiant face, answered softly: "I come."</p> + +<p>So down and up and on they mounted,-the black beggar man and his +cavalcade of Death and Pain, and then a space; and then a lone, black +hound that nosed and whimpered as he ran, and then a space; and then the +king of Yonder Kingdom in his robes, and then a space; and last the +princess of the Hither Isles, with face set sunward and lovelight in her +eyes.</p> + +<p>And so they marched and struggled on and up through endless years and +spaces and ever the black beggar looked back past death and pain toward +the maid and ever the maid strove forward with lovelit eyes, but ever +the great and silken shoulders of the king of Yonder Kingdom arose +between the princess and the sun like a cloud of storms.</p> + +<p>Now, finally, they neared unto the hillsides topmost shoulder and there +most eagerly the king bent to the bowels of the earth and bared its +golden entrails,-all green and gray and rusted-while the princess +strained her pitiful eyes aloft to where the beggar, set 'twixt Death +and Pain, whirled his slim back against the glory of the setting sun and +stood somber in his grave majesty, enhaloed and transfigured, +outstretching his long arms, and around all heaven glittered jewels in a +cloth of gold.</p> + +<p>A while the princess stood and moaned in mad amaze, then with one wilful +wrench she bared the white flowers of her breast and snatching forth her +own red heart held it with one hand aloft while with the other she +gathered close her robe and poised herself.</p> + +<p>The king of Yonder Kingdom looked upward quickly, curiously, still +fingering the earth, and saw the offer of her bleeding heart.</p> + +<p>"It's a Negro!" he growled darkly; "it may not be."</p> + +<p>The woman quivered.</p> + +<p>"It's a nigger!" he repeated fiercely. "It's neither God nor man, but a +nigger!"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46" />The princess stepped forward.</p> + +<p>The king grasped his sword and looked north and east; he raised his +sword and looked south and west.</p> + +<p>"I seek the sun," the princess sang, and started into the west.</p> + +<p>"Never!" cried the king of Yonder Kingdom, "for such were blasphemy and +defilement and the making of all evil."</p> + +<p>So, raising his great sword he struck with all his might, and more. Down +hissed the blow and it bit that little, white, heart-holding hand until +it flew armless and disbodied up through the sunlit air. Down hissed the +blow and it clove the whimpering hound until his last shriek shook the +stars. Down hissed the blow and it rent the earth. It trembled, fell +apart, and yawned to a chasm wide as earth from heaven, deep as hell, +and empty, cold, and silent.</p> + +<p>On yonder distant shore blazed the mighty Empire of the Sun in warm and +blissful radiance, while on this side, in shadows cold and dark, gloomed +the Hither Isles and the hill that once was golden, but now was green +and slimy dross; all below was the sad and moaning sea, while between +the Here and There flew the severed hand and dripped the bleeding heart.</p> + +<p>Then up from the soul of the princess welled a cry of dark +despair,—such a cry as only babe-raped mothers know and murdered loves. +Poised on the crumbling edge of that great nothingness the princess +hung, hungering with her eyes and straining her fainting ears against +the awful splendor of the sky.</p> + +<p>Out from the slime and shadows groped the king, thundering: "Back—don't +be a fool!"</p> + +<p>But down through the thin ether thrilled the still and throbbing warmth +of heaven's sun, whispering "Leap!"</p> + +<p>And the princess leapt.<a name="Page_47" id="Page_47" /></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 85%;" /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_IV" id="Chapter_IV" />IV</h2> + +<h3>OF WORK AND WEALTH</h3> + + +<p>For fifteen years I was a teacher of youth. They were years out of the +fullness and bloom of my younger manhood. They were years mingled of +half breathless work, of anxious self-questionings, of planning and +replanning, of disillusion, or mounting wonder.</p> + +<p>The teacher's life is a double one. He stands in a certain fear. He +tends to be stilted, almost dishonest, veiling himself before those +awful eyes. Not the eyes of Almighty God are so straight, so +penetrating, so all-seeing as the wonder-swept eyes of youth. You walk +into a room: to the left is a tall window, bright with colors of crimson +and gold and sunshine. Here are rows of books and there is a table. +Somber blackboards clothe the walls to the right and beside your desk is +the delicate ivory of a nobly cast head. But you see nothing of this: +you see only a silence and eyes,—fringed, soft eyes; hard eyes; eyes +great and small; eyes here so poignant with beauty that the sob +struggles in your throat; eyes there so hard with sorrow that laughter +wells up to meet and beat it back; eyes through which the mockery and +ridicule of hell or some pulse of high heaven may suddenly flash. Ah! +That mighty pause before the class,—that orison and benediction—how +much of my life it has been and made.</p> + +<p>I fought earnestly against posing before my class. I tried to be natural +and honest and frank, but it was a bitter hard. What would you say to a +soft, brown face, aureoled in a thousand ripples of gray-black hair, +which knells suddenly: "Do you trust white people?" You do not and you +know that you do not, much as you want to; yet you rise and lie and say +you do; you must say it for her salvation and the world's; you repeat +that she must trust them, that most white folks are honest, and all the +while you are lying and every level, silent eye there knows you are +lying, and miserably you sit and lie on, to the greater glory of God.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48" />I taught history and economics and something called "sociology" at +Atlanta University, where, as our Mr. Webster used to say, we professors +occupied settees and not mere chairs. I was fortunate with this teaching +in having vivid in the minds of my pupils a concrete social problem of +which we all were parts and which we desperately desired to solve. There +was little danger, then, of my teaching or of their thinking becoming +purely theoretical. Work and wage were thrilling realities to us all. +What did we study? I can tell you best by taking a concrete human case, +such as was continually leaping to our eyes and thought and demanding +understanding and interpretation and what I could bring of prophecy.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>St. Louis sprawls where mighty rivers meet,—as broad as Philadelphia, +but three stories high instead of two, with wider streets and dirtier +atmosphere, over the dull-brown of wide, calm rivers. The city overflows +into the valleys of Illinois and lies there, writhing under its grimy +cloud. The other city is dusty and hot beyond all dream,—a feverish +Pittsburg in the Mississippi Valley—a great, ruthless, terrible thing! +It is the sort that crushes man and invokes some living superman,—a +giant of things done, a clang of awful accomplishment.</p> + +<p>Three men came wandering across this place. They were neither kings nor +wise men, but they came with every significance—perhaps even +greater—than that which the kings bore in the days of old. There was +one who came from the North,—brawny and riotous with energy, a man of +concentrated power, who held all the thunderbolts of modern capital in +his great fists and made flour and meat, iron and steel, cunning +chemicals, wood, paint and paper, transforming to endless tools a +disemboweled earth. He was one who saw nothing, knew nothing, sought +nothing but the making and buying of that which sells; who out from the +magic of his hand rolled over miles of iron road, ton upon ton of food +and metal and wood, of coal and oil and lumber, until the thronging of +knotted ways in East and real St. Louis was like the red, festering +ganglia of some mighty heart.</p> + +<p>Then from the East and called by the crash of thunderbolts and +forked-flame came the Unwise Man,—unwise by the theft of endless ages, +but as human as anything God ever made. He was the slave for the miracle +maker. It was he that the thunderbolts struck and electrified into +gasping energy. The rasp of his hard breathing shook the midnights of +all this endless valley and the pulse of his powerful arms set the great +nation to trembling.</p> + +<p>And then, at last, out of the South, like a still, small voice, came the +third man,—black, with great eyes and greater memories; hesitantly +eager and yet with the infinite softness and ancient calm which come +<a name="Page_49" id="Page_49" />from that eternal race whose history is not the history of a day, but +of endless ages. Here, surely, was fit meeting-place for these curiously +intent forces, for these epoch-making and age-twisting forces, for these +human feet on their super-human errands.</p> + +<p>Yesterday I rode in East St. Louis. It is the kind of place one quickly +recognizes,—tireless and with no restful green of verdure; hard and +uneven of street; crude, cold, and even hateful of aspect; conventional, +of course, in its business quarter, but quickly beyond one sees the ruts +and the hollows, the stench of ill-tamed sewerage, unguarded railroad +crossings, saloons outnumbering churches and churches catering to +saloons; homes impudently strait and new, prostitutes free and happy, +gamblers in paradise, the town "wide open," shameless and frank; great +factories pouring out stench, filth, and flame—these and all other +things so familiar in the world market places, where industry triumphs +over thought and products overwhelm men. May I tell, too, how yesterday +I rode in this city past flame-swept walls and over gray ashes; in +streets almost wet with blood and beside ruins, where the bones of dead +men new-bleached peered out at me in sullen wonder?</p> + +<p>Across the river, in the greater city, where bronze St. Louis,—that +just and austere king—looks with angry, fear-swept eyes down from the +rolling heights of Forest Park, which knows him not nor heeds him, there +is something of the same thing, but this city is larger and older and +the forces of evil have had some curbing from those who have seen the +vision and panted for life; but eastward from St. Louis there is a land +of no taxes for great industries; there is a land where you may buy +grafting politicians at far less rate than you would pay for franchises +or privileges in a modern town. There, too, you may escape the buying of +indulgences from the great terminal fist, which squeezes industry out of +St. Louis. In fact, East St. Louis is a paradise for high and frequent +dividends and for the piling up of wealth to be spent in St. Louis and +Chicago and New York and when the world is sane again, across the seas.</p> + +<p>So the Unwise Men pouring out of the East,—falling, scrambling, rushing +into America at the rate of a million a year,—ran, walked, and crawled +to this maelstrom of the workers. They garnered higher wage than ever +they had before, but not all of it came in cash. A part, and an +insidious part, was given to them transmuted into whiskey, prostitutes, +and games of chance. They laughed and disported themselves. God! Had not +their mothers wept enough? It was a good town. There was no veil of +hypocrisy here, but a wickedness, frank, ungilded, and open. To be sure, +there were things sometimes to reveal the basic savagery and thin +veneer. Once, for instance, a man was lynched for brawling on the public +square of the county seat; once a mayor who sought to "clean up" was +publicly assassinated; always there was theft and rumors of theft, +<a name="Page_50" id="Page_50" />until St. Clair County was a hissing in good men's ears; but always, +too, there were good wages and jolly hoodlums and unchecked wassail of +Saturday nights. Gamblers, big and little, rioted in East St. Louis. The +little gamblers used cards and roulette wheels and filched the weekly +wage of the workers. The greater gamblers used meat and iron and undid +the foundations of the world. All the gods of chance flaunted their wild +raiment here, above the brown flood of the Mississippi.</p> + +<p>Then the world changed; then civilization, built for culture, rebuilt +itself for wilful murder in Europe, Asia, America, and the Southern +Seas. Hands that made food made powder, and iron for railways was iron +for guns. The wants of common men were forgotten before the groan of +giants. Streams of gold, lost from the world's workers, filtered and +trickled into the hands of gamblers and put new power into the +thunderbolts of East St. Louis.</p> + +<p>Wages had been growing before the World War. Slowly but remorselessly +the skilled and intelligent, banding themselves, had threatened the +coffers of the mighty, and slowly the mighty had disgorged. Even the +common workers, the poor and unlettered, had again and again gripped the +sills of the city walls and pulled themselves to their chins; but, alas! +there were so many hands and so many mouths and the feet of the +Disinherited kept coming across the wet paths of the sea to this old El +Dorado.</p> + +<p>War brought subtle changes. Wages stood still while prices fattened. It +was not that the white American worker was threatened with starvation, +but it was what was, after all, a more important question,—whether or +not he should lose his front-room and victrola and even the dream of a +Ford car.</p> + +<p>There came a whirling and scrambling among the workers,—they fought +each other; they climbed on each others' backs. The skilled and +intelligent, banding themselves even better than before, bargained with +the men of might and held them by bitter threats; the less skilled and +more ignorant seethed at the bottom and tried, as of old, to bring it +about that the ignorant and unlettered should learn to stand together +against both capital and skilled labor.</p> + +<p>It was here that there came out of the East a beam of unearthly +light,—a triumph of possible good in evil so strange that the workers +hardly believed it. Slowly they saw the gates of Ellis Island closing, +slowly the footsteps of the yearly million men became fainter and +fainter, until the stream of immigrants overseas was stopped by the +shadow of death at the very time when new murder opened new markets over +all the world to American industry; and the giants with the thunderbolts +stamped and raged and peered out across the world and called for men and +evermore,—men!</p> + +<p>The Unwise Men laughed and squeezed reluctant dollars out of the fists +of the mighty and saw in their dream the vision of a day when <a name="Page_51" id="Page_51" />labor, as +they knew it, should come into its own; saw this day and saw it with +justice and with right, save for one thing, and that was the sound of +the moan of the Disinherited, who still lay without the walls. When they +heard this moan and saw that it came not across the seas, they were at +first amazed and said it was not true; and then they were mad and said +it should not be. Quickly they turned and looked into the red blackness +of the South and in their hearts were fear and hate!</p> + +<p>What did they see? They saw something at which they had been taught to +laugh and make sport; they saw that which the heading of every newspaper +column, the lie of every cub reporter, the exaggeration of every press +dispatch, and the distortion of every speech and book had taught them +was a mass of despicable men, inhuman; at best, laughable; at worst, the +meat of mobs and fury.</p> + +<p>What did they see? They saw nine and one-half millions of human beings. +They saw the spawn of slavery, ignorant by law and by deviltry, crushed +by insult and debauched by systematic and criminal injustice. They saw a +people whose helpless women have been raped by thousands and whose men +lynched by hundreds in the face of a sneering world. They saw a people +with heads bloody, but unbowed, working faithfully at wages fifty per +cent. lower than the wages of the nation and under conditions which +shame civilization, saving homes, training children, hoping against +hope. They saw the greatest industrial miracle of modern days,—slaves +transforming themselves to freemen and climbing out of perdition by +their own efforts, despite the most contemptible opposition God ever +saw,—they saw all this and what they saw the distraught employers of +America saw, too.</p> + +<p>The North called to the South. A scream of rage went up from the cotton +monopolists and industrial barons of the new South. Who was this who +dared to "interfere" with their labor? Who sought to own their black +slaves but they? Who honored and loved "niggers" as they did?</p> + +<p>They mobilized all the machinery of modern oppression: taxes, city +ordinances, licenses, state laws, municipal regulations, wholesale +police arrests and, of course, the peculiarly Southern method of the mob +and the lyncher. They appealed frantically to the United States +Government; they groveled on their knees and shed wild tears at the +"suffering" of their poor, misguided black friends, and yet, despite +this, the Northern employers simply had to offer two and three dollars a +day and from one-quarter to one-half a million dark workers arose and +poured themselves into the North. They went to the mines of West +Virginia, because war needs coal; they went to the industries of New +Jersey and Pennsylvania, because war needs ships and iron; they went to +the automobiles of Detroit and the load-carrying of Chicago; and they +went to East St. Louis.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52" />Now there came fear in the hearts of the Unwise Men. It was not that +their wages were lowered,—they went even higher. They received, not +simply, a living wage, but a wage that paid for some of the decencies, +and, in East St. Louis, many of the indecencies of life. What they +feared was not deprivation of the things they were used to and the +shadow of poverty, but rather the definite death of their rising dreams. +But if fear was new-born in the hearts of the Unwise Men, the black man +was born in a house of fear; to him poverty of the ugliest and straitest +type was father, mother, and blood-brother. He was slipping stealthily +northward to escape hunger and insult, the hand of oppression, and the +shadow of death.</p> + +<p>Here, then, in the wide valley which Father Marquette saw peaceful and +golden, lazy with fruit and river, half-asleep beneath the nod of +God,—here, then, was staged every element for human tragedy, every +element of the modern economic paradox.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Ah! That hot, wide plain of East St. Louis is a gripping thing. The +rivers are dirty with sweat and toil and lip, like lakes, along the low +and burdened shores; flatboats ramble and thread among them, and above +the steamers bridges swing on great arches of steel, striding with +mighty grace from shore to shore. Everywhere are brick kennels,—tall, +black and red chimneys, tongues of flame. The ground is littered with +cars and iron, tracks and trucks, boxes and crates, metals and coal and +rubber. Nature-defying cranes, grim elevators rise above pile on pile of +black and grimy lumber. And ever below is the water,—wide and silent, +gray-brown and yellow.</p> + +<p>This is the stage for the tragedy: the armored might of the modern world +urged by the bloody needs of the world wants, fevered today by a +fabulous vision of gain and needing only hands, hands, hands! Fear of +loss and greed of gain in the hearts of the giants; the clustered +cunning of the modern workman, skilled as artificer and skilled in the +rhythm of the habit of work, tasting the world's good and panting for +more; fear of poverty and hate of "scabs" in the hearts of the workers; +the dumb yearning in the hearts of the oppressed; the echo of laughter +heard at the foot of the Pyramids; the faithful, plodding slouch of the +laborers; fear of the Shadow of Death in the hearts of black men.</p> + +<p>We ask, and perhaps there is no answer, how far may the captain of the +world's industry do his deeds, despite the grinding tragedy of its +doing? How far may men fight for the beginning of comfort, out beyond +the horrid shadow of poverty, at the cost of starving other and what the +world calls lesser men? How far may those who reach up out of the slime +that fills the pits of the world's damned compel men with loaves to +divide with men who starve?</p> + +<p><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53" />The answers to these questions are hard, but yet one answer looms above +all,—justice lies with the lowest; the plight of the lowest man,—the +plight of the black man—deserves the first answer, and the plight of +the giants of industry, the last.</p> + +<p>Little cared East St. Louis for all this bandying of human problems, so +long as its grocers and saloon-keepers flourished and its industries +steamed and screamed and smoked and its bankers grew rich. Stupidity, +license, and graft sat enthroned in the City Hall. The new black folk +were exploited as cheerfully as white Polacks and Italians; the rent of +shacks mounted merrily, the street car lines counted gleeful gains, and +the crimes of white men and black men flourished in the dark. The high +and skilled and smart climbed on the bent backs of the ignorant; harder +the mass of laborers strove to unionize their fellows and to bargain +with employers.</p> + +<p>Nor were the new blacks fools. They had no love for nothings in labor; +they had no wish to make their fellows' wage envelopes smaller, but they +were determined to make their own larger. They, too, were willing to +join in the new union movement. But the unions did not want them. Just +as employers monopolized meat and steel, so they sought to monopolize +labor and beat a giant's bargain. In the higher trades they succeeded. +The best electrician in the city was refused admittance to the union and +driven from the town because he was black. No black builder, printer, or +machinist could join a union or work in East St. Louis, no matter what +his skill or character. But out of the stink of the stockyards and the +dust of the aluminum works and the sweat of the lumber yards the willing +blacks could not be kept.</p> + +<p>They were invited to join unions of the laborers here and they joined. +White workers and black workers struck at the aluminum works in the fall +and won higher wages and better hours; then again in the spring they +struck to make bargaining compulsory for the employer, but this time +they fronted new things. The conflagration of war had spread to America; +government and court stepped in and ordered no hesitation, no strikes; +the work must go on.</p> + +<p>Deeper was the call for workers. Black men poured in and red anger +flamed in the hearts of the white workers. The anger was against the +wielders of the thunderbolts, but here it was impotent because employers +stood with the hand of the government before their faces; it was against +entrenched union labor, which had risen on the backs of the unskilled +and unintelligent and on the backs of those whom for any reason of race +or prejudice or chicane they could beat beyond the bars of competition; +and finally the anger of the mass of white workers was turned toward +these new black interlopers, who seemed to come to spoil their last +dream of a great monopoly of common labor.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54" />These angers flamed and the union leaders, fearing their fury and +knowing their own guilt, not only in the larger and subtler matter of +bidding their way to power across the weakness of their less fortunate +fellows, but also conscious of their part in making East St. Louis a +miserable town of liquor and lust, leaped quickly to ward the gathering +thunder from their own heads. The thing they wanted was even at their +hands: here were black men, guilty not only of bidding for jobs which +white men could have held at war prices, even if they could not fill, +but also guilty of being black! It was at this blackness that the unions +pointed the accusing finger. It was here that they committed the +unpardonable crime. It was here that they entered the Shadow of Hell, +where suddenly from a fight for wage and protection against industrial +oppression East St. Louis became the center of the oldest and nastiest +form of human oppression,—race hatred.</p> + +<p>The whole situation lent itself to this terrible transformation. +Everything in the history of the United States, from slavery to Sunday +supplements, from disfranchisement to residence segregation, from +"Jim-Crow" cars to a "Jim-Crow" army draft—all this history of +discrimination and insult festered to make men think and willing to +think that the venting of their unbridled anger against 12,000,000 +humble, upstriving workers was a way of settling the industrial tangle +of the ages. It was the logic of the broken plate, which, seared of old +across its pattern, cracks never again, save along the old destruction.</p> + +<p>So hell flamed in East St. Louis! The white men drove even black union +men out of their unions and when the black men, beaten by night and +assaulted, flew to arms and shot back at the marauders, five thousand +rioters arose and surged like a crested stormwave, from noonday until +midnight; they killed and beat and murdered; they dashed out the brains +of children and stripped off the clothes of women; they drove victims +into the flames and hanged the helpless to the lighting poles. Fathers +were killed before the faces of mothers; children were burned; heads +were cut off with axes; pregnant women crawled and spawned in dark, wet +fields; thieves went through houses and firebrands followed; bodies were +thrown from bridges; and rocks and bricks flew through the air.</p> + +<p>The Negroes fought. They grappled with the mob like beasts at bay. They +drove them back from the thickest cluster of their homes and piled the +white dead on the street, but the cunning mob caught the black men +between the factories and their homes, where they knew they were armed +only with their dinner pails. Firemen, policemen, and militiamen stood +with hanging hands or even joined eagerly with the mob.</p> + +<p>It was the old world horror come to life again: all that Jews suffered +in Spain and Poland; all that peasants suffered in France, and Indians +in Calcutta; all that aroused human deviltry had accomplished in ages +<a name="Page_55" id="Page_55" />past they did in East St. Louis, while the rags of six thousand +half-naked black men and women fluttered across the bridges of the calm +Mississippi.</p> + +<p>The white South laughed,—it was infinitely funny—the "niggers" who had +gone North to escape slavery and lynching had met the fury of the mob +which they had fled. Delegations rushed North from Mississippi and +Texas, with suspicious timeliness and with great-hearted offers to take +these workers back to a lesser hell. The man from Greensville, +Mississippi, who wanted a thousand got six, because, after all, the end +was not so simple.</p> + +<p>No, the end was not simple. On the contrary, the problem raised by East +St. Louis was curiously complex. The ordinary American, tired of the +persistence of "the Negro problem," sees only another anti-Negro mob and +wonders, not when we shall settle this problem, but when we shall be +well rid of it. The student of social things sees another mile-post in +the triumphant march of union labor; he is sorry that blood and rapine +should mark its march,—but, what will you? War is life!</p> + +<p>Despite these smug reasonings the bare facts were these: East St. Louis, +a great industrial center, lost 5,000 laborers,—good, honest, +hard-working laborers. It was not the criminals, either black or white, +who were driven from East St. Louis. They are still there. They will +stay there. But half the honest black laborers were gone. The crippled +ranks of industrial organization in the mid-Mississippi Valley cannot be +recruited from Ellis Island, because in Europe men are dead and maimed, +and restoration, when restoration comes, will raise a European demand +for labor such as this age has never seen. The vision of industrial +supremacy has come to the giants who lead American industry and finance. +But it can never be realized unless the laborers are here to do the +work,—the skilled laborers, the common laborers, the willing laborers, +the well-paid laborers. The present forces, organized however cunningly, +are not large enough to do what America wants; but there is another +group of laborers, 12,000,000 strong, the natural heirs, by every logic +of justice, to the fruits of America's industrial advance. They will be +used simply because they must be used,—but their using means East St. +Louis!</p> + +<p>Eastward from St. Louis lie great centers, like Chicago, Indianapolis, +Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and New York; in every one +of these and in lesser centers there is not only the industrial unrest +of war and revolutionized work, but there is the call for workers, the +coming of black folk, and the deliberate effort to divert the thoughts +of men, and particularly of workingmen, into channels of race hatred +against blacks. In every one of these centers what happened in East St. +Louis has been attempted, with more or less success. Yet the American +<a name="Page_56" id="Page_56" />Negroes stand today as the greatest strategic group in the world. Their +services are indispensable, their temper and character are fine, and +their souls have seen a vision more beautiful than any other mass of +workers. They may win back culture to the world if their strength can be +used with the forces of the world that make for justice and not against +the hidden hates that fight for barbarism. For fight they must and fight +they will!</p> + +<p>Rising on wings we cross again the rivers of St. Louis, winding and +threading between the towers of industry that threaten and drown the +towers of God. Far, far beyond, we sight the green of fields and hills; +but ever below lies the river, blue,—brownish-gray, touched with the +hint of hidden gold. Drifting through half-flooded lowlands, with +shanties and crops and stunted trees, past struggling corn and +straggling village, we rush toward the Battle of the Marne and the West, +from this dread Battle of the East. Westward, dear God, the fire of Thy +Mad World crimsons our Heaven. Our answering Hell rolls eastward from +St. Louis.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Here, in microcosm, is the sort of economic snarl that arose continually +for me and my pupils to solve. We could bring to its unraveling little +of the scholarly aloofness and academic calm of most white universities. +To us this thing was Life and Hope and Death!</p> + +<p>How should we think such a problem through, not simply as Negroes, but +as men and women of a new century, helping to build a new world? And +first of all, here is no simple question of race antagonism. There are +no races, in the sense of great, separate, pure breeds of men, differing +in attainment, development, and capacity. There are great groups,—now +with common history, now with common interests, now with common +ancestry; more and more common experience and present interest drive +back the common blood and the world today consists, not of races, but of +the imperial commercial group of master capitalists, international and +predominantly white; the national middle classes of the several nations, +white, yellow, and brown, with strong blood bonds, common languages, and +common history; the international laboring class of all colors; the +backward, oppressed groups of nature-folk, predominantly yellow, brown, +and black.</p> + +<p>Two questions arise from the work and relations of these groups: how to +furnish goods and services for the wants of men and how equitably and +sufficiently to satisfy these wants. There can be no doubt that we have +passed in our day from a world that could hardly satisfy the physical +wants of the mass of men, by the greatest effort, to a world whose +technique supplies enough for all, if all can claim their right. Our +great ethical question today is, therefore, how may we justly distribute +the world's goods to satisfy the necessary wants of the mass of men.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57" />What hinders the answer to this question? Dislikes, jealousies, +hatreds,—undoubtedly like the race hatred in East St. Louis; the +jealousy of English and German; the dislike of the Jew and the Gentile. +But these are, after all, surface disturbances, sprung from ancient +habit more than from present reason. They persist and are encouraged +because of deeper, mightier currents. If the white workingmen of East +St. Louis felt sure that Negro workers would not and could not take the +bread and cake from their mouths, their race hatred would never have +been translated into murder. If the black workingmen of the South could +earn a decent living under decent circumstances at home, they would not +be compelled to underbid their white fellows.</p> + +<p>Thus the shadow of hunger, in a world which never needs to be hungry, +drives us to war and murder and hate. But why does hunger shadow so vast +a mass of men? Manifestly because in the great organizing of men for +work a few of the participants come out with more wealth than they can +possibly use, while a vast number emerge with less than can decently +support life. In earlier economic stages we defended this as the reward +of Thrift and Sacrifice, and as the punishment of Ignorance and Crime. +To this the answer is sharp: Sacrifice calls for no such reward and +Ignorance deserves no such punishment. The chief meaning of our present +thinking is that the disproportion between wealth and poverty today +cannot be adequately accounted for by the thrift and ignorance of the +rich and the poor.</p> + +<p>Yesterday we righted one great mistake when we realized that the +ownership of the laborer did not tend to increase production. The world +at large had learned this long since, but black slavery arose again in +America as an inexplicable anachronism, a wilful crime. The freeing of +the black slaves freed America. Today we are challenging another +ownership,-the ownership of materials which go to make the goods we +need. Private ownership of land, tools, and raw materials may at one +stage of economic development be a method of stimulating production and +one which does not greatly interfere with equitable distribution. When, +however, the intricacy and length of technical production increased, the +ownership of these things becomes a monopoly, which easily makes the +rich richer and the poor poorer. Today, therefore, we are challenging +this ownership; we are demanding general consent as to what materials +shall be privately owned and as to how materials shall be used. We are +rapidly approaching the day when we shall repudiate all private property +in raw materials and tools and demand that distribution hinge, not on +the power of those who monopolize the materials, but on the needs of the +mass of men.</p> + +<p>Can we do this and still make sufficient goods, justly gauge the needs +of men, and rightly decide who are to be considered "men"? How do <a name="Page_58" id="Page_58" />we +arrange to accomplish these things today? Somebody decides whose wants +should be satisfied. Somebody organizes industry so as to satisfy these +wants. What is to hinder the same ability and foresight from being used +in the future as in the past? The amount and kind of human ability +necessary need not be decreased,—it may even be vastly increased, with +proper encouragement and rewards. Are we today evoking the necessary +ability? On the contrary, it is not the Inventor, the Manager, and the +Thinker who today are reaping the great rewards of industry, but rather +the Gambler and the Highwayman. Rightly-organized industry might easily +save the Gambler's Profit and the Monopolist's Interest and by paying a +more discriminating reward in wealth and honor bring to the service of +the state more ability and sacrifice than we can today command. If we do +away with interest and profit, consider the savings that could be made; +but above all, think how great the revolution would be when we ask the +mysterious Somebody to decide in the light of public opinion whose wants +should be satisfied. This is the great and real revolution that is +coming in future industry.</p> + +<p>But this is not the need of the revolution nor indeed, perhaps, its real +beginning. What we must decide sometime is who are to be considered +"men." Today, at the beginning of this industrial change, we are +admitting that economic classes must give way. The laborers' hire must +increase, the employers' profit must be curbed. But how far shall this +change go? Must it apply to all human beings and to all work throughout +the world?</p> + +<p>Certainly not. We seek to apply it slowly and with some reluctance to +white men and more slowly and with greater reserve to white women, but +black folk and brown and for the most part yellow folk we have widely +determined shall not be among those whose needs must justly be heard and +whose wants must be ministered to in the great organization of world +industry.</p> + +<p>In the teaching of my classes I was not willing to stop with showing +that this was unfair,—indeed I did not have to do this. They knew +through bitter experience its rank injustice, because they were black. +What I had to show was that no real reorganization of industry could be +permanently made with the majority of mankind left out. These +disinherited darker peoples must either share in the future industrial +democracy or overturn the world.</p> + +<p>Of course, the foundation of such a system must be a high, ethical +ideal. We must really envisage the wants of humanity. We must want the +wants of all men. We must get rid of the fascination for exclusiveness. +Here, in a world full of folk, men are lonely. The rich are lonely. We +are all frantic for fellow-souls, yet we shut souls out and bar the ways +and bolster up the fiction of the Elect and the Superior when the <a name="Page_59" id="Page_59" />great +mass of men is capable of producing larger and larger numbers for every +human height of attainment. To be sure, there are differences between +men and groups and there will ever be, but they will be differences of +beauty and genius and of interest and not necessarily of ugliness, +imbecility, and hatred.</p> + +<p>The meaning of America is the beginning of the discovery of the Crowd. +The crowd is not so well-trained as a Versailles garden party of Louis +XIV, but it is far better trained than the Sans-culottes and it has +infinite possibilities. What a world this will be when human +possibilities are freed, when we discover each other, when the stranger +is no longer the potential criminal and the certain inferior!</p> + +<p>What hinders our approach to the ideals outlined above? Our profit from +degradation, our colonial exploitation, our American attitude toward the +Negro. Think again of East St. Louis! Think back of that to slavery and +Reconstruction! Do we want the wants of American Negroes satisfied? Most +certainly not, and that negative is the greatest hindrance today to the +reorganization of work and redistribution of wealth, not only in +America, but in the world.</p> + +<p>All humanity must share in the future industrial democracy of the world. +For this it must be trained in intelligence and in appreciation of the +good and the beautiful. Present Big Business,—that Science of Human +Wants—must be perfected by eliminating the price paid for waste, which +is Interest, and for Chance, which is Profit, and making all income a +personal wage for service rendered by the recipient; by recognizing no +possible human service as great enough to enable a person to designate +another as an idler or as a worker at work which he cannot do. Above +all, industry must minister to the wants of the many and not to the few, +and the Negro, the Indian, the Mongolian, and the South Sea Islander +must be among the many as well as Germans, Frenchmen, and Englishmen.</p> + +<p>In this coming socialization of industry we must guard against that same +tyranny of the majority that has marked democracy in the making of laws. +There must, for instance, persist in this future economics a certain +minimum of machine-like work and prompt obedience and submission. This +necessity is a simple corollary from the hard facts of the physical +world. It must be accepted with the comforting thought that its routine +need not demand twelve hours a day or even eight. With Work for All and +All at Work probably from three to six hours would suffice, and leave +abundant time for leisure, exercise, study, and avocations.</p> + +<p>But what shall we say of work where spiritual values and social +distinctions enter? Who shall be Artists and who shall be Servants in +the world to come? Or shall we all be artists and all serve?<a name="Page_60" id="Page_60" /></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 55%;" /> +<h3><a name="The_Second_Coming" id="The_Second_Coming" /><i>The Second Coming</i></h3> + +<p>Three bishops sat in San Francisco, New Orleans, and New York, peering +gloomily into three flickering fires, which cast and recast shuddering +shadows on book-lined walls. Three letters lay in their laps, which +said:</p> + +<p>"And thou, Valdosta, in the land of Georgia, art not least among the +princes of America, for out of thee shall come a governor who shall rule +my people."</p> + +<p>The white bishop of New York scowled and impatiently threw the letter +into the fire. "Valdosta?" he thought,—"That's where I go to the +governor's wedding of little Marguerite, my white flower,—" Then he +forgot the writing in his musing, but the paper flared red in the +fireplace.</p> + +<p>"Valdosta?" said the black bishop of New Orleans, turning uneasily in +his chair. "I must go down there. Those colored folk are acting +strangely. I don't know where all this unrest and moving will lead to. +Then, there's poor Lucy—" And he threw the letter into the fire, but +eyed it suspiciously as it flamed green. "Stranger things than that have +happened," he said slowly, "'and ye shall hear of wars and rumors of +wars ... for nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against +kingdom.'"</p> + +<p>In San Francisco the priest of Japan, abroad to study strange lands, sat +in his lacquer chair, with face like soft-yellow and wrinkled parchment. +Slowly he wrote in a great and golden book: "I have been strangely +bidden to the Val d' Osta, where one of those religious cults that swarm +here will welcome a prophet. I shall go and report to Kioto."</p> + +<p>So in the dim waning of the day before Christmas three bishops met in +Valdosta and saw its mills and storehouses, its wide-throated and sandy +streets, in the mellow glow of a crimson sun. The governor glared +anxiously up the street as he helped the bishop of New York into his car +and welcomed him graciously.</p> + +<p>"I am troubled," said the governor, "about the niggers. They are acting +queerly. I'm not certain but Fleming is back of it."</p> + +<p>"Fleming?"</p> + +<p>"<a name="Page_61" id="Page_61" />Yes! He's running against me next term for governor; he's a firebrand; +wants niggers to vote and all that—pardon me a moment, there's a darky +I know—" and he hurried to the black bishop, who had just descended +from the "Jim-Crow" car, and clasped his hand cordially. They talked in +whispers. "Search diligently," said the governor in parting, "and bring +me word again." Then returning to his guest, "You will excuse me, won't +you?" he asked, "but I am sorely troubled! I never saw niggers act so. +They're leaving by the hundreds and those who stay are getting impudent! +They seem to be expecting something. What's the crowd, Jim?"</p> + +<p>The chauffeur said that there was some sort of Chinese official in town +and everybody wanted to glimpse him. He drove around another way.</p> + +<p>It all happened very suddenly. The bishop of New York, in full +canonicals for the early wedding, stepped out on the rear balcony of his +mansion, just as the dying sun lit crimson clouds of glory in the East +and burned the West.</p> + +<p>"Fire!" yelled a wag in the surging crowd that was gathering to +celebrate a southern Christmas-eve; all laughed and ran.</p> + +<p>The bishop of New York did not understand. He peered around. Was it that +dark, little house in the far backyard that flamed? Forgetful of his +robes he hurried down,—a brave, white figure in the sunset. He found +himself before an old, black, rickety stable. He could hear the mules +stamping within.</p> + +<p>No. It was not fire. It was the sunset glowing through the cracks. +Behind the hut its glory rose toward God like flaming wings of cherubim. +He paused until he heard the faint wail of a child. Hastily he entered. +A white girl crouched before him, down by the very mules' feet, with a +baby in her arms,-a little mite of a baby that wailed weakly. Behind +mother and child stood a shadow. The bishop of New York turned to the +right, inquiringly, and saw a black man in bishop's robes that faintly +re-echoed his own. He turned away to the left and saw a golden Japanese +in golden garb. Then he heard the black man mutter behind him: "But He +was to come the second time in clouds of glory, with the nations +gathered around Him and angels—" at the word a shaft of glorious light +fell full upon the child, while without came the tramping of unnumbered +feet and the whirring of wings.</p> + +<p>The bishop of New York bent quickly over the baby. It was black! He +stepped back with a gesture of disgust, hardly listening to and yet +hearing the black bishop, who spoke almost as if in apology:</p> + +<p>"She's not really white; I know Lucy—you see, her mother worked for the +governor—" The white bishop turned on his heel and nearly trod on the +yellow priest, who knelt with bowed head before the pale mother and +offered incense and a gift of gold.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62" />Out into the night rushed the bishop of New York. The wings of the +cherubim were folded black against the stars. As he hastened down the +front staircase the governor came rushing up the street steps.</p> + +<p>"We are late!" he cried nervously. "The bride awaits!" He hurried the +bishop to the waiting limousine, asking him anxiously: "Did you hear +anything? Do you hear that noise? The crowd is growing strangely on the +streets and there seems to be a fire over toward the East. I never saw +so many people here—I fear violence—a mob—a lynching—I fear—hark!"</p> + +<p>What was that which he, too, heard beneath the rhythm of unnumbered +feet? Deep in his heart a wonder grew. What was it? Ah, he knew! It was +music,—some strong and mighty chord. It rose higher as the +brilliantly-lighted church split the night, and swept radiantly toward +them. So high and clear that music flew, it seemed above, around, behind +them. The governor, ashen-faced, crouched in the car; but the bishop +said softly as the ecstasy pulsed in his heart:</p> + +<p>"Such music, such wedding music! What choir is it?"<a name="Page_63" id="Page_63" /></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 85%;" /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_V" id="Chapter_V" />V</h2> + +<h3>"THE SERVANT IN THE HOUSE"</h3> + + +<p>The lady looked at me severely; I glanced away. I had addressed the +little audience at some length on the disfranchisement of my people in +society, politics, and industry and had studiously avoided the while her +cold, green eye. I finished and shook weary hands, while she lay in +wait. I knew what was coming and braced my soul.</p> + +<p>"Do you know where I can get a good colored cook?" she asked. I +disclaimed all guilty concupiscence. She came nearer and spitefully +shook a finger in my face.</p> + +<p>"Why—won't—Negroes—work!" she panted. "I have given money for years +to Hampton and Tuskegee and yet I can't get decent servants. They won't +try. They're lazy! They're unreliable! They're impudent and they leave +without notice. They all want to be lawyers and doctors and" (she spat +the word in venom) "ladies!"</p> + +<p>"God forbid!" I answered solemnly, and then being of gentle birth, and +unminded to strike a defenseless female of uncertain years, I ran; I ran +home and wrote a chapter in my book and this is it.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>I speak and speak bitterly as a servant and a servant's son, for my +mother spent five or more years of her life as a menial; my father's +family escaped, although grandfather as a boat steward had to fight hard +to be a man and not a lackey. He fought and won. My mother's folk, +however, during my childhood, sat poised on that thin edge between the +farmer and the menial. The surrounding Irish had two chances, the +factory and the kitchen, and most of them took the factory, with all its +dirt and noise and low wage. The factory was closed to us. Our little +lands were too small to feed most of us. A few clung almost sullenly to +the old homes, low and red things crouching on a wide level; but the +<a name="Page_64" id="Page_64" />children stirred restlessly and walked often to town and saw its +wonders. Slowly they dribbled off,—a waiter here, a cook there, help +for a few weeks in Mrs. Blank's kitchen when she had summer boarders.</p> + +<p>Instinctively I hated such work from my birth. I loathed it and shrank +from it. Why? I could not have said. Had I been born in Carolina instead +of Massachusetts I should hardly have escaped the taint of "service." +Its temptations in wage and comfort would soon have answered my +scruples; and yet I am sure I would have fought long even in Carolina, +for I knew in my heart that thither lay Hell.</p> + +<p>I mowed lawns on contract, did "chores" that left me my own man, sold +papers, and peddled tea—anything to escape the shadow of the awful +thing that lurked to grip my soul. Once, and once only, I felt the sting +of its talons. I was twenty and had graduated from Fisk with a +scholarship for Harvard; I needed, however, travel money and clothes and +a bit to live on until the scholarship was due. Fortson was a +fellow-student in winter and a waiter in summer. He proposed that the +Glee Club Quartet of Fisk spend the summer at the hotel in Minnesota +where he worked and that I go along as "Business Manager" to arrange for +engagements on the journey back. We were all eager, but we knew nothing +of table-waiting. "Never mind," said Fortson, "you can stand around the +dining-room during meals and carry out the big wooden trays of dirty +dishes. Thus you can pick up knowledge of waiting and earn good tips and +get free board." I listened askance, but I went.</p> + +<p>I entered that broad and blatant hotel at Lake Minnetonka with distinct +forebodings. The flamboyant architecture, the great verandas, rich +furniture, and richer dresses awed us mightily. The long loft reserved +for us, with its clean little cots, was reassuring; the work was not +difficult,—but the meals! There were no meals. At first, before the +guests ate, a dirty table in the kitchen was hastily strewn with +uneatable scraps. We novices were the only ones who came to eat, while +the guests' dining-room, with its savors and sights, set our appetites +on edge! After a while even the pretense of meals for us was dropped. We +were sure we were going to starve when Dug, one of us, made a startling +discovery: the waiters stole their food and they stole the best. We +gulped and hesitated. Then we stole, too, (or, at least, they stole and +I shared) and we all fattened, for the dainties were marvelous. You +slipped a bit here and hid it there; you cut off extra portions and gave +false orders; you dashed off into darkness and hid in corners and ate +and ate! It was nasty business. I hated it. I was too cowardly to steal +much myself, and not coward enough to refuse what others stole.</p> + +<p>Our work was easy, but insipid. We stood about and watched overdressed +people gorge. For the most part we were treated like furniture and were +supposed to act the wooden part. I watched the waiters even <a name="Page_65" id="Page_65" />more than +the guests. I saw that it paid to amuse and to cringe. One particular +black man set me crazy. He was intelligent and deft, but one day I +caught sight of his face as he served a crowd of men; he was playing the +clown,—crouching, grinning, assuming a broad dialect when he usually +spoke good English—ah! it was a heartbreaking sight, and he made more +money than any waiter in the dining-room.</p> + +<p>I did not mind the actual work or the kind of work, but it was the +dishonesty and deception, the flattery and cajolery, the unnatural +assumption that worker and diner had no common humanity. It was uncanny. +It was inherently and fundamentally wrong. I stood staring and thinking, +while the other boys hustled about. Then I noticed one fat hog, feeding +at a heavily gilded trough, who could not find his waiter. He beckoned +me. It was not his voice, for his mouth was too full. It was his way, +his air, his assumption. Thus Caesar ordered his legionaries or +Cleopatra her slaves. Dogs recognized the gesture. I did not. He may be +beckoning yet for all I know, for something froze within me. I did not +look his way again. Then and there I disowned menial service for me and +my people.</p> + +<p>I would work my hands off for an honest wage, but for "tips" and +"hand-me-outs," never! Fortson was a pious, honest fellow, who regarded +"tips" as in the nature of things, being to the manner born; but the +hotel that summer in other respects rather astonished even him. He came +to us much flurried one night and got us to help him with a memorial to +the absentee proprietor, telling of the wild and gay doings of midnights +in the rooms and corridors among "tired" business men and their +prostitutes. We listened wide-eyed and eager and wrote the filth out +manfully. The proprietor did not thank Fortson. He did not even answer +the letter.</p> + +<p>When I finally walked out of that hotel and out of menial service +forever, I felt as though, in a field of flowers, my nose had been held +unpleasantly long to the worms and manure at their roots.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>"Cursed be Canaan!" cried the Hebrew priests. "A servant of servants +shall he be unto his brethren." With what characteristic complacency did +the slaveholders assume that Canaanites were Negroes and their +"brethren" white? Are not Negroes servants? <i>Ergo</i>! Upon such spiritual +myths was the anachronism of American slavery built, and this was the +degradation that once made menial servants the aristocrats among colored +folk. House servants secured some decencies of food and clothing and +shelter; they could more easily reach their master's ear; their personal +abilities of character became known and bonds grew between slave and +master which strengthened from friendship to love, from mutual service +to mutual blood.</p> + +<p>Naturally out of this the West Indian servant climbed out of slavery +<a name="Page_66" id="Page_66" />into citizenship, for few West Indian masters—fewer Spanish or +Dutch—were callous enough to sell their own children into slavery. Not +so with English and Americans. With a harshness and indecency seldom +paralleled in the civilized world white masters on the mainland sold +their mulatto children, half-brothers and half-sisters, and their own +wives in all but name, into life-slavery by the hundreds and thousands. +They originated a special branch of slave-trading for this trade and the +white aristocrats of Virginia and the Carolinas made more money by this +business during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries than in any +other way.</p> + +<p>The clang of the door of opportunity thus knelled in the ears of the +colored house servant whirled the whole face of Negro advancement as on +some great pivot. The movement was slow, but vast. When emancipation +came, before and after 1863, the house servant still held advantages. He +had whatever education the race possessed and his white father, no +longer able to sell him, often helped him with land and protection. +Notwithstanding this the lure of house service for the Negro was gone. +The path of salvation for the emancipated host of black folk lay no +longer through the kitchen door, with its wide hall and pillared veranda +and flowered yard beyond. It lay, as every Negro soon knew and knows, in +escape from menial serfdom.</p> + +<p>In 1860, 98 per cent of the Negroes were servants and serfs. In 1880, 30 +per cent were servants and 65 per cent were serfs. The percentage of +servants then rose slightly and fell again until 21 per cent were in +service in 1910 and, doubtless, much less than 20 per cent today. This +is the measure of our rise, but the Negro will not approach freedom +until this hateful badge of slavery and mediaevalism has been reduced to +less than 10 per cent.</p> + +<p>Not only are less than a fifth of our workers servants today, but the +character of their service has been changed. The million menial workers +among us include 300,000 upper servants,—skilled men and women of +character, like hotel waiters, Pullman porters, janitors, and cooks, +who, had they been white, could have called on the great labor movement +to lift their work out of slavery, to standardize their hours, to define +their duties, and to substitute a living, regular wage for personal +largess in the shape of tips, old clothes, and cold leavings of food. +But the labor movement turned their backs on those black men when the +white world dinned in their ears. <i>Negroes are servants; servants are +Negroes.</i> They shut the door of escape to factory and trade in their +fellows' faces and battened down the hatches, lest the 300,000 should be +workers equal in pay and consideration with white men.</p> + +<p>But, if the upper servants could not escape to modern, industrial +conditions, how much the more did they press down on the bodies and +<a name="Page_67" id="Page_67" />souls of 700,000 washerwomen and household drudges,—ignorant, +unskilled offal of a millionaire industrial system. Their pay was the +lowest and their hours the longest of all workers. The personal +degradation of their work is so great that any white man of decency +would rather cut his daughter's throat than let her grow up to such a +destiny. There is throughout the world and in all races no greater +source of prostitution than this grade of menial service, and the Negro +race in America has largely escaped this destiny simply because its +innate decency leads black women to choose irregular and temporary +sexual relations with men they like rather than to sell themselves to +strangers. To such sexual morals is added (in the nature of +self-defense) that revolt against unjust labor conditions which +expresses itself in "soldiering," sullenness, petty pilfering, +unreliability, and fast and fruitless changes of masters.</p> + +<p>Indeed, here among American Negroes we have exemplified the last and +worst refuge of industrial caste. Menial service is an anachronism,—the +refuse of mediaeval barbarism. Whey, then, does it linger? Why are we +silent about it? Why in the minds of so many decent and up-seeing folks +does the whole Negro problem resolve itself into the matter of their +getting a cook or a maid?</p> + +<p>No one knows better than I the capabilities of a system of domestic +service at its best. I have seen children who were spiritual sons and +daughters of their masters, girls who were friends of their mistresses, +and old servants honored and revered. But in every such case the Servant +had transcended the Menial, the Service had been exalted above the Wage. +Now to accomplish this permanently and universally, calls for the same +revolution in household help as in factory help and public service. +While organized industry has been slowly making its help into +self-respecting, well-paid men, and while public service is beginning to +call for the highest types of educated and efficient thinkers, domestic +service lags behind and insists upon seeking to evolve the best types of +men from the worst conditions.</p> + +<p>The cause of this perversity, to my mind, is twofold. First, the ancient +high estate of Service, now pitifully fallen, yet gasping for breath; +secondly, the present low estate of the outcasts of the world, peering +with blood-shot eyes at the gates of the industrial heaven.</p> + +<p>The Master spoke no greater word than that which said: "Whosoever will +be great among you, let him be your servant!" What is greater than +Personal Service! Surely no social service, no wholesale helping of +masses of men can exist which does not find its effectiveness and beauty +in the personal aid of man to man. It is the purest and holiest of +duties. Some mighty glimmer of this truth survived in those who made the +First Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, the Keepers of the Robes, and the +Knights of the Bath, the highest nobility that hedged an anointed <a name="Page_68" id="Page_68" />king. +Nor does it differ today in what the mother does for the child or the +daughter for the mother, in all the personal attentions in the +old-fashioned home; this is Service! Think of what Friend has meant, not +simply in spiritual sympathies, but in physical helpfulness. In the +world today what calls for more of love, sympathy, learning, sacrifice, +and long-suffering than the care of children, the preparation of food, +the cleansing and ordering of the home, personal attendance and +companionship, the care of bodies and their raiment—what greater, more +intimate, more holy Services are there than these?</p> + +<p>And yet we are degrading these services and loathing them and scoffing +at them and spitting upon them, first, by turning them over to the +lowest and least competent and worst trained classes in the world, and +then by yelling like spoiled children if our babies are neglected, our +biscuits sodden, our homes dirty, and our baths unpoured. Let one +suggest that the only cure for such deeds is in the uplift of the doer +and our rage is even worse and less explicable. We will call them by +their first names, thus blaspheming a holy intimacy; we will confine +them to back doors; we will insist that their meals be no gracious +ceremony nor even a restful sprawl, but usually a hasty, heckled gulp +amid garbage; we exact, not a natural, but a purchased deference, and we +leave them naked to insult by our children and by our husbands.</p> + +<p>I remember a girl,—how pretty she was, with the crimson flooding the +old ivory of her cheeks and her gracious plumpness! She had come to the +valley during the summer to "do housework." I met and walked home with +her, in the thrilling shadows, to an old village home I knew well; then +as I turned to leave I learned that she was there alone in that house +for a week-end with only one young white man to represent the family. +Oh, he was doubtless a "gentleman" and all that, but for the first time +in my life I saw what a snare the fowler was spreading at the feet of +the daughters of my people, baited by church and state.</p> + +<p>Not alone is the hurt thus offered to the lowly,—Society and Science +suffer. The unit which we seek to make the center of society,—the +Home—is deprived of the help of scientific invention and suggestion. It +is only slowly and by the utmost effort that some small foothold has +been gained for the vacuum cleaner, the washing-machine, the power tool, +and the chemical reagent. In our frantic effort to preserve the last +vestiges of slavery and mediaevalism we not only set out faces against +such improvements, but we seek to use education and the power of the +state to train the servants who do not naturally appear.</p> + +<p>Meantime the wild rush from house service, on the part of all who can +scramble or run, continues. The rules of the labor union are designed, +not simply to raise wages, but to guard against any likeness between +artisan and servant. There is no essential difference in ability <a name="Page_69" id="Page_69" />and +training between a subway guard and a Pullman porter, but between their +union cards lies a whole world.</p> + +<p>Yet we are silent. Menial service is not a "social problem." It is not +really discussed. There is no scientific program for its "reform." There +is but one panacea: Escape! Get yourselves and your sons and daughters +out of the shadow of this awful thing! Hire servants, but never be one. +Indeed, subtly but surely the ability to hire at least "a maid" is still +civilization's patent to respectability, while "a man" is the first word +of aristocracy.</p> + +<p>All this is because we still consciously and unconsciously hold to the +"manure" theory of social organization. We believe that at the bottom of +organized human life there are necessary duties and services which no +real human being ought to be compelled to do. We push below this mudsill +the derelicts and half-men, whom we hate and despise, and seek to build +above it—Democracy! On such foundations is reared a Theory of +Exclusiveness, a feeling that the world progresses by a process of +excluding from the benefits of culture the majority of men, so that a +gifted minority may blossom. Through this door the modern democrat +arrives to the place where he is willing to allot two able-bodied men +and two fine horses to the task of helping one wizened beldam to take +the morning air.</p> + +<p>Here the absurdity ends. Here all honest minds turn back and ask: Is +menial service permanent or necessary? Can we not transfer cooking from +the home to the scientific laboratory, along with the laundry? Cannot +machinery, in the hands of self-respecting and well-paid artisans, do +our cleaning, sewing, moving, and decorating? Cannot the training of +children become an even greater profession than the attending of the +sick? And cannot personal service and companionship be coupled with +friendship and love where it belongs and whence it can never be divorced +without degradation and pain?</p> + +<p>In fine, can we not, black and white, rich and poor, look forward to a +world of Service without Servants?</p> + +<p>A miracle! you say? True. And only to be performed by the Immortal +Child.<a name="Page_70" id="Page_70" /></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 55%;" /> +<h3><a name="Jesus_Christ_in_Texas" id="Jesus_Christ_in_Texas" /><i>Jesus Christ in Texas</i></h3> + +<p>It was in Waco, Texas.</p> + +<p>The convict guard laughed. "I don't know," he said, "I hadn't thought of +that." He hesitated and looked at the stranger curiously. In the solemn +twilight he got an impression of unusual height and soft, dark eyes. +"Curious sort of acquaintance for the colonel," he thought; then he +continued aloud: "But that nigger there is bad, a born thief, and ought +to be sent up for life; got ten years last time—"</p> + +<p>Here the voice of the promoter, talking within, broke in; he was bending +over his figures, sitting by the colonel. He was slight, with a sharp +nose.</p> + +<p>"The convicts," he said, "would cost us $96 a year and board. Well, we +can squeeze this so that it won't be over $125 apiece. Now if these +fellows are driven, they can build this line within twelve months. It +will be running by next April. Freights will fall fifty per cent. Why, +man, you'll be a millionaire in less than ten years."</p> + +<p>The colonel started. He was a thick, short man, with a clean-shaven face +and a certain air of breeding about the lines of his countenance; the +word millionaire sounded well to his ears. He thought—he thought a +great deal; he almost heard the puff of the fearfully costly automobile +that was coming up the road, and he said:</p> + +<p>"I suppose we might as well hire them."</p> + +<p>"Of course," answered the promoter.</p> + +<p>The voice of the tall stranger in the corner broke in here:</p> + +<p>"It will be a good thing for them?" he said, half in question.</p> + +<p>The colonel moved. "The guard makes strange friends," he thought to +himself. "What's this man doing here, anyway?" He looked at him, or +rather looked at his eyes, and then somehow he felt a warming toward +him. He said:</p> + +<p>"Well, at least, it can't harm them; they're beyond that."</p> + +<p>"It will do them good, then," said the stranger again.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71" />The promoter shrugged his shoulders. "It will do us good," he said.</p> + +<p>But the colonel shook his head impatiently. He felt a desire to justify +himself before those eyes, and he answered: "Yes, it will do them good; +or at any rate it won't make them any worse than they are." Then he +started to say something else, but here sure enough the sound of the +automobile breathing at the gate stopped him and they all arose.</p> + +<p>"It is settled, then," said the promoter.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the colonel, turning toward the stranger again. "Are you +going into town?" he asked with the Southern courtesy of white men to +white men in a country town. The stranger said he was. "Then come along +in my machine. I want to talk with you about this."</p> + +<p>They went out to the car. The stranger as he went turned again to look +back at the convict. He was a tall, powerfully built black fellow. His +face was sullen, with a low forehead, thick, hanging lips, and bitter +eyes. There was revolt written about his mouth despite the hang-dog +expression. He stood bending over his pile of stones, pounding +listlessly. Beside him stood a boy of twelve,—yellow, with a hunted, +crafty look. The convict raised his eyes and they met the eyes of the +stranger. The hammer fell from his hands.</p> + +<p>The stranger turned slowly toward the automobile and the colonel +introduced him. He had not exactly caught his name, but he mumbled +something as he presented him to his wife and little girl, who were +waiting.</p> + +<p>As they whirled away the colonel started to talk, but the stranger had +taken the little girl into his lap and together they conversed in low +tones all the way home.</p> + +<p>In some way, they did not exactly know how, they got the impression that +the man was a teacher and, of course, he must be a foreigner. The long, +cloak-like coat told this. They rode in the twilight through the lighted +town and at last drew up before the colonel's mansion, with its +ghost-like pillars.</p> + +<p>The lady in the back seat was thinking of the guests she had invited to +dinner and was wondering if she ought not to ask this man to stay. He +seemed cultured and she supposed he was some acquaintance of the +colonel's. It would be rather interesting to have him there, with the +judge's wife and daughter and the rector. She spoke almost before she +thought:</p> + +<p>"You will enter and rest awhile?"</p> + +<p>The colonel and the little girl insisted. For a moment the stranger +seemed about to refuse. He said he had some business for his father, +about town. Then for the child's sake he consented.</p> + +<p>Up the steps they went and into the dark parlor where they sat and +talked a long time. It was a curious conversation. Afterwards they did +not remember exactly what was said and yet they all remembered a certain +strange satisfaction in that long, low talk.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72" />Finally the nurse came for the reluctant child and the hostess +bethought herself:</p> + +<p>"We will have a cup of tea; you will be dry and tired."</p> + +<p>She rang and switched on a blaze of light. With one accord they all +looked at the stranger, for they had hardly seen him well in the +glooming twilight. The woman started in amazement and the colonel half +rose in anger. Why, the man was a mulatto, surely; even if he did not +own the Negro blood, their practised eyes knew it. He was tall and +straight and the coat looked like a Jewish gabardine. His hair hung in +close curls far down the sides of his face and his face was olive, even +yellow.</p> + +<p>A peremptory order rose to the colonel's lips and froze there as he +caught the stranger's eyes. Those eyes,—where had he seen those eyes +before? He remembered them long years ago. The soft, tear-filled eyes of +a brown girl. He remembered many things, and his face grew drawn and +white. Those eyes kept burning into him, even when they were turned half +away toward the staircase, where the white figure of the child hovered +with her nurse and waved good-night. The lady sank into her chair and +thought: "What will the judge's wife say? How did the colonel come to +invite this man here? How shall we be rid of him?" She looked at the +colonel in reproachful consternation.</p> + +<p>Just then the door opened and the old butler came in. He was an ancient +black man, with tufted white hair, and he held before him a large, +silver tray filled with a china tea service. The stranger rose slowly +and stretched forth his hands as if to bless the viands. The old man +paused in bewilderment, tottered, and then with sudden gladness in his +eyes dropped to his knees, and the tray crashed to the floor.</p> + +<p>"My Lord and my God!" he whispered; but the woman screamed: "Mother's +china!"</p> + +<p>The doorbell rang.</p> + +<p>"Heavens! here is the dinner party!" exclaimed the lady. She turned +toward the door, but there in the hall, clad in her night clothes, was +the little girl. She had stolen down the stairs to see the stranger +again, and the nurse above was calling in vain. The woman felt +hysterical and scolded at the nurse, but the stranger had stretched out +his arms and with a glad cry the child nestled in them. They caught some +words about the "Kingdom of Heaven" as he slowly mounted the stairs with +his little, white burden.</p> + +<p>The mother was glad of anything to get rid of the interloper, even for a +moment. The bell rang again and she hastened toward the door, which the +loitering black maid was just opening. She did not notice the shadow of +the stranger as he came slowly down the stairs and paused by the newel +post, dark and silent.</p> + +<p>The judge's wife came in. She was an old woman, frilled and powdered +<a name="Page_73" id="Page_73" />into a semblance of youth, and gorgeously gowned. She came forward, +smiling with extended hands, but when she was opposite the stranger, +somewhere a chill seemed to strike her and she shuddered and cried:</p> + +<p>"What a draft!" as she drew a silken shawl about her and shook hands +cordially; she forgot to ask who the stranger was. The judge strode in +unseeing, thinking of a puzzling case of theft.</p> + +<p>"Eh? What? Oh—er—yes,—good evening," he said, "good evening." Behind +them came a young woman in the glory of youth, and daintily silked, +beautiful in face and form, with diamonds around her fair neck. She came +in lightly, but stopped with a little gasp; then she laughed gaily and +said:</p> + +<p>"Why, I beg your pardon. Was it not curious? I thought I saw there +behind your man"—she hesitated, but he must be a servant, she +argued—"the shadow of great, white wings. It was but the light on the +drapery. What a turn it gave me." And she smiled again. With her came a +tall, handsome, young naval officer. Hearing his lady refer to the +servant, he hardly looked at him, but held his gilded cap carelessly +toward him, and the stranger placed it carefully on the rack.</p> + +<p>Last came the rector, a man of forty, and well-clothed. He started to +pass the stranger, stopped, and looked at him inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," he said. "I beg your pardon,—I think I have met +you?"</p> + +<p>The stranger made no answer, and the hostess nervously hurried the +guests on. But the rector lingered and looked perplexed.</p> + +<p>"Surely, I know you. I have met you somewhere," he said, putting his +hand vaguely to his head. "You—you remember me, do you not?"</p> + +<p>The stranger quietly swept his cloak aside, and to the hostess' +unspeakable relief passed out of the door.</p> + +<p>"I never knew you," he said in low tones as he went.</p> + +<p>The lady murmured some vain excuse about intruders, but the rector stood +with annoyance written on his face.</p> + +<p>"I beg a thousand pardons," he said to the hostess absently. "It is a +great pleasure to be here,—somehow I thought I knew that man. I am sure +I knew him once."</p> + +<p>The stranger had passed down the steps, and as he passed, the nurse, +lingering at the top of the staircase, flew down after him, caught his +cloak, trembled, hesitated, and then kneeled in the dust.</p> + +<p>He touched her lightly with his hand and said: "Go, and sin no more!"</p> + +<p>With a glad cry the maid left the house, with its open door, and turned +north, running. The stranger turned eastward into the night. As they +parted a long, low howl rose tremulously and reverberated through the +night. The colonel's wife within shuddered.</p> + +<p>"The bloodhounds!" she said.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74" />The rector answered carelessly:</p> + +<p>"Another one of those convicts escaped, I suppose. Really, they need +severer measures." Then he stopped. He was trying to remember that +stranger's name.</p> + +<p>The judge's wife looked about for the draft and arranged her shawl. The +girl glanced at the white drapery in the hall, but the young officer was +bending over her and the fires of life burned in her veins.</p> + +<p>Howl after howl rose in the night, swelled, and died away. The stranger +strode rapidly along the highway and out into the deep forest. There he +paused and stood waiting, tall and still.</p> + +<p>A mile up the road behind a man was running, tall and powerful and +black, with crime-stained face and convicts' stripes upon him, and +shackles on his legs. He ran and jumped, in little, short steps, and his +chains rang. He fell and rose again, while the howl of the hounds rang +louder behind him.</p> + +<p>Into the forest he leapt and crept and jumped and ran, streaming with +sweat; seeing the tall form rise before him, he stopped suddenly, +dropped his hands in sullen impotence, and sank panting to the earth. A +greyhound shot out of the woods behind him, howled, whined, and fawned +before the stranger's feet. Hound after hound bayed, leapt, and lay +there; then silently, one by one, and with bowed heads, they crept +backward toward the town.</p> + +<p>The stranger made a cup of his hands and gave the man water to drink, +bathed his hot head, and gently took the chains and irons from his feet. +By and by the convict stood up. Day was dawning above the treetops. He +looked into the stranger's face, and for a moment a gladness swept over +the stains of his face.</p> + +<p>"Why, you are a nigger, too," he said.</p> + +<p>Then the convict seemed anxious to justify himself.</p> + +<p>"I never had no chance," he said furtively.</p> + +<p>"Thou shalt not steal," said the stranger.</p> + +<p>The man bridled.</p> + +<p>"But how about them? Can they steal? Didn't they steal a whole year's +work, and then when I stole to keep from starving—" He glanced at the +stranger.</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't steal just to keep from starving. I stole to be stealing. +I can't seem to keep from stealing. Seems like when I see things, I just +must—but, yes, I'll try!"</p> + +<p>The convict looked down at his striped clothes, but the stranger had +taken off his long coat; he had put it around him and the stripes +disappeared.</p> + +<p>In the opening morning the black man started toward the low, log +farmhouse in the distance, while the stranger stood watching him. <a name="Page_75" id="Page_75" />There +was a new glory in the day. The black man's face cleared up, and the +farmer was glad to get him. All day the black man worked as he had never +worked before. The farmer gave him some cold food.</p> + +<p>"You can sleep in the barn," he said, and turned away.</p> + +<p>"How much do I git a day?" asked the black man.</p> + +<p>The farmer scowled.</p> + +<p>"Now see here," said he. "If you'll sign a contract for the season, I'll +give you ten dollars a month."</p> + +<p>"I won't sign no contract," said the black man doggedly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you will," said the farmer, threateningly, "or I'll call the +convict guard." And he grinned.</p> + +<p>The convict shrank and slouched to the barn. As night fell he looked out +and saw the farmer leave the place. Slowly he crept out and sneaked +toward the house. He looked through the kitchen door. No one was there, +but the supper was spread as if the mistress had laid it and gone out. +He ate ravenously. Then he looked into the front room and listened. He +could hear low voices on the porch. On the table lay a gold watch. He +gazed at it, and in a moment he was beside it,—his hands were on it! +Quickly he slipped out of the house and slouched toward the field. He +saw his employer coming along the highway. He fled back in tenor and +around to the front of the house, when suddenly he stopped. He felt the +great, dark eyes of the stranger and saw the same dark, cloak-like coat +where the stranger sat on the doorstep talking with the mistress of the +house. Slowly, guiltily, he turned back, entered the kitchen, and laid +the watch stealthily where he had found it; then he rushed wildly back +toward the stranger, with arms outstretched.</p> + +<p>The woman had laid supper for her husband, and going down from the house +had walked out toward a neighbor's. She was gone but a little while, and +when she came back she started to see a dark figure on the doorsteps +under the tall, red oak. She thought it was the new Negro until he said +in a soft voice:</p> + +<p>"Will you give me bread?"</p> + +<p>Reassured at the voice of a white man, she answered quickly in her soft, +Southern tones:</p> + +<p>"Why, certainly."</p> + +<p>She was a little woman, and once had been pretty; but now her face was +drawn with work and care. She was nervous and always thinking, wishing, +wanting for something. She went in and got him some cornbread and a +glass of cool, rich buttermilk; then she came out and sat down beside +him. She began, quite unconsciously, to tell him about herself,—the +things she had done and had not done and the things she had wished for. +She told him of her husband and this new farm they were trying to buy. +She said it was hard to get niggers to work. She said <a name="Page_76" id="Page_76" />they ought all to +be in the chain-gang and made to work. Even then some ran away. Only +yesterday one had escaped, and another the day before.</p> + +<p>At last she gossiped of her neighbors, how good they were and how bad.</p> + +<p>"And do you like them all?" asked the stranger.</p> + +<p>She hesitated.</p> + +<p>"Most of them," she said; and then, looking up into his face and putting +her hand into his, as though he were her father, she said:</p> + +<p>"There are none I hate; no, none at all."</p> + +<p>He looked away, holding her hand in his, and said dreamily:</p> + +<p>"You love your neighbor as yourself?"</p> + +<p>She hesitated.</p> + +<p>"I try—" she began, and then looked the way he was looking; down under +the hill where lay a little, half-ruined cabin.</p> + +<p>"They are niggers," she said briefly.</p> + +<p>He looked at her. Suddenly a confusion came over her and she insisted, +she knew not why.</p> + +<p>"But they are niggers!"</p> + +<p>With a sudden impulse she arose and hurriedly lighted the lamp that +stood just within the door, and held it above her head. She saw his dark +face and curly hair. She shrieked in angry terror and rushed down the +path, and just as she rushed down, the black convict came running up +with hands outstretched. They met in mid-path, and before he could stop +he had run against her and she fell heavily to earth and lay white and +still. Her husband came rushing around the house with a cry and an oath.</p> + +<p>"I knew it," he said. "It's that runaway nigger." He held the black man +struggling to the earth and raised his voice to a yell. Down the highway +came the convict guard, with hound and mob and gun. They paused across +the fields. The farmer motioned to them.</p> + +<p>"He—attacked—my wife," he gasped.</p> + +<p>The mob snarled and worked silently. Right to the limb of the red oak +they hoisted the struggling, writhing black man, while others lifted the +dazed woman. Right and left, as she tottered to the house, she searched +for the stranger with a yearning, but the stranger was gone. And she +told none of her guests.</p> + +<p>"No—no, I want nothing," she insisted, until they left her, as they +thought, asleep. For a time she lay still, listening to the departure of +the mob. Then she rose. She shuddered as she heard the creaking of the +limb where the body hung. But resolutely she crawled to the window and +peered out into the moonlight; she saw the dead man writhe. He stretched +his arms out like a cross, looking upward. She gasped and clung to the +window sill. Behind the swaying body, and down where <a name="Page_77" id="Page_77" />the little, +half-ruined cabin lay, a single flame flashed up amid the far-off shout +and cry of the mob. A fierce joy sobbed up through the terror in her +soul and then sank abashed as she watched the flame rise. Suddenly +whirling into one great crimson column it shot to the top of the sky and +threw great arms athwart the gloom until above the world and behind the +roped and swaying form below hung quivering and burning a great crimson +cross.</p> + +<p>She hid her dizzy, aching head in an agony of tears, and dared not look, +for she knew. Her dry lips moved:</p> + +<p>"Despised and rejected of men."</p> + +<p>She knew, and the very horror of it lifted her dull and shrinking +eyelids. There, heaven-tall, earth-wide, hung the stranger on the +crimson cross, riven and blood-stained, with thorn-crowned head and +pierced hands. She stretched her arms and shrieked.</p> + +<p>He did not hear. He did not see. His calm dark eyes, all sorrowful, were +fastened on the writhing, twisting body of the thief, and a voice came +out of the winds of the night, saying:</p> + +<p>"This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise!"<a name="Page_78" id="Page_78" /></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 85%;" /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_VI" id="Chapter_VI" />VI</h2> + +<h3>OF THE RULING OF MEN</h3> + + +<p>The ruling of men is the effort to direct the individual actions of many +persons toward some end. This end theoretically should be the greatest +good of all, but no human group has ever reached this ideal because of +ignorance and selfishness. The simplest object would be rule for the +Pleasure of One, namely the Ruler; or of the Few—his favorites; or of +many—the Rich, the Privileged, the Powerful. Democratic movements +inside groups and nations are always taking place and they are the +efforts to increase the number of beneficiaries of the ruling. In 18th +century Europe, the effort became so broad and sweeping that an attempt +was made at universal expression and the philosophy of the movement said +that if All ruled they would rule for All and thus Universal Good was +sought through Universal Suffrage.</p> + +<p>The unrealized difficulty of this program lay in the widespread +ignorance. The mass of men, even of the more intelligent men, not only +knew little about each other but less about the action of men in groups +and the technique of industry in general. They could only apply +universal suffrage, therefore, to the things they knew or knew +partially: they knew personal and menial service, individual +craftsmanship, agriculture and barter, taxes or the taking of private +property for public ends and the rent of land. With these matters then +they attempted to deal. Under the cry of "Freedom" they greatly relaxed +the grip of selfish interests by restricting menial service, securing +the right of property in handiwork and regulating public taxes; +distributing land ownership and freeing trade and barter.</p> + +<p>While they were doing this against stubborn resistance, a whole new +organization of work suddenly appeared. The suddenness of this +"Industrial Revolution" of the 19th century was partly fortuitous—in +the case of Watt's teakettle—partly a natural development, as in the +<a name="Page_79" id="Page_79" />matter of spinning, but largely the determination of powerful and +intelligent individuals to secure the benefits of privileged persons, as +in the case of foreign slave trade.</p> + +<p>The result was on the one hand a vast and unexampled development of +industry. Life and civilization in the late 19th and early 20th century +were Industry in its whole conception, language, and accomplishment: the +object of life was to make goods. Now before this giant aspect of +things, the new democracy stood aghast and impotent. It could not rule +because it did not understand: an invincible kingdom of trade, business, +and commerce ruled the world, and before its threshold stood the Freedom +of 18th century philosophy warding the way. Some of the very ones who +were freed from the tyranny of the Middle Age became the tyrants of the +industrial age.</p> + +<p>There came a reaction. Men sneered at "democracy" and politics, and +brought forth Fate and Philanthropy to rule the world—Fate which gave +divine right to rule to the Captains of Industry and their created +Millionaires; Philanthropy which organized vast schemes of relief to +stop at least the flow of blood in the vaster wounds which industry was +making.</p> + +<p>It was at this time that the lowest laborers, who worked hardest, got +least and suffered most, began to mutter and rebel, and among these were +the American Negroes. Lions have no historians, and therefore lion hunts +are thrilling and satisfactory human reading. Negroes had no bards, and +therefore it has been widely told how American philanthropy freed the +slave. In truth the Negro revolted by armed rebellion, by sullen refusal +to work, by poison and murder, by running away to the North and Canada, +by giving point and powerful example to the agitation of the +abolitionists and by furnishing 200,000 soldiers and many times as many +civilian helpers in the Civil War. This war was not a war for Negro +freedom, but a duel between two industrial systems, one of which was +bound to fail because it was an anachronism, and the other bound to +succeed because of the Industrial Revolution.</p> + +<p>When now the Negro was freed the Philanthropists sought to apply to his +situation the Philosophy of Democracy handed down from the 18th century.</p> + +<p>There was a chance here to try democratic rule in a new way, that is, +against the new industrial oppression with a mass of workers who were +not yet in its control. With plenty of land widely distributed, staple +products like cotton, rice, and sugar cane, and a thorough system of +education, there was a unique chance to realize a new modern democracy +in industry in the southern United States which would point the way to +the world. This, too, if done by black folk, would have tended to a new +unity of human beings and an obliteration of human hatreds festering +along the color line.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80" />Efforts were begun. The 14th and 15th amendments gave the right to vote +to white and black laborers, and they immediately established a public +school system and began to attack the land question. The United States +government was seriously considering the distribution of land and +capital—"40 acres and a mule"—and the price of cotton opened an easy +way to economic independence. Co-operative movements began on a large +scale.</p> + +<p>But alas! Not only were the former slave-owners solidly arrayed against +this experiment, but the owners of the industrial North saw disaster in +any such beginnings of industrial democracy. The opposition based its +objections on the color line, and Reconstruction became in history a +great movement for the self-assertion of the white race against the +impudent ambition of degraded blacks, instead of, in truth, the rise of +a mass of black and white laborers.</p> + +<p>The result was the disfranchisement of the blacks of the South and a +world-wide attempt to restrict democratic development to white races and +to distract them with race hatred against the darker races. This +program, however, although it undoubtedly helped raise the scale of +white labor, in much greater proportion put wealth and power in the +hands of the great European Captains of Industry and made modern +industrial imperialism possible.</p> + +<p>This led to renewed efforts on the part of white European workers to +understand and apply their political power to its reform through +democratic control.</p> + +<p>Whether known as Communism or Socialism or what not, these efforts are +neither new nor strange nor terrible, but world-old and seeking an +absolutely justifiable human ideal—the only ideal that can be sought: +the direction of individual action in industry so as to secure the +greatest good of all. Marxism was one method of accomplishing this, and +its panacea was the doing away with private property in machines and +materials. Two mighty attacks were made on this proposal. One was an +attack on the fundamental democratic foundation: modern European white +industry does not even theoretically seek the good of all, but simply of +all Europeans. This attack was virtually unanswered—indeed some +Socialists openly excluded Negroes and Asiatics from their scheme. From +this it was easy to drift into that form of syndicalism which asks +socialism for the skilled laborer only and leaves the common laborer in +his bonds.</p> + +<p>This throws us back on fundamentals. It compels us again to examine the +roots of democracy.</p> + +<p>Who may be excluded from a share in the ruling of men? Time and time +again the world has answered:</p> + +<p><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81" /> +The Ignorant<br /> +The Inexperienced<br /> +The Guarded<br /> +The Unwilling<br /> +</p> + +<p>That is, we have assumed that only the intelligent should vote, or those +who know how to rule men, or those who are not under benevolent +guardianship, or those who ardently desire the right.</p> + +<p>These restrictions are not arguments for the wide distribution of the +ballot—they are rather reasons for restriction addressed to the +self-interest of the present real rulers. We say easily, for instance, +"The ignorant ought not to vote." We would say, "No civilized state +should have citizens too ignorant to participate in government," and +this statement is but a step to the fact: that no state is civilized +which has citizens too ignorant to help rule it. Or, in other words, +education is not a prerequisite to political control—political control +is the cause of popular education.</p> + +<p>Again, to make experience a qualification for the franchise is absurd: +it would stop the spread of democracy and make political power +hereditary, a prerequisite of a class, caste, race, or sex. It has of +course been soberly argued that only white folk or Englishmen, or men, +are really capable of exercising sovereign power in a modern state. The +statement proves too much: only yesterday it was Englishmen of high +descent, or men of "blood," or sovereigns "by divine right" who could +rule. Today the civilized world is being ruled by the descendants of +persons who a century ago were pronounced incapable of ever developing a +self-ruling people. In every modern state there must come to the polls +every generation, and indeed every year, men who are inexperienced in +the solutions of the political problems that confront them and who must +experiment in methods of ruling men. Thus and thus only will +civilization grow.</p> + +<p>Again, what is this theory of benevolent guardianship for women, for the +masses, for Negroes—for "lesser breeds without the law"? It is simply +the old cry of privilege, the old assumption that there are those in the +world who know better what is best for others than those others know +themselves, and who can be trusted to do this best.</p> + +<p>In fact no one knows himself but that self's own soul. The vast and +wonderful knowledge of this marvelous universe is locked in the bosoms +of its individual souls. To tap this mighty reservoir of experience, +knowledge, beauty, love, and deed we must appeal not to the few, not to +some souls, but to all. The narrower the appeal, the poorer the culture; +the wider the appeal the more magnificent are the possibilities. +Infinite is <a name="Page_82" id="Page_82" />human nature. We make it finite by choking back the mass of +men, by attempting to speak for others, to interpret and act for them, +and we end by acting for ourselves and using the world as our private +property. If this were all, it were crime enough—but it is not all: by +our ignorance we make the creation of the greater world impossible; we +beat back a world built of the playing of dogs and laughter of children, +the song of Black Folk and worship of Yellow, the love of women and +strength of men, and try to express by a group of doddering ancients the +Will of the World.</p> + +<p>There are people who insist upon regarding the franchise, not as a +necessity for the many, but as a privilege for the few. They say of +persons and classes: "They do not need the ballot." This is often said +of women. It is argued that everything which women with the ballot might +do for themselves can be done for them; that they have influence and +friends "at court," and that their enfranchisement would simply double +the number of ballots. So, too, we are told that American Negroes can +have done for them by other voters all that they could possibly do for +themselves with the ballot and much more because the white voters are +more intelligent.</p> + +<p>Further than this, it is argued that many of the disfranchised people +recognize these facts. "Women do not want the ballot" has been a very +effective counter war-cry, so much so that many men have taken refuge in +the declaration: "When they want to vote, why, then—" So, too, we are +continually told that the "best" Negroes stay out of politics.</p> + +<p>Such arguments show so curious a misapprehension of the foundation of +the argument for democracy that the argument must be continually +restated and emphasized. We must remember that if the theory of +democracy is correct, the right to vote is not merely a privilege, not +simply a method of meeting the needs of a particular group, and least of +all a matter of recognized want or desire. Democracy is a method of +realizing the broadest measure of justice to all human beings. The world +has, in the past, attempted various methods of attaining this end, most +of which can be summed up in three categories:</p> + +<p> +The method of the benevolent tyrant.<br /> +The method of the select few.<br /> +The method of the excluded groups.<br /> +</p> + +<p>The method of intrusting the government of a people to a strong ruler +has great advantages when the ruler combines strength with ability, +unselfish devotion to the public good, and knowledge of what that good +calls for. Such a combination is, however, rare and the selection of the +right ruler is very difficult. To leave the selection to force is to put +<a name="Page_83" id="Page_83" />a premium on physical strength, chance, and intrigue; to make the +selection a matter of birth simply transfers the real power from +sovereign to minister. Inevitably the choice of rulers must fall on +electors.</p> + +<p>Then comes the problem, who shall elect. The earlier answer was: a +select few, such as the wise, the best born, the able. Many people +assume that it was corruption that made such aristocracies fail. By no +means. The best and most effective aristocracy, like the best monarchy, +suffered from lack of knowledge. The rulers did not know or understand +the needs of the people and they could not find out, for in the last +analysis only the man himself, however humble, knows his own condition. +He may not know how to remedy it, he may not realize just what is the +matter; but he knows when something hurts and he alone knows how that +hurt feels. Or if sunk below feeling or comprehension or complaint, he +does not even know that he is hurt, God help his country, for it not +only lacks knowledge, but has destroyed the sources of knowledge.</p> + +<p>So soon as a nation discovers that it holds in the heads and hearts of +its individual citizens the vast mine of knowledge, out of which it may +build a just government, then more and more it calls those citizens to +select their rulers and to judge the justice of their acts.</p> + +<p>Even here, however, the temptation is to ask only for the wisdom of +citizens of a certain grade or those of recognized worth. Continually +some classes are tacitly or expressly excluded. Thus women have been +excluded from modern democracy because of the persistent theory of +female subjection and because it was argued that their husbands or other +male folks would look to their interests. Now, manifestly, most +husbands, fathers, and brothers will, so far as they know how or as they +realize women's needs, look after them. But remember the foundation of +the argument,—that in the last analysis only the sufferer knows his +sufferings and that no state can be strong which excludes from its +expressed wisdom the knowledge possessed by mothers, wives, and +daughters. We have but to view the unsatisfactory relations of the sexes +the world over and the problem of children to realize how desperately we +need this excluded wisdom.</p> + +<p>The same arguments apply to other excluded groups: if a race, like the +Negro race, is excluded, then so far as that race is a part of the +economic and social organization of the land, the feeling and the +experience of that race are absolutely necessary to the realization of +the broadest justice for all citizens. Or if the "submerged tenth" be +excluded, then again, there is lost from the world an experience of +untold value, and they must be raised rapidly to a place where they can +speak for themselves. In the same way and for the same reason children +must be educated, insanity prevented, and only those put under the +guardianship of others who can in no way be trained to speak for +themselves.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84" />The real argument for democracy is, then, that in the people we have +the source of that endless life and unbounded wisdom which the rulers of +men must have. A given people today may not be intelligent, but through +a democratic government that recognizes, not only the worth of the +individual to himself, but the worth of his feelings and experiences to +all, they can educate, not only the individual unit, but generation +after generation, until they accumulate vast stores of wisdom. Democracy +alone is the method of showing the whole experience of the race for the +benefit of the future and if democracy tries to exclude women or Negroes +or the poor or any class because of innate characteristics which do not +interfere with intelligence, then that democracy cripples itself and +belies its name.</p> + +<p>From this point of view we can easily see the weakness and strength of +current criticism of extension of the ballot. It is the business of a +modern government to see to it, first, that the number of ignorant +within its bounds is reduced to the very smallest number. Again, it is +the duty of every such government to extend as quickly as possible the +number of persons of mature age who can vote. Such possible voters must +be regarded, not as sharers of a limited treasure, but as sources of new +national wisdom and strength.</p> + +<p>The addition of the new wisdom, the new points of view, and the new +interests must, of course, be from time to time bewildering and +confusing. Today those who have a voice in the body politic have +expressed their wishes and sufferings. The result has been a smaller or +greater balancing of their conflicting interests. The appearance of new +interests and complaints means disarrangement and confusion to the older +equilibrium. It is, of course, the inevitable preliminary step to that +larger equilibrium in which the interests of no human soul will be +neglected. These interests will not, surely, be all fully realized, but +they will be recognized and given as full weight as the conflicting +interests will allow. The problem of government thereafter would be to +reduce the necessary conflict of human interests to the minimum.</p> + +<p>From such a point of view one easily sees the strength of the demand for +the ballot on the part of certain disfranchised classes. When women ask +for the ballot, they are asking, not for a privilege, but for a +necessity. You may not see the necessity, you may easily argue that +women do not need to vote. Indeed, the women themselves in considerable +numbers may agree with you. Nevertheless, women do need the ballot. They +need it to right the balance of a world sadly awry because of its brutal +neglect of the rights of women and children. With the best will and +knowledge, no man can know women's wants as well as women themselves. To +disfranchise women is deliberately to turn from knowledge and grope in +ignorance.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85" />So, too, with American Negroes: the South continually insists that a +benevolent guardianship of whites over blacks is the ideal thing. They +assume that white people not only know better what Negroes need than +Negroes themselves, but that they are anxious to supply these needs. As +a result they grope in ignorance and helplessness. They cannot +"understand" the Negro; they cannot protect him from cheating and +lynching; and, in general, instead of loving guardianship we see anarchy +and exploitation. If the Negro could speak for himself in the South +instead of being spoken for, if he could defend himself instead of +having to depend on the chance sympathy of white citizens, how much +healthier a growth of democracy the South would have.</p> + +<p>So, too, with the darker races of the world. No federation of the world, +no true inter-nation—can exclude the black and brown and yellow races +from its counsels. They must equally and according to number act and be +heard at the world's council.</p> + +<p>It is not, for a moment, to be assumed that enfranchising women will not +cost something. It will for many years confuse our politics. It may even +change the present status of family life. It will admit to the ballot +thousands of inexperienced persons, unable to vote intelligently. Above +all, it will interfere with some of the present prerogatives of men and +probably for some time to come annoy them considerably.</p> + +<p>So, too, Negro enfranchisement meant reconstruction, with its theft and +bribery and incompetency as well as its public schools and enlightened, +social legislation. It would mean today that black men in the South +would have to be treated with consideration, have their wishes respected +and their manhood rights recognized. Every white Southerner, who wants +peons beneath him, who believes in hereditary menials and a privileged +aristocracy, or who hates certain races because of their +characteristics, would resent this.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding this, if America is ever to become a government built on +the broadest justice to every citizen, then every citizen must be +enfranchised. There may be temporary exclusions, until the ignorant and +their children are taught, or to avoid too sudden an influx of +inexperienced voters. But such exclusions can be but temporary if +justice is to prevail.</p> + +<p>The principle of basing all government on the consent of the governed is +undenied and undeniable. Moreover, the method of modern democracy has +placed within reach of the modern state larger reserves of efficiency, +ability, and even genius than the ancient or mediaeval state dreamed of. +That this great work of the past can be carried further among all races +and nations no one can reasonably doubt.</p> + +<p>Great as are our human differences and capabilities there is not the +slightest scientific reason for assuming that a given human being of any +race or sex cannot reach normal, human development if he is granted <a name="Page_86" id="Page_86" />a +reasonable chance. This is, of course, denied. It is denied so volubly +and so frequently and with such positive conviction that the majority of +unthinking people seem to assume that most human beings are not human +and have no right to human treatment or human opportunity. All this goes +to prove that human beings are, and must be, woefully ignorant of each +other. It always startles us to find folks thinking like ourselves. We +do not really associate with each other, we associate with our ideas of +each other, and few people have either the ability or courage to +question their own ideas. None have more persistently and dogmatically +insisted upon the inherent inferiority of women than the men with whom +they come in closest contact. It is the husbands, brothers, and sons of +women whom it has been most difficult to induce to consider women +seriously or to acknowledge that women have rights which men are bound +to respect. So, too, it is those people who live in closest contact with +black folk who have most unhesitatingly asserted the utter impossibility +of living beside Negroes who are not industrial or political slaves or +social pariahs. All this proves that none are so blind as those nearest +the thing seen, while, on the other hand, the history of the world is +the history of the discovery of the common humanity of human beings +among steadily-increasing circles of men.</p> + +<p>If the foundations of democracy are thus seen to be sound, how are we +going to make democracy effective where it now fails to +function—particularly in industry? The Marxists assert that industrial +democracy will automatically follow public ownership of machines and +materials. Their opponents object that nationalization of machines and +materials would not suffice because the mass of people do not understand +the industrial process. They do not know:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>What to do<br /></span> +<span>How to do it<br /></span> +<span>Who could do it best<br /></span> +<span class="i8">or<br /></span> +<span>How to apportion the resulting goods.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>There can be no doubt but that monopoly of machines and materials is a +chief source of the power of industrial tyrants over the common worker +and that monopoly today is due as much to chance and cheating as to +thrift and intelligence. So far as it is due to chance and cheating, the +argument for public ownership of capital is incontrovertible even though +it involves some interference with long vested rights and inheritance. +This is being widely recognized in the whole civilized world. But how +about the accumulation of goods due to thrift and intelligence—would +democracy in industry interfere here to such an extent as to discourage +<a name="Page_87" id="Page_87" />enterprise and make impossible the intelligent direction of the mighty +and intricate industrial process of modern times?</p> + +<p>The knowledge of what to do in industry and how to do it in order to +attain the resulting goods rests in the hands and brains of the workers +and managers, and the judges of the result are the public. Consequently +it is not so much a question as to whether the world will admit +democratic control here as how can such control be long avoided when the +people once understand the fundamentals of industry. How can +civilization persist in letting one person or a group of persons, by +secret inherent power, determine what goods shall be made—whether bread +or champagne, overcoats or silk socks? Can so vast a power be kept from +the people?</p> + +<p>But it may be opportunely asked: has our experience in electing public +officials led us to think that we could run railways, cotton mills, and +department stores by popular vote? The answer is clear: no, it has not, +and the reason has been lack of interest in politics and the tyranny of +the Majority. Politics have not touched the matters of daily life which +are nearest the interests of the people—namely, work and wages; or if +they have, they have touched it obscurely and indirectly. When voting +touches the vital, everyday interests of all, nominations and elections +will call for more intelligent activity. Consider too the vast unused +and misused power of public rewards to obtain ability and genius for the +service of the state. If millionaires can buy science and art, cannot +the Democratic state outbid them not only with money but with the vast +ideal of the common weal?</p> + +<p>There still remains, however, the problem of the Majority.</p> + +<p>What is the cause of the undoubted reaction and alarm that the citizens +of democracy continually feel? It is, I am sure, the failure to feel the +full significance of the change of rule from a privileged minority to +that of an omnipotent majority, and the assumption that mere majority +rule is the last word of government; that majorities have no +responsibilities, that they rule by the grace of God. Granted that +government should be based on the consent of the governed, does the +consent of a majority at any particular time adequately express the +consent of all? Has the minority, even though a small and unpopular and +unfashionable minority, no right to respectful consideration?</p> + +<p>I remember that excellent little high school text book, "Nordhoff's +Politics," where I first read of government, saying this sentence at the +beginning of its most important chapter: "The first duty of a minority +is to become a majority." This is a statement which has its underlying +truth, but it also has its dangerous falsehood; viz., any minority which +cannot become a majority is not worthy of any consideration. But suppose +that the out-voted minority is necessarily always a minority? <a name="Page_88" id="Page_88" />Women, +for instance, can seldom expect to be a majority; artists must always be +the few; ability is always rare, and black folk in this land are but a +tenth. Yet to tyrannize over such minorities, to browbeat and insult +them, to call that government a democracy which makes majority votes an +excuse for crushing ideas and individuality and self-development, is +manifestly a peculiarly dangerous perversion of the real democratic +ideal. It is right here, in its method and not in its object, that +democracy in America and elsewhere has so often failed. We have +attempted to enthrone any chance majority and make it rule by divine +right. We have kicked and cursed minorities as upstarts and usurpers +when their sole offense lay in not having ideas or hair like ours. +Efficiency, ability, and genius found often no abiding place in such a +soil as this. Small wonder that revolt has come and high-handed methods +are rife, of pretending that policies which we favor or persons that we +like have the anointment of a purely imaginary majority vote.</p> + +<p>Are the methods of such a revolt wise, howsoever great the provocation +and evil may be? If the absolute monarchy of majorities is galling and +inefficient, is it any more inefficient than the absolute monarchy of +individuals or privileged classes have been found to be in the past? Is +the appeal from a numerous-minded despot to a smaller, privileged group +or to one man likely to remedy matters permanently? Shall we step +backward a thousand years because our present problem is baffling?</p> + +<p>Surely not and surely, too, the remedy for absolutism lies in calling +these same minorities to council. As the king-in-council succeeded the +king by the grace of God, so in future democracies the toleration and +encouragement of minorities and the willingness to consider as "men" the +crankiest, humblest and poorest and blackest peoples, must be the real +key to the consent of the governed. Peoples and governments will not in +the future assume that because they have the brute power to enforce +momentarily dominant ideas, it is best to do so without thoughtful +conference with the ideas of smaller groups and individuals. +Proportionate representation in physical and spiritual form must come.</p> + +<p>That this method is virtually coming in vogue we can see by the minority +groups of modern legislatures. Instead of the artificial attempts to +divide all possible ideas and plans between two great parties, modern +legislatures in advanced nations tend to develop smaller and smaller +minority groups, while government is carried on by temporary coalitions. +For a time we inveighed against this and sought to consider it a +perversion of the only possible method of practical democracy. Today we +are gradually coming to realize that government by temporary coalition +of small and diverse groups may easily become the most efficient method +of expressing the will of man and of setting the human soul free. The +only hindrance to the faster development of this government by allied +<a name="Page_89" id="Page_89" />minorities is the fear of external war which is used again and again to +melt these living, human, thinking groups into inhuman, thoughtless, and +murdering machines.</p> + +<p>The persons, then, who come forward in the dawn of the 20th century to +help in the ruling of men must come with the firm conviction that no +nation, race, or sex, has a monopoly of ability or ideas; that no human +group is so small as to deserve to be ignored as a part, and as an +integral and respected part, of the mass of men; that, above all, no +group of twelve million black folk, even though they are at the physical +mercy of a hundred million white majority, can be deprived of a voice in +their government and of the right to self-development without a blow at +the very foundations of all democracy and all human uplift; that the +very criticism aimed today at universal suffrage is in reality a demand +for power on the part of consciously efficient minorities,—but these +minorities face a fatal blunder when they assume that less democracy +will give them and their kind greater efficiency. However desperate the +temptation, no modern nation can shut the gates of opportunity in the +face of its women, its peasants, its laborers, or its socially damned. +How astounded the future world-citizen will be to know that as late as +1918 great and civilized nations were making desperate endeavor to +confine the development of ability and individuality to one sex,—that +is, to one-half of the nation; and he will probably learn that similar +effort to confine humanity to one race lasted a hundred years longer.</p> + +<p>The doctrine of the divine right of majorities leads to almost humorous +insistence on a dead level of mediocrity. It demands that all people be +alike or that they be ostracized. At the same time its greatest +accusation against rebels is this same desire to be alike: the +suffragette is accused of wanting to be a man, the socialist is accused +of envy of the rich, and the black man is accused of wanting to be +white. That any one of these should simply want to be himself is to the +average worshiper of the majority inconceivable, and yet of all worlds, +may the good Lord deliver us from a world where everybody looks like his +neighbor and thinks like his neighbor and is like his neighbor.</p> + +<p>The world has long since awakened to a realization of the evil which a +privileged few may exercise over the majority of a nation. So vividly +has this truth been brought home to us that we have lightly assumed that +a privileged and enfranchised majority cannot equally harm a nation. +Insane, wicked, and wasteful as the tyranny of the few over the many may +be, it is not more dangerous than the tyranny of the many over the few. +Brutal physical revolution can, and usually does, end the tyranny of the +few. But the spiritual losses from suppressed minorities may be vast and +fatal and yet all unknown and unrealized because idea and dream and +ability are paralyzed by brute force.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90" />If, now, we have a democracy with no excluded groups, with all men and +women enfranchised, what is such a democracy to do? How will it +function? What will be its field of work?</p> + +<p>The paradox which faces the civilized world today is that democratic +control is everywhere limited in its control of human interests. Mankind +is engaged in planting, forestry, and mining, preparing food and +shelter, making clothes and machines, transporting goods and folk, +disseminating news, distributing products, doing public and private +personal service, teaching, advancing science, and creating art.</p> + +<p>In this intricate whirl of activities, the theory of government has been +hitherto to lay down only very general rules of conduct, marking the +limits of extreme anti-social acts, like fraud, theft, and murder.</p> + +<p>The theory was that within these bounds was Freedom—the Liberty to +think and do and move as one wished. The real realm of freedom was found +in experience to be much narrower than this in one direction and much +broader in another. In matters of Truth and Faith and Beauty, the +Ancient Law was inexcusably strait and modern law unforgivably stupid. +It is here that the future and mighty fight for Freedom must and will be +made. Here in the heavens and on the mountaintops, the air of Freedom is +wide, almost limitless, for here, in the highest stretches, individual +freedom harms no man, and, therefore, no man has the right to limit it.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, in the valleys of the hard, unyielding laws of matter +and the social necessities of time production, and human intercourse, +the limits on our freedom are stern and unbending if we would exist and +thrive. This does not say that everything here is governed by +incontrovertible "natural" law which needs no human decision as to raw +materials, machinery, prices, wages, news-dissemination, education of +children, etc.; but it does mean that decisions here must be limited by +brute facts and based on science and human wants.</p> + +<p>Today the scientific and ethical boundaries of our industrial activities +are not in the hands of scientists, teachers, and thinkers; nor is the +intervening opportunity for decision left in the control of the public +whose welfare such decisions guide. On the contrary, the control of +industry is largely in the hands of a powerful few, who decide for their +own good and regardless of the good of others. The making of the rules +of Industry, then, is not in the hands of All, but in the hands of the +Few. The Few who govern industry envisage, not the wants of mankind, but +their own wants. They work quietly, often secretly, opposing Law, on the +one hand, as interfering with the "freedom of industry"; opposing, on +the other hand, free discussion and open determination of the rules of +work and wealth and wages, on the ground that harsh natural law brooks +no interference by Democracy.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91" />These things today, then, are not matters of free discussion and +determination. They are strictly controlled. Who controls them? Who +makes these inner, but powerful, rules? Few people know. Others assert +and believe these rules are "natural"—a part of our inescapable +physical environment. Some of them doubtless are; but most of them are +just as clearly the dictates of self-interest laid down by the powerful +private persons who today control industry. Just here it is that modern +men demand that Democracy supplant skilfully concealed, but all too +evident, Monarchy.</p> + +<p>In industry, monarchy and the aristocracy rule, and there are those who, +calling themselves democratic, believe that democracy can never enter +here. Industry, they maintain, is a matter of technical knowledge and +ability, and, therefore, is the eternal heritage of the few. They point +to the failure of attempts at democratic control in industry, just as we +used to point to Spanish-American governments, and they expose, not +simply the failures of Russian Soviets,—they fly to arms to prevent +that greatest experiment in industrial democracy which the world has yet +seen. These are the ones who say: We must control labor or civilization +will fail; we must control white labor in Europe and America; above all, +we must control yellow labor in Asia and black labor in Africa and the +South, else we shall have no tea, or rubber, or cotton. And yet,—and +yet is it so easy to give up the dream of democracy? Must industry rule +men or may men rule even industry? And unless men rule industry, can +they ever hope really to make laws or educate children or create beauty?</p> + +<p>That the problem of the democratization of industry is tremendous, let +no man deny. We must spread that sympathy and intelligence which +tolerates the widest individual freedom despite the necessary public +control; we must learn to select for public office ability rather than +mere affability. We must stand ready to defer to knowledge and science +and judge by result rather than by method; and finally we must face the +fact that the final distribution of goods—the question of wages and +income is an ethical and not a mere mechanical problem and calls for +grave public human judgment and not secrecy and closed doors. All this +means time and development. It comes not complete by instant revolution +of a day, nor yet by the deferred evolution of a thousand years—it +comes daily, bit by bit and step by step, as men and women learn and +grow and as children are trained in Truth.</p> + +<p>These steps are in many cases clear: the careful, steady increase of +public democratic ownership of industry, beginning with the simplest +type of public utilities and monopolies, and extending gradually as we +learn the way; the use of taxation to limit inheritance and to take the +unearned increment for public use beginning (but not ending) with a +"<a name="Page_92" id="Page_92" />single tax" on monopolized land values; the training of the public in +business technique by co-operation in buying and selling, and in +industrial technique by the shop committee and manufacturing guild.</p> + +<p>But beyond all this must come the Spirit—the Will to Human Brotherhood +of all Colors, Races, and Creeds; the Wanting of the Wants of All. +Perhaps the finest contribution of current Socialism to the world is +neither its light nor its dogma, but the idea back of its one mighty +word—Comrade!<a name="Page_93" id="Page_93" /></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 55%;" /> +<h3><a name="The_Call" id="The_Call" />The Call</h3> + + +<p>In the Land of the Heavy Laden came once a dreary day. And the King, who +sat upon the Great White Throne, raised his eyes and saw afar off how +the hills around were hot with hostile feet and the sound of the mocking +of his enemies struck anxiously on the King's ears, for the King loved +his enemies. So the King lifted up his hand in the glittering silence +and spake softly, saying: "Call the Servants of the King." Then the +herald stepped before the armpost of the throne, and cried: "Thus saith +the High and Mighty One, who inhabiteth Eternity, whose name is +Holy,—the Servants of the King!"</p> + +<p>Now, of the servants of the king there were a hundred and forty-four +thousand,—tried men and brave, brawny of arm and quick of wit; aye, +too, and women of wisdom and women marvelous in beauty and grace. And +yet on this drear day when the King called, their ears were thick with +the dust of the enemy, their eyes were blinded with the flashing of his +spears, and they hid their faces in dread silence and moved not, even at +the King's behest. So the herald called again. And the servants cowered +in very shame, but none came forth. But the third blast of the herald +struck upon a woman's heart, afar. And the woman straightway left her +baking and sweeping and the rattle of pans; and the woman straightway +left her chatting and gossiping and the sewing of garments, and the +woman stood before the King, saying: "The servant of thy servants, O +Lord."</p> + +<p>Then the King smiled,—smiled wondrously, so that the setting sun burst +through the clouds, and the hearts of the King's men dried hard within +them. And the low-voiced King said, so low that even they that listened +heard not well: "Go, smite me mine enemies, that they cease to do evil +in my sight." And the woman quailed and trembled. Three times she lifted +her eyes unto the hills and saw the heathen whirling onward in their +rage. And seeing, she shrank—three times she shrank and crept to the +King's feet.</p> + +<p>"<a name="Page_94" id="Page_94" />O King," she cried, "I am but a woman."</p> + +<p>And the King answered: "Go, then, Mother of Men."</p> + +<p>And the woman said, "Nay, King, but I am still a maid." Whereat the King +cried: "O maid, made Man, thou shalt be Bride of God."</p> + +<p>And yet the third time the woman shrank at the thunder in her ears, and +whispered: "Dear God, I am black!"</p> + +<p>The King spake not, but swept the veiling of his face aside and lifted +up the light of his countenance upon her and lo! it was black.</p> + +<p>So the woman went forth on the hills of God to do battle for the King, +on that drear day in the land of the Heavy Laden, when the heathen raged +and imagined a vain thing.<a name="Page_95" id="Page_95" /></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 85%;" /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_VII" id="Chapter_VII" />VII</h2> + +<h3>THE DAMNATION OF WOMEN</h3> + + +<p>I remember four women of my boyhood: my mother, cousin Inez, Emma, and +Ide Fuller. They represented the problem of the widow, the wife, the +maiden, and the outcast. They were, in color, brown and light-brown, +yellow with brown freckles, and white. They existed not for themselves, +but for men; they were named after the men to whom they were related and +not after the fashion of their own souls.</p> + +<p>They were not beings, they were relations and these relations were +enfilmed with mystery and secrecy. We did not know the truth or believe +it when we heard it. Motherhood! What was it? We did not know or greatly +care. My mother and I were good chums. I liked her. After she was dead I +loved her with a fierce sense of personal loss.</p> + +<p>Inez was a pretty, brown cousin who married. What was marriage? We did +not know, neither did she, poor thing! It came to mean for her a litter +of children, poverty, a drunken, cruel companion, sickness, and death. +Why?</p> + +<p>There was no sweeter sight than Emma,—slim, straight, and dainty, +darkly flushed with the passion of youth; but her life was a wild, awful +struggle to crush her natural, fierce joy of love. She crushed it and +became a cold, calculating mockery.</p> + +<p>Last there was that awful outcast of the town, the white woman, Ide +Fuller. What she was, we did not know. She stood to us as embodied filth +and wrong,—but whose filth, whose wrong?</p> + +<p>Grown up I see the problem of these women transfused; I hear all about +me the unanswered call of youthful love, none the less glorious because +of its clean, honest, physical passion. Why unanswered? Because the +youth are too poor to marry or if they marry, too poor to have children. +They turn aside, then, in three directions: to marry for support, to +what men call <a name="Page_96" id="Page_96" />shame, or to that which is more evil than nothing. It is +an unendurable paradox; it must be changed or the bases of culture will +totter and fall.</p> + +<p>The world wants healthy babies and intelligent workers. Today we refuse +to allow the combination and force thousands of intelligent workers to +go childless at a horrible expenditure of moral force, or we damn them +if they break our idiotic conventions. Only at the sacrifice of +intelligence and the chance to do their best work can the majority of +modern women bear children. This is the damnation of women.</p> + +<p>All womanhood is hampered today because the world on which it is +emerging is a world that tries to worship both virgins and mothers and +in the end despises motherhood and despoils virgins.</p> + +<p>The future woman must have a life work and economic independence. She +must have knowledge. She must have the right of motherhood at her own +discretion. The present mincing horror at free womanhood must pass if we +are ever to be rid of the bestiality of free manhood; not by guarding +the weak in weakness do we gain strength, but by making weakness free +and strong.</p> + +<p>The world must choose the free woman or the white wraith of the +prostitute. Today it wavers between the prostitute and the nun. +Civilization must show two things: the glory and beauty of creating life +and the need and duty of power and intelligence. This and this only will +make the perfect marriage of love and work.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>God is Love,<br /></span> +<span>Love is God;<br /></span> +<span>There is no God but Love<br /></span> +<span>And Work is His Prophet!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>All this of woman,—but what of black women?</p> + +<p>The world that wills to worship womankind studiously forgets its darker +sisters. They seem in a sense to typify that veiled Melancholy:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Whose saintly visage is too bright<br /></span> +<span>To hit the sense of human sight,<br /></span> +<span>And, therefore, to our weaker view<br /></span> +<span class="i2">O'er-laid with black."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Yet the world must heed these daughters of sorrow, from the primal black +All-Mother of men down through the ghostly throng of mighty womanhood, +who walked in the mysterious dawn of Asia and Africa; from Neith, the +primal mother of all, whose feet rest on hell, and whose almighty hands +uphold the heavens; all religion, from beauty to <a name="Page_97" id="Page_97" />beast, lies on her +eager breasts; her body bears the stars, while her shoulders are +necklaced by the dragon; from black Neith down to</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"That starr'd Ethiop queen who strove<br /></span> +<span>To set her beauty's praise above<br /></span> +<span>The sea-nymphs,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>through dusky Cleopatras, dark Candaces, and darker, fiercer Zinghas, to +our own day and our own land,—in gentle Phillis; Harriet, the crude +Moses; the sybil, Sojourner Truth; and the martyr, Louise De Mortie.</p> + +<p>The father and his worship is Asia; Europe is the precocious, +self-centered, forward-striving child; but the land of the mother is and +was Africa. In subtle and mysterious way, despite her curious history, +her slavery, polygamy, and toil, the spell of the African mother +pervades her land. Isis, the mother, is still titular goddess, in +thought if not in name, of the dark continent. Nor does this all seem to +be solely a survival of the historic matriarchate through which all +nations pass,—it appears to be more than this,—as if the great black +race in passing up the steps of human culture gave the world, not only +the Iron Age, the cultivation of the soil, and the domestication of +animals, but also, in peculiar emphasis, the mother-idea.</p> + +<p>"No mother can love more tenderly and none is more tenderly loved than +the Negro mother," writes Schneider. Robin tells of the slave who bought +his mother's freedom instead of his own. Mungo Park writes: "Everywhere +in Africa, I have noticed that no greater affront can be offered a Negro +than insulting his mother. 'Strike me,' cries a Mandingo to his enemy, +'but revile not my mother!'" And the Krus and Fantis say the same. The +peoples on the Zambezi and the great lakes cry in sudden fear or joy: +"O, my mother!" And the Herero swears (endless oath) "By my mother's +tears!" "As the mist in the swamps," cries the Angola Negro, "so lives +the love of father and mother."</p> + +<p>A student of the present Gold Coast life describes the work of the +village headman, and adds: "It is a difficult task that he is set to, +but in this matter he has all-powerful helpers in the female members of +the family, who will be either the aunts or the sisters or the cousins +or the nieces of the headman, and as their interests are identical with +his in every particular, the good women spontaneously train up their +children to implicit obedience to the headman, whose rule in the family +thus becomes a simple and an easy matter. 'The hand that rocks the +cradle rules the world.' What a power for good in the native state +system would the mothers of the Gold Coast and Ashanti become by +judicious training upon native lines!"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98" />Schweinfurth declares of one tribe: "A bond between mother and child +which lasts for life is the measure of affection shown among the Dyoor" +and Ratzel adds:</p> + +<p>"Agreeable to the natural relation the mother stands first among the +chief influences affecting the children. From the Zulus to the Waganda, +we find the mother the most influential counsellor at the court of +ferocious sovereigns, like Chaka or Mtesa; sometimes sisters take her +place. Thus even with chiefs who possess wives by hundreds the bonds of +blood are the strongest and that the woman, though often heavily +burdened, is in herself held in no small esteem among the Negroes is +clear from the numerous Negro queens, from the medicine women, from the +participation in public meetings permitted to women by many Negro +peoples."</p> + +<p>As I remember through memories of others, backward among my own family, +it is the mother I ever recall,—the little, far-off mother of my +grandmothers, who sobbed her life away in song, longing for her lost +palm-trees and scented waters; the tall and bronzen grandmother, with +beaked nose and shrewish eyes, who loved and scolded her black and +laughing husband as he smoked lazily in his high oak chair; above all, +my own mother, with all her soft brownness,—the brown velvet of her +skin, the sorrowful black-brown of her eyes, and the tiny brown-capped +waves of her midnight hair as it lay new parted on her forehead. All the +way back in these dim distances it is mothers and mothers of mothers who +seem to count, while fathers are shadowy memories.</p> + +<p>Upon this African mother-idea, the westward slave trade and American +slavery struck like doom. In the cruel exigencies of the traffic in men +and in the sudden, unprepared emancipation the great pendulum of social +equilibrium swung from a time, in 1800,—when America had but eight or +less black women to every ten black men,—all too swiftly to a day, in +1870,—when there were nearly eleven women to ten men in our Negro +population. This was but the outward numerical fact of social +dislocation; within lay polygamy, polyandry, concubinage, and moral +degradation. They fought against all this desperately, did these black +slaves in the West Indies, especially among the half-free artisans; they +set up their ancient household gods, and when Toussaint and Cristophe +founded their kingdom in Haiti, it was based on old African tribal ties +and beneath it was the mother-idea.</p> + +<p>The crushing weight of slavery fell on black women. Under it there was +no legal marriage, no legal family, no legal control over children. To +be sure, custom and religion replaced here and there what the law +denied, yet one has but to read advertisements like the following to see +the hell beneath the system:<a name="Page_99" id="Page_99" /></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"One hundred dollars reward will be given for my two fellows, Abram + and Frank. Abram has a wife at Colonel Stewart's, in Liberty + County, and a mother at Thunderbolt, and a sister in Savannah.</p> + +<p> "WILLIAM ROBERTS."</p> + + +<p> "Fifty dollars reward—Ran away from the subscriber a Negro girl + named Maria. She is of a copper color, between thirteen and + fourteen years of age—bareheaded and barefooted. She is small for + her age—very sprightly and very likely. She stated she was going + to see her mother at Maysville.</p> + + +<p> "SANFORD THOMSON."</p> + +<p> "Fifty dollars reward—Ran away from the subscriber his Negro man + Pauladore, commonly called Paul. I understand General R.Y. Hayne + has purchased his wife and children from H.L. Pinckney, Esq., and + has them now on his plantation at Goose Creek, where, no doubt, the + fellow is frequently lurking.</p> + +<p> "T. DAVIS."</p></div> + + +<p>The Presbyterian synod of Kentucky said to the churches under its care +in 1835: "Brothers and sisters, parents and children, husbands and +wives, are torn asunder and permitted to see each other no more. These +acts are daily occurring in the midst of us. The shrieks and agony often +witnessed on such occasions proclaim, with a trumpet tongue, the +iniquity of our system. There is not a neighborhood where these +heartrending scenes are not displayed. There is not a village or road +that does not behold the sad procession of manacled outcasts whose +mournful countenances tell that they are exiled by force from all that +their hearts hold dear."</p> + +<p>A sister of a president of the United States declared: "We Southern +ladies are complimented with the names of wives, but we are only the +mistresses of seraglios."</p> + +<p>Out of this, what sort of black women could be born into the world of +today? There are those who hasten to answer this query in scathing terms +and who say lightly and repeatedly that out of black slavery came +nothing decent in womanhood; that adultery and uncleanness were their +heritage and are their continued portion.</p> + +<p>Fortunately so exaggerated a charge is humanly impossible of truth. The +half-million women of Negro descent who lived at the beginning of the +19th century had become the mothers of two and one-fourth million +daughters at the time of the Civil War and five million grand-daughters +in 1910. Can all these women be vile and the hunted race continue to +grow in wealth and character? Impossible. Yet to save from the past the +shreds and vestiges of self-respect has been a terrible task. I most +sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its +fineness up through so devilish a fire.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100" />Alexander Crummell once said of his sister in the blood: "In her +girlhood all the delicate tenderness of her sex has been rudely +outraged. In the field, in the rude cabin, in the press-room, in the +factory she was thrown into the companionship of coarse and ignorant +men. No chance was given her for delicate reserve or tender modesty. +From her childhood she was the doomed victim of the grossest passion. +All the virtues of her sex were utterly ignored. If the instinct of +chastity asserted itself, then she had to fight like a tiger for the +ownership and possession of her own person and ofttimes had to suffer +pain and lacerations for her virtuous self-assertion. When she reached +maturity, all the tender instincts of her womanhood were ruthlessly +violated. At the age of marriage,—always prematurely anticipated under +slavery—she was mated as the stock of the plantation were mated, not to +be the companion of a loved and chosen husband, but to be the breeder of +human cattle for the field or the auction block."</p> + +<p>Down in such mire has the black motherhood of this race +struggled,—starving its own wailing offspring to nurse to the world +their swaggering masters; welding for its children chains which +affronted even the moral sense of an unmoral world. Many a man and woman +in the South have lived in wedlock as holy as Adam and Eve and brought +forth their brown and golden children, but because the darker woman was +helpless, her chivalrous and whiter mate could cast her off at his +pleasure and publicly sneer at the body he had privately blasphemed.</p> + +<p>I shall forgive the white South much in its final judgment day: I shall +forgive its slavery, for slavery is a world-old habit; I shall forgive +its fighting for a well-lost cause, and for remembering that struggle +with tender tears; I shall forgive its so-called "pride of race," the +passion of its hot blood, and even its dear, old, laughable strutting +and posing; but one thing I shall never forgive, neither in this world +nor the world to come: its wanton and continued and persistent insulting +of the black womanhood which it sought and seeks to prostitute to its +lust. I cannot forget that it is such Southern gentlemen into whose +hands smug Northern hypocrites of today are seeking to place our women's +eternal destiny,—men who insist upon withholding from my mother and +wife and daughter those signs and appellations of courtesy and respect +which elsewhere he withholds only from bawds and courtesans.</p> + +<p>The result of this history of insult and degradation has been both +fearful and glorious. It has birthed the haunting prostitute, the +brawler, and the beast of burden; but it has also given the world an +efficient womanhood, whose strength lies in its freedom and whose +chastity was won in the teeth of temptation and not in prison and +swaddling clothes.</p> + +<p>To no modern race does its women mean so much as to the Negro nor come +so near to the fulfilment of its meaning. As one of our women writes: +"Only the black woman can say 'when and where I enter, in the <a name="Page_101" id="Page_101" />quiet, +undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing +or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with +me.'"</p> + +<p>They came first, in earlier days, like foam flashing on dark, silent +waters,—bits of stern, dark womanhood here and there tossed almost +carelessly aloft to the world's notice. First and naturally they assumed +the panoply of the ancient African mother of men, strong and black, +whose very nature beat back the wilderness of oppression and contempt. +Such a one was that cousin of my grandmother, whom western Massachusetts +remembers as "Mum Bett." Scarred for life by a blow received in defense +of a sister, she ran away to Great Barrington and was the first slave, +or one of the first, to be declared free under the Bill of Rights of +1780. The son of the judge who freed her, writes:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Even in her humble station, she had, when occasion required it, an + air of command which conferred a degree of dignity and gave her an + ascendancy over those of her rank, which is very unusual in persons + of any rank or color. Her determined and resolute character, which + enabled her to limit the ravages of Shay's mob, was manifested in + her conduct and deportment during her whole life. She claimed no + distinction, but it was yielded to her from her superior + experience, energy, skill, and sagacity. Having known this woman as + familiarly as I knew either of my parents, I cannot believe in the + moral or physical inferiority of the race to which she belonged. + The degradation of the African must have been otherwise caused than + by natural inferiority."</p></div> + +<p>It was such strong women that laid the foundations of the great Negro +church of today, with its five million members and ninety millions of +dollars in property. One of the early mothers of the church, Mary Still, +writes thus quaintly, in the forties:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"When we were as castouts and spurned from the large churches, + driven from our knees, pointed at by the proud, neglected by the + careless, without a place of worship, Allen, faithful to the + heavenly calling, came forward and laid the foundation of this + connection. The women, like the women at the sepulcher, were early + to aid in laying the foundation of the temple and in helping to + carry up the noble structure and in the name of their God set up + their banner; most of our aged mothers are gone from this to a + better state of things. Yet some linger still on their staves, + watching with intense interest the ark as it moves over the + tempestuous waves of opposition and ignorance....</p> + +<p> "But the labors of these women stopped not here, for they knew well + that they were subject to affliction and death. For the purpose of + mutual aid, they banded themselves together in society capacity, + that they might be better able to administer to each others' + sufferings and to soften their own pillows. So we find the females + in the early history of the church abounding in good works and in + acts of true benevolence."</p></div> + +<p><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102" />From such spiritual ancestry came two striking figures of +war-time,—Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth.</p> + +<p>For eight or ten years previous to the breaking out of the Civil War, +Harriet Tubman was a constant attendant at anti-slavery conventions, +lectures, and other meetings; she was a black woman of medium size, +smiling countenance, with her upper front teeth gone, attired in coarse +but neat clothes, and carrying always an old-fashioned reticule at her +side. Usually as soon as she sat down she would drop off in sound sleep.</p> + +<p>She was born a slave in Maryland, in 1820, bore the marks of the lash on +her flesh; and had been made partially deaf, and perhaps to some degree +mentally unbalanced by a blow on the head in childhood. Yet she was one +of the most important agents of the Underground Railroad and a leader of +fugitive slaves. She ran away in 1849 and went to Boston in 1854, where +she was welcomed into the homes of the leading abolitionists and where +every one listened with tense interest to her strange stories. She was +absolutely illiterate, with no knowledge of geography, and yet year +after year she penetrated the slave states and personally led North over +three hundred fugitives without losing a single one. A standing reward +of $10,000 was offered for her, but as she said: "The whites cannot +catch us, for I was born with the charm, and the Lord has given me the +power." She was one of John Brown's closest advisers and only severe +sickness prevented her presence at Harper's Ferry.</p> + +<p>When the war cloud broke, she hastened to the front, flitting down along +her own mysterious paths, haunting the armies in the field, and serving +as guide and nurse and spy. She followed Sherman in his great march to +the sea and was with Grant at Petersburg, and always in the camps the +Union officers silently saluted her.</p> + +<p>The other woman belonged to a different type,—a tall, gaunt, black, +unsmiling sybil, weighted with the woe of the world. She ran away from +slavery and giving up her own name took the name of Sojourner Truth. She +says: "I can remember when I was a little, young girl, how my old mammy +would sit out of doors in the evenings and look up at the stars and +groan, and I would say, 'Mammy, what makes you groan so?' And she would +say, 'I am groaning to think of my poor children; they do not know where +I be and I don't know where they be. I look up at the stars and they +look up at the stars!'"</p> + +<p>Her determination was founded on unwavering faith in ultimate good. +Wendell Phillips says that he was once in Faneuil Hall, when Frederick +Douglass was one of the chief speakers. Douglass had been describing the +wrongs of the Negro race and as he proceeded he grew more and more +excited and finally ended by saying that they had no hope of justice +from the whites, no possible hope except in their own right arms. It +must come to blood! They must fight for themselves. <a name="Page_103" id="Page_103" />Sojourner Truth was +sitting, tall and dark, on the very front seat facing the platform, and +in the hush of feeling when Douglass sat down she spoke out in her deep, +peculiar voice, heard all over the hall:</p> + +<p>"Frederick, is God dead?"</p> + +<p>Such strong, primitive types of Negro womanhood in America seem to some +to exhaust its capabilities. They know less of a not more worthy, but a +finer type of black woman wherein trembles all of that delicate sense of +beauty and striving for self-realization, which is as characteristic of +the Negro soul as is its quaint strength and sweet laughter. George +Washington wrote in grave and gentle courtesy to a Negro woman, in 1776, +that he would "be happy to see" at his headquarters at any time, a +person "to whom nature has been so liberal and beneficial in her +dispensations." This child, Phillis Wheatley, sang her trite and halting +strain to a world that wondered and could not produce her like. Measured +today her muse was slight and yet, feeling her striving spirit, we call +to her still in her own words:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Through thickest glooms look back, immortal shade."</p></div> + +<p>Perhaps even higher than strength and art loom human sympathy and +sacrifice as characteristic of Negro womanhood. Long years ago, before +the Declaration of Independence, Kate Ferguson was born in New York. +Freed, widowed, and bereaved of her children before she was twenty, she +took the children of the streets of New York, white and black, to her +empty arms, taught them, found them homes, and with Dr. Mason of Murray +Street Church established the first modern Sunday School in Manhattan.</p> + +<p>Sixty years later came Mary Shadd up out of Delaware. She was tall and +slim, of that ravishing dream-born beauty,—that twilight of the races +which we call mulatto. Well-educated, vivacious, with determination +shining from her sharp eyes, she threw herself singlehanded into the +great Canadian pilgrimage when thousands of hunted black men hurried +northward and crept beneath the protection of the lion's paw. She became +teacher, editor, and lecturer; tramping afoot through winter snows, +pushing without blot or blemish through crowd and turmoil to conventions +and meetings, and finally becoming recruiting agent for the United +States government in gathering Negro soldiers in the West.</p> + +<p>After the war the sacrifice of Negro women for freedom and uplift is one +of the finest chapters in their history. Let one life typify all: Louise +De Mortie, a free-born Virginia girl, had lived most of her life in +Boston. Her high forehead, swelling lips, and dark eyes marked her for a +woman of feeling and intellect. She began a successful career as a +public reader. Then came the War and the Call. She went to the <a name="Page_104" id="Page_104" />orphaned +colored children of New Orleans,—out of freedom into insult and +oppression and into the teeth of the yellow fever. She toiled and +dreamed. In 1887 she had raised money and built an orphan home and that +same year, in the thirty-fourth year of her young life, she died, saying +simply: "I belong to God."</p> + +<p>As I look about me today in this veiled world of mine, despite the +noisier and more spectacular advance of my brothers, I instinctively +feel and know that it is the five million women of my race who really +count. Black women (and women whose grandmothers were black) are today +furnishing our teachers; they are the main pillars of those social +settlements which we call churches; and they have with small doubt +raised three-fourths of our church property. If we have today, as seems +likely, over a billion dollars of accumulated goods, who shall say how +much of it has been wrung from the hearts of servant girls and +washerwomen and women toilers in the fields? As makers of two million +homes these women are today seeking in marvelous ways to show forth our +strength and beauty and our conception of the truth.</p> + +<p>In the United States in 1910 there were 4,931,882 women of Negro +descent; over twelve hundred thousand of these were children, another +million were girls and young women under twenty, and two and a +half-million were adults. As a mass these women were unlettered,—a +fourth of those from fifteen to twenty-five years of age were unable to +write. These women are passing through, not only a moral, but an +economic revolution. Their grandmothers married at twelve and fifteen, +but twenty-seven per cent of these women today who have passed fifteen +are still single.</p> + +<p>Yet these black women toil and toil hard. There were in 1910 two and a +half million Negro homes in the United States. Out of these homes walked +daily to work two million women and girls over ten years of age,—over +half of the colored female population as against a fifth in the case of +white women. These, then, are a group of workers, fighting for their +daily bread like men; independent and approaching economic freedom! They +furnished a million farm laborers, 80,000 farmers, 22,000 teachers, +600,000 servants and washerwomen, and 50,000 in trades and +merchandizing.</p> + +<p>The family group, however, which is the ideal of the culture with which +these folk have been born, is not based on the idea of an economically +independent working mother. Rather its ideal harks back to the sheltered +harem with the mother emerging at first as nurse and homemaker, while +the man remains the sole breadwinner. What is the inevitable result of +the clash of such ideals and such facts in the colored group? Broken +families.</p> + +<p>Among native white women one in ten is separated from her husband <a name="Page_105" id="Page_105" />by +death, divorce, or desertion. Among Negroes the ratio is one in seven. +Is the cause racial? No, it is economic, because there is the same high +ratio among the white foreign-born. The breaking up of the present +family is the result of modern working and sex conditions and it hits +the laborers with terrible force. The Negroes are put in a peculiarly +difficult position, because the wage of the male breadwinner is below +the standard, while the openings for colored women in certain lines of +domestic work, and now in industries, are many. Thus while toil holds +the father and brother in country and town at low wages, the sisters and +mothers are called to the city. As a result the Negro women outnumber +the men nine or ten to eight in many cities, making what Charlotte +Gilman bluntly calls "cheap women."</p> + +<p>What shall we say to this new economic equality in a great laboring +class? Some people within and without the race deplore it. "Back to the +homes with the women," they cry, "and higher wage for the men." But how +impossible this is has been shown by war conditions. Cessation of +foreign migration has raised Negro men's wages, to be sure—but it has +not only raised Negro women's wages, it has opened to them a score of +new avenues of earning a living. Indeed, here, in microcosm and with +differences emphasizing sex equality, is the industrial history of labor +in the 19th and 20th centuries. We cannot abolish the new economic +freedom of women. We cannot imprison women again in a home or require +them all on pain of death to be nurses and housekeepers.</p> + +<p>What is today the message of these black women to America and to the +world? The uplift of women is, next to the problem of the color line and +the peace movement, our greatest modern cause. When, now, two of these +movements—woman and color—combine in one, the combination has deep +meaning.</p> + +<p>In other years women's way was clear: to be beautiful, to be petted, to +bear children. Such has been their theoretic destiny and if perchance +they have been ugly, hurt, and barren, that has been forgotten with +studied silence. In partial compensation for this narrowed destiny the +white world has lavished its politeness on its womankind,—its chivalry +and bows, its uncoverings and courtesies—all the accumulated homage +disused for courts and kings and craving exercise. The revolt of white +women against this preordained destiny has in these latter days reached +splendid proportions, but it is the revolt of an aristocracy of brains +and ability,—the middle class and rank and file still plod on in the +appointed path, paid by the homage, the almost mocking homage, of men.</p> + +<p>From black women of America, however, (and from some others, too, but +chiefly from black women and their daughters' daughters) this gauze has +been withheld and without semblance of such apology they <a name="Page_106" id="Page_106" />have been +frankly trodden under the feet of men. They are and have been objected +to, apparently for reasons peculiarly exasperating to reasoning human +beings. When in this world a man comes forward with a thought, a deed, a +vision, we ask not, how does he look,—but what is his message? It is of +but passing interest whether or not the messenger is beautiful or +ugly,—the <i>message</i> is the thing. This, which is axiomatic among men, +has been in past ages but partially true if the messenger was a woman. +The world still wants to ask that a woman primarily be pretty and if she +is not, the mob pouts and asks querulously, "What else are women for?" +Beauty "is its own excuse for being," but there are other excuses, as +most men know, and when the white world objects to black women because +it does not consider them beautiful, the black world of right asks two +questions: "What is beauty?" and, "Suppose you think them ugly, what +then? If ugliness and unconventionality and eccentricity of face and +deed do not hinder men from doing the world's work and reaping the +world's reward, why should it hinder women?"</p> + +<p>Other things being equal, all of us, black and white, would prefer to be +beautiful in face and form and suitably clothed; but most of us are not +so, and one of the mightiest revolts of the century is against the +devilish decree that no woman is a woman who is not by present standards +a beautiful woman. This decree the black women of America have in large +measure escaped from the first. Not being expected to be merely +ornamental, they have girded themselves for work, instead of adorning +their bodies only for play. Their sturdier minds have concluded that if +a woman be clean, healthy, and educated, she is as pleasing as God wills +and far more useful than most of her sisters. If in addition to this she +is pink and white and straight-haired, and some of her fellow-men prefer +this, well and good; but if she is black or brown and crowned in curled +mists (and this to us is the most beautiful thing on earth), this is +surely the flimsiest excuse for spiritual incarceration or banishment.</p> + +<p>The very attempt to do this in the case of Negro Americans has strangely +over-reached itself. By so much as the defective eyesight of the white +world rejects black women as beauties, by so much the more it needs them +as human beings,—an enviable alternative, as many a white woman knows. +Consequently, for black women alone, as a group, "handsome is that +handsome does" and they are asked to be no more beautiful than God made +them, but they are asked to be efficient, to be strong, fertile, +muscled, and able to work. If they marry, they must as independent +workers be able to help support their children, for their men are paid +on a scale which makes sole support of the family often impossible.</p> + +<p>On the whole, colored working women are paid as well as white working +women for similar work, save in some higher grades, while colored <a name="Page_107" id="Page_107" />men +get from one-fourth to three-fourths less than white men. The result is +curious and three-fold: the economic independence of black women is +increased, the breaking up of Negro families must be more frequent, and +the number of illegitimate children is decreased more slowly among them +than other evidences of culture are increased, just as was once true in +Scotland and Bavaria.</p> + +<p>What does this mean? It forecasts a mighty dilemma which the whole world +of civilization, despite its will, must one time frankly face: the +unhusbanded mother or the childless wife. God send us a world with +woman's freedom and married motherhood inextricably wed, but until He +sends it, I see more of future promise in the betrayed girl-mothers of +the black belt than in the childless wives of the white North, and I +have more respect for the colored servant who yields to her frank +longing for motherhood than for her white sister who offers up children +for clothes. Out of a sex freedom that today makes us shudder will come +in time a day when we will no longer pay men for work they do not do, +for the sake of their harem; we will pay women what they earn and insist +on their working and earning it; we will allow those persons to vote who +know enough to vote, whether they be black or female, white or male; and +we will ward race suicide, not by further burdening the over-burdened, +but by honoring motherhood, even when the sneaking father shirks his +duty.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>"Wait till the lady passes," said a Nashville white boy.</p> + +<p>"She's no lady; she's a nigger," answered another.</p> + +<p>So some few women are born free, and some amid insult and scarlet +letters achieve freedom; but our women in black had freedom thrust +contemptuously upon them. With that freedom they are buying an +untrammeled independence and dear as is the price they pay for it, it +will in the end be worth every taunt and groan. Today the dreams of the +mothers are coming true. We have still our poverty and degradation, our +lewdness and our cruel toil; but we have, too, a vast group of women of +Negro blood who for strength of character, cleanness of soul, and +unselfish devotion of purpose, is today easily the peer of any group of +women in the civilized world. And more than that, in the great rank and +file of our five million women we have the up-working of new +revolutionary ideals, which must in time have vast influence on the +thought and action of this land.</p> + +<p>For this, their promise, and for their hard past, I honor the women of +my race. Their beauty,—their dark and mysterious beauty of midnight +eyes, crumpled hair, and soft, full-featured faces—is perhaps more to +me than to you, because I was born to its warm and subtle spell; but +their worth is yours as well as mine. No other women on earth could +<a name="Page_108" id="Page_108" />have emerged from the hell of force and temptation which once engulfed +and still surrounds black women in America with half the modesty and +womanliness that they retain. I have always felt like bowing myself +before them in all abasement, searching to bring some tribute to these +long-suffering victims, these burdened sisters of mine, whom the world, +the wise, white world, loves to affront and ridicule and wantonly to +insult. I have known the women of many lands and nations,—I have known +and seen and lived beside them, but none have I known more sweetly +feminine, more unswervingly loyal, more desperately earnest, and more +instinctively pure in body and in soul than the daughters of my black +mothers. This, then,—a little thing—to their memory and inspiration.<a name="Page_109" id="Page_109" /></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 55%;" /> +<h3><a name="Children_of_the_Moon" id="Children_of_the_Moon" /><i>Children of the Moon</i></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>I am dead;<br /></span> +<span>Yet somehow, somewhere,<br /></span> +<span>In Time's weird contradiction, I<br /></span> +<span>May tell of that dread deed, wherewith<br /></span> +<span>I brought to Children of the Moon<br /></span> +<span>Freedom and vast salvation.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>I was a woman born,<br /></span> +<span>And trod the streaming street,<br /></span> +<span>That ebbs and flows from Harlem's hills,<br /></span> +<span>Through caves and cañons limned in light,<br /></span> +<span>Down to the twisting sea.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>That night of nights,<br /></span> +<span>I stood alone and at the End,<br /></span> +<span>Until the sudden highway to the moon,<br /></span> +<span>Golden in splendor,<br /></span> +<span>Became too real to doubt.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Dimly I set foot upon the air,<br /></span> +<span>I fled, I flew, through the thrills of light,<br /></span> +<span>With all about, above, below, the whirring<br /></span> +<span>Of almighty wings.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>I found a twilight land,<br /></span> +<span>Where, hardly hid, the sun<br /></span> +<span>Sent softly-saddened rays of<br /></span> +<span>Red and brown to burn the iron soil<br /></span> +<span>And bathe the snow-white peaks<br /></span> +<span>In mighty splendor.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110" />Black were the men,<br /></span> +<span>Hard-haired and silent-slow,<br /></span> +<span>Moving as shadows,<br /></span> +<span>Bending with face of fear to earthward;<br /></span> +<span>And women there were none.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Woman, woman, woman!"<br /></span> +<span>I cried in mounting terror.<br /></span> +<span>"Woman and Child!"<br /></span> +<span>And the cry sang back<br /></span> +<span>Through heaven, with the<br /></span> +<span>Whirring of almighty wings.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Wings, wings, endless wings,—<br /></span> +<span>Heaven and earth are wings;<br /></span> +<span>Wings that flutter, furl, and fold,<br /></span> +<span>Always folding and unfolding,<br /></span> +<span>Ever folding yet again;<br /></span> +<span>Wings, veiling some vast<br /></span> +<span>And veiléd face,<br /></span> +<span>In blazing blackness,<br /></span> +<span>Behind the folding and unfolding,<br /></span> +<span>The rolling and unrolling of<br /></span> +<span>Almighty wings!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>I saw the black men huddle,<br /></span> +<span>Fumed in fear, falling face downward;<br /></span> +<span>Vainly I clutched and clawed,<br /></span> +<span>Dumbly they cringed and cowered,<br /></span> +<span>Moaning in mournful monotone:<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">O Freedom, O Freedom,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">O Freedom over me;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Before I'll be a slave,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I'll be buried in my grave,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And go home to my God,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And be free.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>It was angel-music<br /></span> +<span>From the dead,<br /></span> +<span>And ever, as they sang,<br /></span> +<span>Some wingéd thing of wings, filling all heaven,<br /></span> +<span>Folding and unfolding, and folding yet again,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111" />Tore out their blood and entrails,<br /></span> +<span>'Til I screamed in utter terror;<br /></span> +<span>And a silence came—<br /></span> +<span>A silence and the wailing of a babe.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Then, at last, I saw and shamed;<br /></span> +<span>I knew how these dumb, dark, and dusky things<br /></span> +<span>Had given blood and life,<br /></span> +<span>To fend the caves of underground,<br /></span> +<span>The great black caves of utter night,<br /></span> +<span>Where earth lay full of mothers<br /></span> +<span>And their babes.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Little children sobbing in darkness,<br /></span> +<span>Little children crying in silent pain,<br /></span> +<span>Little mothers rocking and groping and struggling,<br /></span> +<span>Digging and delving and groveling,<br /></span> +<span>Amid the dying-dead and dead-in-life<br /></span> +<span>And drip and dripping of warm, wet blood,<br /></span> +<span>Far, far beneath the wings,—<br /></span> +<span>The folding and unfolding of almighty wings.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>I bent with tears and pitying hands,<br /></span> +<span>Above these dusky star-eyed children,—<br /></span> +<span>Crinkly-haired, with sweet-sad baby voices,<br /></span> +<span>Pleading low for light and love and living—<br /></span> +<span>And I crooned:<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Little children weeping there,<br /></span> +<span>God shall find your faces fair;<br /></span> +<span>Guerdon for your deep distress,<br /></span> +<span>He shall send His tenderness;<br /></span> +<span>For the tripping of your feet<br /></span> +<span>Make a mystic music sweet<br /></span> +<span>In the darkness of your hair;<br /></span> +<span>Light and laughter in the air—<br /></span> +<span>Little children weeping there,<br /></span> +<span>God shall find your faces fair!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>I strode above the stricken, bleeding men,<br /></span> +<span>The rampart 'ranged against the skies,<br /></span> +<span>And shouted:<br /></span> +<span>"Up, I say, build and slay;<br /></span> +<span><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112" />Fight face foremost, force a way,<br /></span> +<span>Unloose, unfetter, and unbind;<br /></span> +<span>Be men and free!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Dumbly they shrank,<br /></span> +<span>Muttering they pointed toward that peak,<br /></span> +<span>Than vastness vaster,<br /></span> +<span>Whereon a darkness brooded,<br /></span> +<span>"Who shall look and live," they sighed;<br /></span> +<span>And I sensed<br /></span> +<span>The folding and unfolding of almighty wings.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Yet did we build of iron, bricks, and blood;<br /></span> +<span>We built a day, a year, a thousand years,<br /></span> +<span>Blood was the mortar,—blood and tears,<br /></span> +<span>And, ah, the Thing, the Thing of wings,<br /></span> +<span>The wingéd, folding Wing of Things<br /></span> +<span>Did furnish much mad mortar<br /></span> +<span>For that tower.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Slow and ever slower rose the towering task,<br /></span> +<span>And with it rose the sun,<br /></span> +<span>Until at last on one wild day,<br /></span> +<span>Wind-whirled, cloud-swept and terrible<br /></span> +<span>I stood beneath the burning shadow<br /></span> +<span>Of the peak,<br /></span> +<span>Beneath the whirring of almighty wings,<br /></span> +<span>While downward from my feet<br /></span> +<span>Streamed the long line of dusky faces<br /></span> +<span>And the wail of little children sobbing under earth.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Alone, aloft,<br /></span> +<span>I saw through firmaments on high<br /></span> +<span>The drama of Almighty God,<br /></span> +<span>With all its flaming suns and stars.<br /></span> +<span>"Freedom!" I cried.<br /></span> +<span>"Freedom!" cried heaven, earth, and stars;<br /></span> +<span>And a Voice near-far,<br /></span> +<span>Amid the folding and unfolding of almighty wings,<br /></span> +<span>Answered, "I am Freedom—<br /></span> +<span>Who sees my face is free—<br /></span> +<span>He and his."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113" />I dared not look;<br /></span> +<span>Downward I glanced on deep-bowed heads and closed eyes,<br /></span> +<span>Outward I gazed on flecked and flaming blue—<br /></span> +<span>But ever onward, upward flew<br /></span> +<span>The sobbing of small voices,—<br /></span> +<span>Down, down, far down into the night.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Slowly I lifted livid limbs aloft;<br /></span> +<span>Upward I strove: the face! the face!<br /></span> +<span>Onward I reeled: the face! the face!<br /></span> +<span>To beauty wonderful as sudden death,<br /></span> +<span>Or horror horrible as endless life—<br /></span> +<span>Up! Up! the blood-built way;<br /></span> +<span>(Shadow grow vaster!<br /></span> +<span>Terror come faster!)<br /></span> +<span>Up! Up! to the blazing blackness<br /></span> +<span>Of one veiléd face.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>And endless folding and unfolding,<br /></span> +<span>Rolling and unrolling of almighty wings.<br /></span> +<span>The last step stood!<br /></span> +<span>The last dim cry of pain<br /></span> +<span>Fluttered across the stars,<br /></span> +<span>And then—<br /></span> +<span>Wings, wings, triumphant wings,<br /></span> +<span>Lifting and lowering, waxing and waning,<br /></span> +<span>Swinging and swaying, twirling and whirling,<br /></span> +<span>Whispering and screaming, streaming and gleaming,<br /></span> +<span>Spreading and sweeping and shading and flaming—<br /></span> +<span>Wings, wings, eternal wings,<br /></span> +<span>'Til the hot, red blood,<br /></span> +<span>Flood fleeing flood,<br /></span> +<span>Thundered through heaven and mine ears,<br /></span> +<span>While all across a purple sky,<br /></span> +<span>The last vast pinion.<br /></span> +<span>Trembled to unfold.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>I rose upon the Mountain of the Moon,—<br /></span> +<span>I felt the blazing glory of the Sun;<br /></span> +<span>I heard the Song of Children crying, "Free!"<br /></span> +<span>I saw the face of Freedom—<br /></span> +<span>And I died.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<div><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114" /></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 85%;" /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_VIII" id="Chapter_VIII" />VIII</h2> + +<h3>THE IMMORTAL CHILD</h3> + + +<p>If a man die shall he live again? We do not know. But this we do know, +that our children's children live forever and grow and develop toward +perfection as they are trained. All human problems, then, center in the +Immortal Child and his education is the problem of problems. And first +for illustration of what I would say may I not take for example, out of +many millions, the life of one dark child.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>It is now nineteen years since I first saw Coleridge-Taylor. We were in +London in some somber hall where there were many meeting, men and women +called chiefly to the beautiful World's Fair at Paris; and then a few +slipping over to London to meet Pan-Africa. We were there from Cape +Colony and Liberia, from Haiti and the States, and from the Islands of +the Sea. I remember the stiff, young officer who came with credentials +from Menelik of Abyssinia; I remember the bitter, black American who +whispered how an army of the Soudan might some day cross the Alps; I +remember Englishmen, like the Colensos, who sat and counseled with us; +but above all, I remember Coleridge-Taylor.</p> + +<p>He was a little man and nervous, with dark-golden face and hair that +bushed and strayed. His fingers were always nervously seeking hidden +keys and he was quick with enthusiasm,—instinct with life. His bride of +a year or more,—dark, too, in her whiter way,—was of the calm and +quiet type. Her soft contralto voice thrilled us often as she sang, +while her silences were full of understanding.</p> + +<p>Several times we met in public gatherings and then they bade me to their +home,—a nest of a cottage, with gate and garden, hidden in London's +endless rings of suburbs. I dimly recall through these years a room in +cozy disorder, strewn with music—music on the floor and music on the +<a name="Page_115" id="Page_115" />chairs, music in the air as the master rushed to the piano now and +again to make some memory melodious—some allusion real.</p> + +<p>And then at last, for it was the last, I saw Coleridge-Taylor in a +mighty throng of people crowding the Crystal Palace. We came in facing +the stage and scarcely dared look around. On the stage were a full +orchestra, a chorus of eight hundred voices, and some of the world's +famous soloists. He left his wife sitting beside me, and she was very +silent as he went forward to lift the conductor's baton. It was one of +the earliest renditions of "Hiawatha's Wedding Feast." We sat at rapt +attention and when the last, weird music died, the great chorus and +orchestra rose as a man to acclaim the master; he turned toward the +audience and then we turning for the first time saw that sea of faces +behind,—the misty thousands whose voices rose to one strong shout of +joy! It was a moment such as one does not often live. It seemed, and +was, prophetic.</p> + +<p>This young man who stepped forth as one of the most notable of modern +English composers had a simple and uneventful career. His father was a +black surgeon of Sierra Leone who came to London for study. While there +he met an English girl and this son was born, in London, in 1875.</p> + +<p>Then came a series of chances. His father failed to succeed and +disappeared back to Africa leaving the support of the child to the poor +working mother. The child showed evidences of musical talent and a +friendly workingman gave him a little violin. A musician glancing from +his window saw a little dark boy playing marbles on the street with a +tiny violin in one hand; he gave him lessons. He happened to gain +entrance into a charity school with a master of understanding mind who +recognized genius when he saw it; and finally his beautiful child's +treble brought him to the notice of the choirmaster of St. George's, +Croyden.</p> + +<p>So by happy accident his way was clear. Within his soul was no +hesitation. He was one of those fortunate beings who are not called to +<i>Wander-Jahre</i>, but are born with sails set and seas charted. Already +the baby of four little years was a musician, and as choir-boy and +violinist he walked unhesitatingly and surely to his life work. He was +graduated with honors from the Royal Academy of Music in 1894, and +married soon after the daughter of one of his professors. Then his life +began, and whatever it lacked of physical adventure in the conventional +round of a modern world-city, it more than gained in the almost +tempestuous outpouring of his spiritual nature. Life to him was neither +meat nor drink,—it was creative flame; ideas, plans, melodies glowed +within him. To create, to do, to accomplish; to know the white glory of +mighty midnights and the pale Amen of dawns was his day of days. Songs, +pianoforte and violin pieces, trios and quintets for strings, incidental +music, symphony, orchestral, and choral works rushed from his fingers. +<a name="Page_116" id="Page_116" />Nor were they laboriously contrived or light, thin things made to meet +sudden popularity. Rather they were the flaming bits that must be said +and sung,—that could not wait the slower birth of years, so hurried to +the world as though their young creator knew that God gave him but a +day. His whole active life was scarcely more than a decade and a half, +and yet in that time, without wealth, friends, or influence, in the face +of perhaps the most critical and skeptical and least imaginative +civilization of the modern world, he wrote his name so high as a +creative artist that it cannot soon be forgotten.</p> + +<p>And this was but one side of the man. On the other was the +sweet-tempered, sympathetic comrade, always willing to help, never +knowing how to refuse, generous with every nerve and fiber of his being. +Think of a young musician, father of a family, who at the time of his +death held positions as Associate of the Royal College of Music, +Professor in Trinity College and Crystal Palace, Conductor of the Handel +Choral Society and the Rochester Choral Society, Principal of the +Guildhall School of Music, where he had charge of the choral choir, the +orchestra, and the opera. He was repeatedly the leader of music +festivals all over Great Britain and a judge of contests. And with all +this his house was open in cheering hospitality to friends and his hand +ever ready with sympathy and help.</p> + +<p>When such a man dies, it must bring pause to a reasoning world. We may +call his death-sickness pneumonia, but we all know that it was sheer +overwork,—the using of a delicately-tuned instrument too commonly and +continuously and carelessly to let it last its normal life. We may well +talk of the waste of wood and water, of food and fire, but the real and +unforgivable waste of modern civilization is the waste of ability and +genius,—the killing of useful, indispensable men who have no right to +die; who deserve, not for themselves, but for the world, leisure, +freedom from distraction, expert medical advice, and intelligent +sympathy.</p> + +<p>Coleridge-Taylor's life work was not finished,—it was but well begun. +He lived only his first period of creative genius, when melody and +harmony flashed and fluttered in subtle, compelling, and more than +promising profusion. He did not live to do the organized, constructive +work in the full, calm power of noonday,—the reflective finishing of +evening. In the annals of the future his name must always stand high, +but with the priceless gift of years, who can say where it might not +have stood.</p> + +<p>Why should he have worked so breathlessly, almost furiously? It was, we +may be sure, because with unflinching determination and with no thought +of surrender he faced the great alternative,—the choice which the +cynical, thoughtless, busy, modern world spreads grimly before its +greater souls—food or beauty, bread and butter, or ideals. And +continually we <a name="Page_117" id="Page_117" />see worthier men turning to the pettier, cheaper +thing—the popular portrait, the sensational novel, the jingling song. +The choice is not always between the least and the greatest, the high +and the empty, but only too often it is between starvation and +something. When, therefore, we see a man, working desperately to earn a +living and still stooping to no paltry dickering and to no unworthy +work, handing away a "Hiawatha" for less than a song, pausing for +glimpses of the stars when a world full of charcoal glowed far more +warmly and comfortably, we know that such a man is a hero in a sense +never approached by the swashbuckling soldier or the lying patriot.</p> + +<p>Deep as was the primal tragedy in the life of Coleridge-Taylor, there +lay another still deeper. He smiled at it lightly, as we all do,—we who +live within the veil,—to hide the deeper hurt. He had, with us, that +divine and African gift of laughter, that echo of a thousand centuries +of suns. I mind me how once he told of the bishop, the well-groomed +English bishop, who eyed the artist gravely, with his eye-glass—hair +and color and figure,—and said quite audibly to his friends, "Quite +interesting—looks intelligent,—yes—yes!"</p> + +<p>Fortunate was Coleridge-Taylor to be born in Europe and to speak a +universal tongue. In America he could hardly have had his career. His +genius was, to be sure, recognized (with some palpitation and +consternation) when it came full-grown across the seas with an English +imprint; but born here, it might never have been permitted to grow. We +know in America how to discourage, choke, and murder ability when it so +far forgets itself as to choose a dark skin. England, thank God, is +slightly more civilized than her colonies; but even there the path of +this young man was no way of roses and just a shade thornier than that +of whiter men. He did not complain at it,—he did not</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Wince and cry aloud."</p></div> + +<p>Rather the hint here and there of color discrimination in England +aroused in him deeper and more poignant sympathy with his people +throughout the world. He was one with that great company of +mixed-blooded men: Pushkin and Dumas, Hamilton and Douglass, Browning +and many others; but he more than most of these men knew the call of the +blood when it came and listened and answered. He came to America with +strange enthusiasm. He took with quite simple and unconscious grace the +conventional congratulations of the musical world. He was used to that. +But to his own people—to the sad sweetness of their voices, their +inborn sense of music, their broken, half-articulate voices,—he leapt +with new enthusiasm. From the fainter shadowings of his own life, he +sensed instinctively the vaster tragedy of theirs. His soul <a name="Page_118" id="Page_118" />yearned to +give voice and being to this human thing. He early turned to the sorrow +songs. He sat at the faltering feet of Paul Laurence Dunbar and he asked +(as we sadly shook our heads) for some masterpiece of this world-tragedy +that his soul could set to music. And then, so characteristically, he +rushed back to England, composed a half-dozen exquisite harmonies +haunted by slave-songs, led the Welsh in their singing, listened to the +Scotch, ordered great music festivals in all England, wrote for Beerbohm +Tree, took on another music professorship, promised a trip to Germany, +and at last, staggering home one night, on his way to his wife and +little boy and girl, fell in his tracks and in four days was dead, at +the age of thirty-seven. They say that in his death-throe he arose and +facing some great, ghostly choir raised his last baton, while all around +the massive silence rang with the last mist-music of his dying ears.</p> + +<p>He was buried from St. Michael's on September 5, 1912, with the acclaim +of kings and music masters and little children and to the majestic +melody of his own music. The tributes that followed him to his grave +were unusually hearty and sincere. The head of the Royal College calls +the first production of "Hiawatha" one of the most remarkable events in +modern English musical history and the trilogy one of the most +universally-beloved works of modern English music. One critic calls +Taylor's a name "which with that of Elgar represented the nation's most +individual output" and calls his "Atonement" "perhaps the finest passion +music of modern times." Another critic speaks of his originality: +"Though surrounded by the influences that are at work in Europe today, +he retained his individuality to the end, developing his style, however, +and evincing new ideas in each succeeding work. His untimely death at +the age of thirty-seven, a short life—like those of Schubert, +Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Hugo Wolf—has robbed the world of one of its +noblest singers, one of those few men of modern times who found +expression in the language of musical song, a lyricist of power and +worth."</p> + +<p>But the tributes did not rest with the artist; with peculiar unanimity +they sought his "sterling character," "the good husband and father," the +"staunch and loyal friend." And perhaps I cannot better end these +hesitating words than with that tribute from one who called this master, +friend, and whose lament cried in the night with more of depth and +passion than Alfred Noyes is wont in his self-repression to voice:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Through him, his race, a moment, lifted up<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Forests of hands to beauty, as in prayer,<br /></span> +<span>Touched through his lips the sacramental cup<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And then sank back, benumbed in our bleak air."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119" />Yet, consider: to many millions of people this man was all wrong. +<i>First</i>, he ought never to have been born, for he was the mulatto son of +a white woman. <i>Secondly</i>, he should never have been educated as a +musician,—he should have been trained, for his "place" in the world and +to make him satisfied therewith. <i>Thirdly</i>, he should not have married +the woman he loved and who loved him, for she was white and the niece of +an Oxford professor. <i>Fourthly</i>, the children of such a union—but why +proceed? You know it all by heart.</p> + +<p>If he had been black, like Paul Laurence Dunbar, would the argument have +been different? No. He should never have been born, for he is a +"problem." He should never be educated, for he cannot be educated. He +should never marry, for that means children and there is no place for +black children in this world.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>In the treatment of the child the world foreshadows its own future and +faith. All words and all thinking lead to the child,—to that vast +immortality and the wide sweep of infinite possibility which the child +represents. Such thought as this it was that made the Master say of old +as He saw baby faces:</p> + +<p>"And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones, it is better for +him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into +the sea."</p> + +<p>And yet the mothers and fathers and the men and women of my race must +often pause and ask: Is it worth while? Ought children be born to us? +Have we any right to make human souls face what we face today? The +answer is clear: If the great battle of human right against poverty, +against disease, against color prejudice is to be won, it must be won, +not in our day, but in the day of our children's children. Ours is the +blood and dust of battle; theirs the rewards of victory. If, then, they +are not there because we have not brought them into the world, we have +been the guiltiest factor in conquering ourselves. It is our duty, then, +to accomplish the immortality of black blood, in order that the day may +come in this dark world when poverty shall be abolished, privilege be +based on individual desert, and the color of a man's skin be no bar to +the outlook of his soul.</p> + +<p>If it is our duty as honest colored men and women, battling for a great +principle, to bring not aimless rafts of children to the world, but as +many as, with reasonable sacrifice, we can train to largest manhood, +what in its inner essence shall that training be, particularly in its +beginning?</p> + +<p>The first temptation is to shield the child,—to hedge it about that it +may not know and will not dream of the color line. Then when we can no +longer wholly shield, to indulge and pamper and coddle, as though in +this dumb way to compensate. From this attitude comes the multitude of +<a name="Page_120" id="Page_120" />our spoiled, wayward, disappointed children. And must we not blame +ourselves? For while the motive was pure and the outer menace undoubted, +is shielding and indulgence the way to meet it?</p> + +<p>Some Negro parents, realizing this, leave their children to sink or swim +in this sea of race prejudice. They neither shield nor explain, but +thrust them forth grimly into school or street and let them learn as +they may from brutal fact. Out of this may come strength, poise, +self-dependence, and out of it, too, may come bewilderment, cringing +deception, and self-distrust. It is, all said, a brutal, unfair method, +and in its way it is as bad as shielding and indulgence. Why not, +rather, face the facts and tell the truth? Your child is wiser than you +think.</p> + +<p>The truth lies ever between extremes. It is wrong to introduce the child +to race consciousness prematurely; it is dangerous to let that +consciousness grow spontaneously without intelligent guidance. With +every step of dawning intelligence, explanation—frank, free, guiding +explanation—must come. The day will dawn when mother must explain +gently but clearly why the little girls next door do not want to play +with "niggers"; what the real cause is of the teacher's unsympathetic +attitude; and how people may ride in the backs of street cars and the +smoker end of trains and still be people, honest high-minded souls.</p> + +<p>Remember, too, that in such frank explanation you are speaking in nine +cases out of ten to a good deal clearer understanding than you think and +that the child-mind has what your tired soul may have lost faith +in,—the Power and the Glory.</p> + +<p>Out of little, unspoiled souls rise up wonderful resources and healing +balm. Once the colored child understands the white world's attitude and +the shameful wrong of it, you have furnished it with a great life +motive,—a power and impulse toward good which is the mightiest thing +man has. How many white folk would give their own souls if they might +graft into their children's souls a great, moving, guiding ideal!</p> + +<p>With this Power there comes, in the transfiguring soul of childhood, the +Glory: the vision of accomplishment, the lofty ideal. Once let the +strength of the motive work, and it becomes the life task of the parent +to guide and to shape the ideal; to raise it from resentment and revenge +to dignity and self-respect, to breadth and accomplishment, to human +service; to beat back every thought of cringing and surrender.</p> + +<p>Here, at last, we can speak with no hesitation, with no lack of faith. +For we know that as the world grows better there will be realized in our +children's lives that for which we fight unfalteringly, but vainly now.</p> + +<p>So much for the problem of the home and our own dark children. Now let +us look beyond the pale upon the children of the wide world. What is the +real lesson of the life of Coleridge-Taylor? It is this: humanly +speaking it was sheer accident that this boy developed his genius. We +<a name="Page_121" id="Page_121" />have a right to assume that hundreds and thousands of boys and girls +today are missing the chance of developing unusual talents because the +chances have been against them; and that indeed the majority of the +children of the world are not being systematically fitted for their life +work and for life itself. Why?</p> + +<p>Many seek the reason in the content of the school program. They +feverishly argue the relative values of Greek, mathematics, and manual +training, but fail with singular unanimity in pointing out the +fundamental cause of our failure in human education: That failure is due +to the fact that we aim not at the full development of the child, but +that the world regards and always has regarded education first as a +means of buttressing the established order of things rather than +improving it. And this is the real reason why strife, war, and +revolution have marked the onward march of humanity instead of reason +and sound reform. Instead of seeking to push the coming generation ahead +of our pitiful accomplishment, we insist that it march behind. We say, +morally, that high character is conformity to present public opinion; we +say industrially that the present order is best and that children must +be trained to perpetuate it.</p> + +<p>But, it is objected, what else can we do? Can we teach Revolution to the +inexperienced in hope that they may discern progress? No, but we may +teach frankly that this world is not perfection, but development: that +the object of education is manhood and womanhood, clear reason, +individual talent and genius and the spirit of service and sacrifice, +and not simply a frantic effort to avoid change in present institutions; +that industry is for man and not man for industry and that while we must +have workers to work, the prime object of our training is not the work +but the worker—not the maintenance of present industrial caste but the +development of human intelligence by which drudgery may be lessened and +beauty widened.</p> + +<p>Back of our present educational system is the philosophy that sneers at +the foolish Fathers who believed it self-evident, "that all men were +created free and equal." Surely the overwhelming evidence is today that +men are slaves and unequal. But is it not education that is the creator +of this freedom and equality? Most men today cannot conceive of a +freedom that does not involve somebody's slavery. They do not want +equality because the thrill of their happiness comes from having things +that others have not. But may not human education fix the fine ideal of +an equal maximum of freedom for every human soul combined with that +minimum of slavery for each soul which the inexorable physical facts of +the world impose—rather than complete freedom for some and complete +slavery for others; and, again, is not the equality toward which the +world moves an equality of honor in the assigned <a name="Page_122" id="Page_122" />human task itself +rather than equal facility in doing different tasks? Human equality is +not lack of difference, nor do the infinite human differences argue +relative superiority and inferiority. And, again, how new an aspect +human differences may assume when all men are educated. Today we think +of apes, semi-apes, and human beings; tomorrow we may think of Keir +Hardies, Roosevelts, and Beethovens—not equals but men. Today we are +forcing men into educational slavery in order that others may enjoy +life, and excuse ourselves by saying that the world's work must be done. +We are degrading some sorts of work by honoring others, and then +expressing surprise that most people object to having their children +trained solely to take up their father's tasks.</p> + +<p>Given as the ideal the utmost possible freedom for every human soul, +with slavery for none, and equal honor for all necessary human tasks, +then our problem of education is greatly simplified: we aim to develop +human souls; to make all intelligent; to discover special talents and +genius. With this course of training beginning in early childhood and +never ceasing must go the technical training for the present world's +work according to carefully studied individual gifts and wishes.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, if we arrange our system of education to develop +workmen who will not strike and Negroes satisfied with their present +place in the world, we have set ourselves a baffling task. We find +ourselves compelled to keep the masses ignorant and to curb our own +thought and expression so as not to inflame the ignorant. We force +moderate reformers and men with new and valuable ideas to become red +radicals and revolutionists, since that happens to be the only way to +make the world listen to reason. Consider our race problem in the South: +the South has invested in Negro ignorance; some Northerners proposed +limited education, not, they explained, to better the Negro, but merely +to make the investment more profitable to the present beneficiaries. +They thus gained wide Southern support for schools like Hampton and +Tuskegee. But could this program be expected long to satisfy colored +folk? And was this shifty dodging of the real issue the wisest +statesmanship? No! The real question in the South is the question of the +permanency of present color caste. The problem, then, of the formal +training of our colored children has been strangely complicated by the +strong feeling of certain persons as to their future in America and the +world. And the reaction toward this caste education has strengthened the +idea of caste education throughout the world.</p> + +<p>Let us then return to fundamental ideals. Children must be trained in a +knowledge of what the world is and what it knows and how it does its +daily work. These things cannot be separated: we cannot teach pure +knowledge apart from actual facts, or separate truth from the human +<a name="Page_123" id="Page_123" />mind. Above all we must not forget that the object of all education is +the child itself and not what it does or makes.</p> + +<p>It is here that a great movement in America has grievously sinned +against the light. There has arisen among us a movement to make the +Public School primarily the hand-maiden of production. America is +conceived of as existing for the sake of its mines, fields and +factories, and not those factories, fields and mines as existing for +America. Consequently, the public schools are for training the mass of +men as servants and laborers and mechanics to increase the land's +industrial efficiency.</p> + +<p>Those who oppose this program, especially if they are black, are accused +of despising common toil and humble service. In fact, we Negroes are but +facing in our own children a world problem: how can we, while +maintaining a proper output of goods and furnishing needed services, +increase the knowledge of experience of common men and conserve genius +for the common weal? Without wider, deeper intelligence among the masses +Democracy cannot accomplish its greater ends. Without a more careful +conservation of human ability and talent the world cannot secure the +services which its greater needs call for. Yet today who goes to +college, the Talented or the Rich? Who goes to high school, the Bright +or the Well-to-Do? Who does the physical work of the world, those whose +muscles need the exercise or those whose souls and minds are stupefied +with manual toil? How is the drudgery of the world distributed, by +thoughtful justice or the lash of Slavery?</p> + +<p>We cannot base the education of future citizens on the present +inexcusable inequality of wealth nor on physical differences of race. We +must seek not to make men carpenters but to make carpenters men.</p> + +<p>Colored Americans must then with deep determination educate their +children in the broadest, highest way. They must fill the colleges with +the talented and fill the fields and shops with the intelligent. Wisdom +is the principal thing. Therefore, get wisdom.</p> + +<p>But why am I talking simply of "colored" children? Is not the problem of +their education simply an intensification of the problem of educating +all children? Look at our plight in the United States, nearly 150 years +after the establishment of a government based on human intelligence.</p> + +<p>If we take the figures of the Thirteenth Census, we find that there were +five and one-half million illiterate Americans of whom 3,184,633 were +white. Remembering that illiteracy is a crude and extreme test of +ignorance, we may assume that there are in the United States ten million +people over ten years of age who are too ignorant either to perform +their civic duties or to teach industrial efficiency. Moreover, it does +not seem that this illiteracy is disappearing rapidly.</p> + +<p>For instance, nine percent of American children between ten and +<a name="Page_124" id="Page_124" />nineteen years of age cannot read and write. Moreover, there are +millions of children who, judging by the figures for the school year +1909-10, are not going to learn to read and write, for of the Americans +six to fourteen years of age there were 3,125,392 who were not in school +a single day during that year. If we take the eleven million youths +fifteen to twenty years of age for whom vocational training is +particularly adapted, we find that nearly five per cent of these, or +448,414, are absolutely illiterate; it is not too much to assume that a +million of them have not acquired enough of the ordinary tools of +intelligence to make the most of efficient vocational training.</p> + +<p>Confining ourselves to the white people, over fifteen per cent of the +white children six to fourteen years of age, or 2,253,198, did not +attend school during the school year 1909-10. Of the native white +children of native parents ten to fourteen years of age nearly a tenth +were not in school during that year; 121,878 native white children of +native parents, fifteen to nineteen years of age, were illiterate.</p> + +<p>If we continue our attention to the colored children, the case is, of +course, much worse.</p> + +<p>We cannot hope to make intelligent workmen and intelligent citizens of a +group of people, over forty per cent of whose children six to fourteen +years of age were not in school a single day during 1909-10; for the +other sixty per cent the school term in the majority of cases was +probably less than five months. Of the Negro children ten to fourteen +years of age 18.9 per cent were illiterate; of those fifteen to nineteen +years of age 20.3 per cent were illiterate; of those ten to fourteen +years of age 31.4 per cent did not go to school a single day in 1909-10.</p> + +<p>What is the trouble? It is simple. We are spending one dollar for +education where we should spend ten dollars. If tomorrow we multiplied +our effort to educate the next generation ten-fold, we should but begin +our bounden duty. The heaven that lies about our infancy is but the +ideals come true which every generation of children is capable of +bringing; but we, selfish in our own ignorance and incapacity, are +making of education a series of miserable compromises: How ignorant can +we let a child grow to be in order to make him the best cotton mill +operative? What is the least sum that will keep the average youth out of +jail? How many months saved on a high school course will make the +largest export of wheat?</p> + +<p>If we realized that children are the future, that immortality is the +present child, that no education which educates can possibly be too +costly, then we know that the menace of Kaiserism which called for the +expenditure of more than 332 thousand millions of dollars was not a whit +more pressing than the menace of ignorance, and that no nation <a name="Page_125" id="Page_125" />tomorrow +will call itself civilized which does not give every single human being +college and vocational training free and under the best teaching force +procurable for love or money.</p> + +<p>This world has never taken the education of children seriously. Misled +by selfish dreamings of personal life forever, we have neglected the +true and practical immortality through the endless life of children's +children. Seeking counsels of our own souls' perfection, we have +despised and rejected the possible increasing perfection of unending +generations. Or if we are thrown back in pessimistic despair from making +living folk decent, we leap to idle speculations of a thousand years +hereafter instead of working steadily and persistently for the next +generation.</p> + +<p>All our problems center in the child. All our hopes, our dreams are for +our children. Has our own life failed? Let its lesson save the +children's lives from similar failure. Is democracy a failure? Train up +citizens that will make it succeed. Is wealth too crude, too foolish in +form, and too easily stolen? Train up workers with honor and consciences +and brains. Have we degraded service with menials? Abolish the mean +spirit and implant sacrifice. Do we despise women? Train them as workers +and thinkers and not as playthings, lest future generations ape our +worst mistake. Do we despise darker races? Teach the children its fatal +cost in spiritual degradation and murder, teach them that to hate +"niggers" or "chinks" is to crucify souls like their own. Is there +anything we would accomplish with human beings? Do it with the immortal +child, with a stretch of endless time for doing it and with infinite +possibilities to work on.</p> + +<p>Is this our attitude toward education? It is not—neither in England nor +America—in France nor Germany—with black nor white nor yellow folk. +Education to the modern world is a burden which we are driven to carry. +We shirk and complain. We do just as little as possible and only threat +or catastrophe induces us to do more than a minimum. If the ignorant +mass, panting to know, revolts, we dole them gingerly enough knowledge +to pacify them temporarily. If, as in the Great War, we discover +soldiers too ignorant to use our machines of murder and destruction, we +train them—to use machines of murder and destruction. If mounting +wealth calls for intelligent workmen, we rush tumultuously to train +workers—in order to increase our wealth. But of great, broad plans to +train all men for all things—to make a universe intelligent, busy, +good, creative and beautiful—where in this wide world is such an +educational program? To announce it is to invite gasps or Brobdingnagian +laughter. It cannot be done. It will cost too much.</p> + +<p>What has been done with man can be done with men, if the world tries +long enough and hard enough. And as to the cost—all the wealth <a name="Page_126" id="Page_126" />of the +world, save that necessary for sheer decent existence and for the +maintenance of past civilization, is, and of right ought to be, the +property of the children for their education.</p> + +<p>I mean it. In one year, 1917, we spent $96,700,000,000 for war. We blew +it away to murder, maim, and destroy! Why? Because the blind, brutal +crime of powerful and selfish interests made this path through hell the +only visible way to heaven. We did it. We had to do it, and we are glad +the putrid horror is over. But, now, are we prepared to spend less to +make a world in which the resurgence of such devilish power will be +impossible?</p> + +<p>Do we really want war to cease?</p> + +<p>Then educate the children of this generation at a cost no whit less and +if necessary a hundred times as great as the cost of the Great War.</p> + +<p>Last year, 1917, education cost us $915,000,000.</p> + +<p>Next year it ought to cost us at least two thousand million dollars. We +should spend enough money to hire the best teaching force possible—the +best organizing and directing ability in the land, even if we have to +strip the railroads and meat trust. We should dot city and country with +the most efficient, sanitary, and beautiful school-houses the world +knows and we should give every American child common school, high +school, and college training and then vocational guidance in earning a +living.</p> + +<p>Is this a dream?</p> + +<p>Can we afford less?</p> + +<p>Consider our so-called educational "problems"; "How may we keep pupils +in the high school?" Feed and clothe them. "Shall we teach Latin, Greek, +and mathematics to the 'masses'?" If they are worth teaching to anybody, +the masses need them most. "Who shall go to college?" Everybody. "When +shall culture training give place to technical education for work?" +Never.</p> + +<p>These questions are not "problems." They are simply "excuses" for +spending less time and money on the next generation. Given ten millions +of dollars a year, what can we best do with the education of a million +children? The real answer is—kill nine hundred and ninety thousand of +them quickly and not gradually, and make thoroughly-trained men and +women of the other ten thousand. But who set the limit of ten million +dollars? Who says it shall not be ten thousand millions, as it ought to +be? You and I say it, and in saying it we sin against the Holy Ghost.</p> + +<p>We sin because in our befuddled brains we have linked money and +education inextricably. We assume that only the wealthy have a real +right to education when, in fact, being born is being given a right to +college training. Our wealth today is, we all know, distributed mainly +by chance inheritance and personal favor and yet we attempt to base <a name="Page_127" id="Page_127" />the +right to education on this foundation. The result is grotesque! We bury +genius; we send it to jail; we ridicule and mock it, while we send +mediocrity and idiocy to college, gilded and crowned. For three hundred +years we have denied black Americans an education and now we exploit +them before a gaping world: See how ignorant and degraded they are! All +they are fit for is education for cotton-picking and dish-washing. When +Dunbar and Taylor happen along, we are torn between something like +shamefaced anger or impatient amazement.</p> + +<p>A world guilty of this last and mightiest war has no right to enjoy or +create until it has made the future safe from another Arkansas or +Rheims. To this there is but one patent way, proved and inescapable, +Education, and that not for me or for you but for the Immortal Child. +And that child is of all races and all colors. All children are the +children of all and not of individuals and families and races. The whole +generation must be trained and guided and out of it as out of a huge +reservoir must be lifted all genius, talent, and intelligence to serve +all the world.<a name="Page_128" id="Page_128" /></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 55%;" /> +<h3><a name="Almighty_Death" id="Almighty_Death" />Almighty Death<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1" /><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>Softly, quite softly—<br /></span> +<span>For I hear, above the murmur of the sea,<br /></span> +<span>Faint and far-fallen footsteps, as of One<br /></span> +<span>Who comes from out beyond the endless ends of Time,<br /></span> +<span>With voice that downward looms thro' singing stars;<br /></span> +<span>Its subtle sound I see thro' these long-darkened eyes,<br /></span> +<span>I hear the Light He bringeth on His hands—<br /></span> +<span>Almighty Death!<br /></span> +<span>Softly, oh, softly, lest He pass me by,<br /></span> +<span>And that unquivering Light toward which my longing soul<br /></span> +<span>And tortured body through these years have writhed,<br /></span> +<span>Fade to the dun darkness of my days.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Softly, full softly, let me rise and greet<br /></span> +<span>The strong, low luting of that long-awaited call;<br /></span> +<span>Swiftly be all my good and going gone,<br /></span> +<span>And this vast veiled and vanquished vigor of my soul<br /></span> +<span>Seek somehow otherwhere its rest and goal,<br /></span> +<span>Where endless spaces stretch,<br /></span> +<span>Where endless time doth moan,<br /></span> +<span>Where endless light doth pour<br /></span> +<span>Thro' the black kingdoms of eternal death.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Then haply I may see what things I have not seen,<br /></span> +<span>Then I may know what things I have not known;<br /></span> +<span>Then may I do my dreams.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129" />Farewell! No sound of idle mourning let there be<br /></span> +<span>To shudder this full silence—save the voice<br /></span> +<span>Of children—little children, white and black,<br /></span> +<span>Whispering the deeds I tried to do for them;<br /></span> +<span>While I at last unguided and alone<br /></span> +<span>Pass softly, full softly.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1" /><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> For Joseph Pulitzer, October 29, 1911.</p></div> + +<div><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130" /></div> + + +<hr style="width: 85%;" /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_IX" id="Chapter_IX" />IX</h2> + +<h3>OF BEAUTY AND DEATH</h3> + + +<p>For long years we of the world gone wild have looked into the face of +death and smiled. Through all our bitter tears we knew how beautiful it +was to die for that which our souls called sufficient. Like all true +beauty this thing of dying was so simple, so matter-of-fact. The boy +clothed in his splendid youth stood before us and laughed in his own +jolly way,—went and was gone. Suddenly the world was full of the +fragrance of sacrifice. We left our digging and burden-bearing; we +turned from our scraping and twisting of things and words; we paused +from our hurrying hither and thither and walking up and down, and asked +in half-whisper: this Death—is this Life? And is its beauty real or +false? And of this heart-questioning I am writing.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>My friend, who is pale and positive, said to me yesterday, as the tired +sun was nodding:</p> + +<p>"You are too sensitive."</p> + +<p>I admit, I am—sensitive. I am artificial. I cringe or am bumptious or +immobile. I am intellectually dishonest, art-blind, and I lack humor.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you stop all this?" she retorts triumphantly.</p> + +<p>You will not let us.</p> + +<p>"There you go, again. You know that I—"</p> + +<p>Wait! I answer. Wait!</p> + +<p>I arise at seven. The milkman has neglected me. He pays little attention +to colored districts. My white neighbor glares elaborately. I walk +softly, lest I disturb him. The children jeer as I pass to work. The +women in the street car withdraw their skirts or prefer to stand. The +policeman is truculent. The elevator man hates to serve Negroes. My <a name="Page_131" id="Page_131" />job +is insecure because the white union wants it and does not want me. I try +to lunch, but no place near will serve me. I go forty blocks to +Marshall's, but the Committee of Fourteen closes Marshall's; they say +white women frequent it.</p> + +<p>"Do all eating places discriminate?"</p> + +<p>No, but how shall I know which do not—except—</p> + +<p>I hurry home through crowds. They mutter or get angry. I go to a +mass-meeting. They stare. I go to a church. "We don't admit niggers!"</p> + +<p>Or perhaps I leave the beaten track. I seek new work. "Our employees +would not work with you; our customers would object."</p> + +<p>I ask to help in social uplift.</p> + +<p>"Why—er—we will write you."</p> + +<p>I enter the free field of science. Every laboratory door is closed and +no endowments are available.</p> + +<p>I seek the universal mistress, Art; the studio door is locked.</p> + +<p>I write literature. "We cannot publish stories of colored folks of that +type." It's the only type I know.</p> + +<p>This is my life. It makes me idiotic. It gives me artificial problems. I +hesitate, I rush, I waver. In fine,—I am sensitive!</p> + +<p>My pale friend looks at me with disbelief and curling tongue.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to sit there and tell me that this is what happens to you +each day?"</p> + +<p>Certainly not, I answer low.</p> + +<p>"Then you only fear it will happen?"</p> + +<p>I fear!</p> + +<p>"Well, haven't you the courage to rise above a—almost a craven fear?"</p> + +<p>Quite—quite craven is my fear, I admit; but the terrible thing +is—these things do happen!</p> + +<p>"But you just said—"</p> + +<p>They do happen. Not all each day,—surely not. But now and then—now +seldom, now, sudden; now after a week, now in a chain of awful minutes; +not everywhere, but anywhere—in Boston, in Atlanta. That's the hell of +it. Imagine spending your life looking for insults or for hiding places +from them—shrinking (instinctively and despite desperate bolsterings of +courage) from blows that are not always but ever; not each day, but each +week, each month, each year. Just, perhaps, as you have choked back the +craven fear and cried, "I am and will be the master of my—"</p> + +<p>"No more tickets downstairs; here's one to the smoking gallery."</p> + +<p>You hesitate. You beat back your suspicions. After all, a cigarette with +Charlie Chaplin—then a white man pushes by—</p> + +<p>"Three in the orchestra."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir." And in he goes.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132" />Suddenly your heart chills. You turn yourself away toward the golden +twinkle of the purple night and hesitate again. What's the use? Why not +always yield—always take what's offered,—always bow to force, whether +of cannon or dislike? Then the great fear surges in your soul, the real +fear—the fear beside which other fears are vain imaginings; the fear +lest right there and then you are losing your own soul; that you are +losing your own soul and the soul of a people; that millions of unborn +children, black and gold and mauve, are being there and then despoiled +by you because you are a coward and dare not fight!</p> + +<p>Suddenly that silly orchestra seat and the cavorting of a comedian with +funny feet become matters of life, death, and immortality; you grasp the +pillars of the universe and strain as you sway back to that befrilled +ticket girl. You grip your soul for riot and murder. You choke and +sputter, and she seeing that you are about to make a "fuss" obeys her +orders and throws the tickets at you in contempt. Then you slink to your +seat and crouch in the darkness before the film, with every tissue +burning! The miserable wave of reaction engulfs you. To think of +compelling puppies to take your hard-earned money; fattening hogs to +hate you and yours; forcing your way among cheap and tawdry idiots—God! +What a night of pleasure!</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Here, then, is beauty and ugliness, a wide vision of world-sacrifice, a +fierce gleam of world-hate. Which is life and what is death and how +shall we face so tantalizing a contradiction? Any explanation must +necessarily be subtle and involved. No pert and easy word of +encouragement, no merely dark despair, can lay hold of the roots of +these things. And first and before all, we cannot forget that this world +is beautiful. Grant all its ugliness and sin—the petty, horrible snarl +of its putrid threads, which few have seen more near or more often than +I—notwithstanding all this, the beauty of this world is not to be +denied.</p> + +<p>Casting my eyes about I dare not let them rest on the beauty of Love and +Friend, for even if my tongue were cunning enough to sing this, the +revelation of reality here is too sacred and the fancy too untrue. Of +one world-beauty alone may we at once be brutally frank and that is the +glory of physical nature; this, though the last of beauties, is divine!</p> + +<p>And so, too, there are depths of human degradation which it is not fair +for us to probe. With all their horrible prevalence, we cannot call them +natural. But may we not compare the least of the world's beauty with the +least of its ugliness—not murder, starvation, and rapine, with love and +friendship and creation—but the glory of sea and sky and city, with the +little hatefulnesses and thoughtfulnesses of race prejudice, <a name="Page_133" id="Page_133" />that out +of such juxtaposition we may, perhaps, deduce some rule of beauty and +life—or death?</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>There mountains hurl themselves against the stars and at their feet lie +black and leaden seas. Above float clouds—white, gray, and inken, while +the clear, impalpable air springs and sparkles like new wine. Last night +we floated on the calm bosom of the sea in the southernmost haven of +Mount Desert. The water flamed and sparkled. The sun had gone, but above +the crooked back of cumulus clouds, dark and pink with radiance, and on +the other sky aloft to the eastward piled the gorgeous-curtained mists +of evening. The radiance faded and a shadowy velvet veiled the +mountains, a humid depth of gloom behind which lurked all the mysteries +of life and death, while above, the clouds hung ashen and dull; lights +twinkled and flashed along the shore, boats glided in the twilight, and +the little puffing of motors droned away. Then was the hour to talk of +life and the meaning of life, while above gleamed silently, suddenly, +star on star.</p> + +<p>Bar Harbor lies beneath a mighty mountain, a great, bare, black mountain +that sleeps above the town; but as you leave, it rises suddenly, +threateningly, until far away on Frenchman's Bay it looms above the town +in withering vastness, as if to call all that little world petty save +itself. Beneath the cool, wide stare of that great mountain, men cannot +live as giddily as in some lesser summer's playground. Before the +unveiled face of nature, as it lies naked on the Maine coast, rises a +certain human awe.</p> + +<p>God molded his world largely and mightily off this marvelous coast and +meant that in the tired days of life men should come and worship here +and renew their spirit. This I have done and turning I go to work again. +As we go, ever the mountains of Mount Desert rise and greet us on our +going—somber, rock-ribbed and silent, looking unmoved on the moving +world, yet conscious of their everlasting strength.</p> + +<p>About us beats the sea—the sail-flecked, restless sea, humming its tune +about our flying keel, unmindful of the voices of men. The land sinks to +meadows, black pine forests, with here and there a blue and wistful +mountain. Then there are islands—bold rocks above the sea, curled +meadows; through and about them roll ships, weather-beaten and patched +of sail, strong-hulled and smoking, light gray and shining. All the +colors of the sea lie about us—gray and yellowing greens and doubtful +blues, blacks not quite black, tinted silvers and golds and dreaming +whites. Long tongues of dark and golden land lick far out into the +tossing waters, and the white gulls sail and scream above them. It is a +mighty coast—ground out and pounded, scarred, crushed, and carven in +massive, frightful lineaments. Everywhere stand the pines—the little +dark and steadfast pines that smile not, neither weep, but wait <a name="Page_134" id="Page_134" />and +wait. Near us lie isles of flesh and blood, white cottages, tiled and +meadowed. Afar lie shadow-lands, high mist-hidden hills, mountains +boldly limned, yet shading to the sky, faint and unreal.</p> + +<p>We skirt the pine-clad shores, chary of men, and know how bitterly +winter kisses these lonely shores to fill yon row of beaked ice houses +that creep up the hills. We are sailing due westward and the sun, yet +two hours high, is blazoning a fiery glory on the sea that spreads and +gleams like some broad, jeweled trail, to where the blue and distant +shadow-land lifts its carven front aloft, leaving, as it gropes, shades +of shadows beyond.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Why do not those who are scarred in the world's battle and hurt by its +hardness travel to these places of beauty and drown themselves in the +utter joy of life? I asked this once sitting in a Southern home. Outside +the spring of a Georgia February was luring gold to the bushes and +languor to the soft air. Around me sat color in human flesh—brown that +crimsoned readily; dim soft-yellow that escaped description; cream-like +duskiness that shadowed to rich tints of autumn leaves. And yet a +suggested journey in the world brought no response.</p> + +<p>"I should think you would like to travel," said the white one.</p> + +<p>But no, the thought of a journey seemed to depress them.</p> + +<p>Did you ever see a "Jim-Crow" waiting-room? There are always exceptions, +as at Greensboro—but usually there is no heat in winter and no air in +summer; with undisturbed loafers and train hands and broken, +disreputable settees; to buy a ticket is torture; you stand and stand +and wait and wait until every white person at the "other window" is +waited on. Then the tired agent yells across, because all the tickets +and money are over there—</p> + +<p>"What d'ye want? What? Where?"</p> + +<p>The agent browbeats and contradicts you, hurries and confuses the +ignorant, gives many persons the wrong change, compels some to purchase +their tickets on the train at a higher price, and sends you and me out +on the platform, burning with indignation and hatred!</p> + +<p>The "Jim-Crow" car is up next the baggage car and engine. It stops out +beyond the covering in the rain or sun or dust. Usually there is no step +to help you climb on and often the car is a smoker cut in two and you +must pass through the white smokers or else they pass through your part, +with swagger and noise and stares. Your compartment is a half or a +quarter or an eighth of the oldest car in service on the road. Unless it +happens to be a thorough express, the plush is caked with dirt, the +floor is grimy, and the windows dirty. An impertinent white newsboy +occupies two seats at the end of the car and importunes you to the point +of rage to buy cheap candy, Coco-Cola, and worthless, if not vulgar, +books. He <a name="Page_135" id="Page_135" />yells and swaggers, while a continued stream of white men +saunters back and forth from the smoker to buy and hear. The white train +crew from the baggage car uses the "Jim-Crow" to lounge in and perform +their toilet. The conductor appropriates two seats for himself and his +papers and yells gruffly for your tickets before the train has scarcely +started. It is best not to ask him for information even in the gentlest +tones. His information is for white persons chiefly. It is difficult to +get lunch or clean water. Lunch rooms either don't serve niggers or +serve them at some dirty and ill-attended hole in the wall. As for +toilet rooms,—don't! If you have to change cars, be wary of junctions +which are usually without accommodation and filled with quarrelsome +white persons who hate a "darky dressed up." You are apt to have the +company of a sheriff and a couple of meek or sullen black prisoners on +part of your way and dirty colored section hands will pour in toward +night and drive you to the smallest corner.</p> + +<p>"No," said the little lady in the corner (she looked like an ivory cameo +and her dress flowed on her like a caress), "we don't travel much."</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Pessimism is cowardice. The man who cannot frankly acknowledge the +"Jim-Crow" car as a fact and yet live and hope is simply afraid either +of himself or of the world. There is not in the world a more disgraceful +denial of human brotherhood than the "Jim-Crow" car of the southern +United States; but, too, just as true, there is nothing more beautiful +in the universe than sunset and moonlight on Montego Bay in far Jamaica. +And both things are true and both belong to this our world, and neither +can be denied.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>The sun, prepared to cross that awful border which men call Night and +Death, marshals his hosts. I seem to see the spears of mighty horsemen +flash golden in the light; empurpled banners flame afar, and the low +thunder of marching hosts thrills with the thunder of the sea. Athwart +his own path, screening a face of fire, he throws cloud masses, masking +his trained guns. And then the miracle is done. The host passes with +roar too vast for human ear and the sun is set, leaving the frightened +moon and blinded stars.</p> + +<p>In the dusk the green-gold palms turn their star-like faces and stretch +their fan-like fingers, lifting themselves proudly, lest any lordly leaf +should know the taint of earth.</p> + +<p>Out from the isle the serpent hill thrusts its great length around the +bay, shouldering back the waters and the shadows. Ghost rains sweep +down, smearing his rugged sides, yet on he writhes, undulant with pine +and palm, gleaming until his low, sharp head and lambent tongue, grown +gray and pale and silver in the dying day, kisses the molten gold of the +golden sea.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136" />Then comes the moon. Like fireflies nesting in the hand of God gleams +the city, dim-swathed by fairy palms. A long, thin thumb, mist-mighty, +points shadowy to the Spanish Main, while through the fingers foam the +Seven Seas. Above the calm and gold-green moon, beneath the wind-wet +earth; and here, alone, my soul enchained, enchanted!</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>From such heights of holiness men turn to master the world. All the +pettiness of life drops away and it becomes a great battle before the +Lord. His trumpet,—where does it sound and whither? I go. I saw Montego +Bay at the beginning of the World War. The cry for service as high as +heaven, as wide as human feeling, seemed filling the earth. What were +petty slights, silly insults, paltry problems, beside this call to do +and dare and die? We black folk offered our services to fight. What +happened? Most Americans have forgotten the extraordinary series of +events which worked the feelings of black America to fever heat.</p> + +<p>First was the refusal to accept Negro volunteers for the army, except in +the four black regiments already established. While the nation was +combing the country for volunteers for the regular army, it would not +let the American Negro furnish even his proportionate quota of regular +soldiers. This led to some grim bantering among Negroes:</p> + +<p>"Why do you want to volunteer?" asked many. "Why should you fight for +this country?"</p> + +<p>Before we had chance to reply to this, there came the army draft bill +and the proposal by Vardaman and his ilk to except Negroes. We protested +to Washington in various ways, and while we were insisting that colored +men should be drafted just as other citizens, the bill went through with +two little "jokers."</p> + +<p>First, it provided that Negroes should be drafted, but trained in +"separate" units; and, secondly, it somewhat ambiguously permitted men +to be drafted for "labor."</p> + +<p>A wave of fear and unrest spread among Negroes and while we were looking +at both these provisions askance, suddenly we received the draft +registration blank. It directed persons "of African descent" to "tear +off the corner!" Probably never before in the history of the United +States has a portion of the citizens been so openly and crassly +discriminated against by action of the general government. It was +disheartening, and on top of it came the celebrated "German plots." It +was alleged in various parts of the country with singular unanimity that +Germans were working among the Negroes, and it was further intimated +that this would make the Negroes too dangerous an element to trust with +guns. To us, of course, it looked as though the discovery and the +proposition came from the same thinly-veiled sources.</p> + +<p>Considering carefully this series of happenings the American Negro +<a name="Page_137" id="Page_137" />sensed an approaching crisis and faced a puzzling dilemma. Here was +evidently preparing fertile ground for the spread of disloyalty and +resentment among the black masses, as they were forced to choose +apparently between forced labor or a "Jim-Crow" draft. Manifestly when a +minority group is thus segregated and forced out of the nation, they can +in reason do but one thing—take advantage of the disadvantage. In this +case we demanded colored officers for the colored troops.</p> + +<p>General Wood was early approached and asked to admit suitable candidates +to Plattsburg. He refused. We thereupon pressed the government for a +"separate" camp for the training of Negro officers. Not only did the War +Department hesitate at this request, but strong opposition arose among +colored people themselves. They said we were going too far. "We will +obey the law, but to ask for voluntary segregation is to insult +ourselves." But strong, sober second thought came to our rescue. We said +to our protesting brothers: "We face a condition, not a theory. There is +not the slightest chance of our being admitted to white camps; +therefore, it is either a case of a 'Jim-Crow' officers' training camp +or no colored officers. Of the two things no colored officers would be +the greater calamity."</p> + +<p>Thus we gradually made up our minds. But the War Department still +hesitated. It was besieged, and when it presented its final argument, +"We have no place for such a camp," the trustees of Howard University +said: "Take our campus." Eventually twelve hundred colored cadets were +assembled at Fort Des Moines for officers' training.</p> + +<p>The city of Des Moines promptly protested, but it finally changed its +mind. Des Moines never before had seen such a class of colored men. They +rapidly became popular with all classes and many encomiums were passed +upon their conduct. Their commanding colonel pronounced their work first +class and declared that they presented excellent material for officers.</p> + +<p>Meantime, with one accord, the thought of the colored people turned +toward Colonel Young, their highest officer in the regular army. Charles +Young is a heroic figure. He is the typical soldier,—silent, +uncomplaining, brave, and efficient! From his days at West Point +throughout his thirty years of service he has taken whatever task was +assigned him and performed it efficiently; and there is no doubt but +that the army has been almost merciless in the requirements which it has +put upon this splendid officer. He came through all with flying colors. +In Haiti, in Liberia, in western camps, in the Sequoia Forests of +California, and finally with Pershing in Mexico,—in every case he +triumphed. Just at the time we were looking to the United States +government to call him to head the colored officers' training at Des +Moines, he was retired from the army, because of "high blood pressure!" +<a name="Page_138" id="Page_138" />There is no disputing army surgeons and their judgment in this case may +be justified, but coming at the time it did, nearly every Negro in the +United States believed that the "high blood pressure" that retired +Colonel Young was in the prejudiced heads of the Southern oligarchy who +were determined that no American Negro should ever wear the stars of a +General.</p> + +<p>To say that Negroes of the United States were disheartened at the +retirement of Colonel Young is to put it mildly,—but there was more +trouble. The provision that Negroes must be trained separately looked +simple and was simple in places where there were large Negro +contingents, but in the North with solitary Negroes drafted here and +there we had some extraordinary developments. Regiments appeared with +one Negro where the Negro had to be separated like a pest and put into a +house or even a village by himself while the commander frantically +telegraphed to Washington. Small wonder that one poor fellow in Ohio +solved the problem by cutting his throat. The whole process of drafting +Negroes had to be held up until the government could find methods and +places for assembling them.</p> + +<p>Then came Houston. In a moment the nation forgot the whole record of one +of the most celebrated regiments in the United States Army and its +splendid service in the Indian Wars and in the Philippines. It was the +first regiment mobilized in the Spanish-American War and it was the +regiment that volunteered to a man to clean up the yellow fever camps +when others hesitated. It was one of the regiments to which Pershing +said in December:</p> + +<p>"Men, I am authorized by Congress to tell you all that our people back +in the States are mightily glad and proud at the way the soldiers have +conducted themselves while in Mexico, and I, General Pershing, can say +with pride that a finer body of men never stood under the flag of our +nation than we find here tonight."</p> + +<p>The nation, also, forgot the deep resentment mixed with the pale ghost +of fear which Negro soldiers call up in the breasts of the white South. +It is not so much that they fear that the Negro will strike if he gets a +chance, but rather that they assume with curious unanimity that he has +<i>reason</i> to strike, that any other persons in his circumstances or +treated as he is would rebel. Instead of seeking to relieve the cause of +such a possible feeling, most of them strain every effort to bottle up +the black man's resentment. Is it inconceivable that now and then it +bursts all bounds, as at Brownsville and Houston?</p> + +<p>So in the midst of this mental turmoil came Houston and East St. Louis. +At Houston black soldiers, goaded and insulted, suddenly went wild and +"shot up" the town. At East St. Louis white strikers on war work killed +and mobbed Negro workingmen, and as a result 19 colored soldiers <a name="Page_139" id="Page_139" />were +hanged and 51 imprisoned for life for killing 17 whites at Houston, +while for killing 125 Negroes in East St. Louis, 20 white men were +imprisoned, none for more than 15 years, and 10 colored men with them.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Once upon a time I took a great journey in this land to three of the +ends of our world and over seven thousand mighty miles. I saw the grim +desert and the high ramparts of the Rocky Mountains. Three days I flew +from the silver beauty of Seattle to the somber whirl of Kansas City. +Three days I flew from the brute might of Chicago to the air of the +Angels in California, scented with golden flowers, where the homes of +men crouch low and loving on the good, broad earth, as though they were +kissing her blossoms. Three days I flew through the empire of Texas, but +all these shall be tales untold, for in all this journey I saw but one +thing that lived and will live eternal in my soul,—the Grand Cañon.</p> + +<p>It is a sudden void in the bosom of the earth, down to its entrails—a +wound where the dull titanic knife has turned and twisted in the hole, +leaving its edges livid, scarred, jagged, and pulsing over the white, +and red, and purple of its mighty flesh, while down below—down, down +below, in black and severed vein, boils the dull and sullen flood of the +Colorado.</p> + +<p>It is awful. There can be nothing like it. It is the earth and sky gone +stark and raving mad. The mountains up-twirled, disbodied and inverted, +stand on their peaks and throw their bowels to the sky. Their earth is +air; their ether blood-red rock engreened. You stand upon their roots +and fall into their pinnacles, a mighty mile.</p> + +<p>Behold this mauve and purple mocking of time and space! See yonder peak! +No human foot has trod it. Into that blue shadow only the eye of God has +looked. Listen to the accents of that gorge which mutters: "Before +Abraham was, I am." Is yonder wall a hedge of black or is it the rampart +between heaven and hell? I see greens,—is it moss or giant pines? I see +specks that may be boulders. Ever the winds sigh and drop into those +sun-swept silences. Ever the gorge lies motionless, unmoved, until I +fear. It is a grim thing, unholy, terrible! It is human—some mighty +drama unseen, unheard, is playing there its tragedies or mocking comedy, +and the laugh of endless years is shrieking onward from peak to peak, +unheard, unechoed, and unknown.</p> + +<p>One throws a rock into the abyss. It gives back no sound. It falls on +silence—the voice of its thunders cannot reach so far. It is not—it +cannot be a mere, inert, unfeeling, brute fact—its grandeur is too +serene—its beauty too divine! It is not red, and blue, and green, but, +ah! the shadows and the shades of all the world, glad colorings touched +with a hesitant spiritual delicacy. What does it mean—what does it +mean? Tell me, black and boiling water!</p> + +<p><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140" />It is not real. It is but shadows. The shading of eternity. Last night +yonder tesselated palace was gloom—dark, brooding thought and sin, +while hither rose the mountains of the sun, golden, blazing, +ensanguined. It was a dream. This blue and brilliant morning shows all +those burning peaks alight, while here, shapeless, mistful, brood the +shadowed towers.</p> + +<p>I have been down into the entrails of earth—down, down by straight and +staring cliffs—down by sounding waters and sun-strewn meadows; down by +green pastures and still waters, by great, steep chasms—down by the +gnarled and twisted fists of God to the deep, sad moan of the yellow +river that did this thing of wonder,—a little winding river with death +in its depth and a crown of glory in its flying hair.</p> + +<p>I have seen what eye of man was never meant to see. I have profaned the +sanctuary. I have looked upon the dread disrobing of the Night, and yet +I live. Ere I hid my head she was standing in her cavern halls, glowing +coldly westward—her feet were blackness: her robes, empurpled, flowed +mistily from shoulder down in formless folds of folds; her head, +pine-crowned, was set with jeweled stars. I turned away and dreamed—the +cañon,—the awful, its depths called; its heights shuddered. Then +suddenly I arose and looked. Her robes were falling. At dim-dawn they +hung purplish-green and black. Slowly she stripped them from her gaunt +and shapely limbs—her cold, gray garments shot with shadows stood +revealed. Down dropped the black-blue robes, gray-pearled and slipped, +leaving a filmy, silken, misty thing, and underneath I glimpsed her +limbs of utter light.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>My God! For what am I thankful this night? For nothing. For nothing but +the most commonplace of commonplaces; a table of gentlewomen and +gentlemen—soft-spoken, sweet-tempered, full of human sympathy, who made +me, a stranger, one of them. Ours was a fellowship of common books, +common knowledge, mighty aims. We could laugh and joke and think as +friends—and the Thing—the hateful, murderous, dirty Thing which in +American we call "Nigger-hatred" was not only not there—it could not +even be understood. It was a curious monstrosity at which civilized folk +laughed or looked puzzled. There was no elegant and elaborate +condescension of—"We once had a colored servant"—"My father was an +Abolitionist"—"I've always been interested in <i>your people</i>"—there was +only the community of kindred souls, the delicate reverence for the +Thought that led, the quick deference to the guest. You left in quiet +regret, knowing that they were not discussing you behind your back with +lies and license. God! It was simply human decency and I had to be +thankful for it because I am an American Negro, and white America, with +saving exceptions, is cruel to everything that has <a name="Page_141" id="Page_141" />black blood—and +this was Paris, in the years of salvation, 1919. Fellow blacks, we must +join the democracy of Europe.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Toul! Dim through the deepening dark of early afternoon, I saw its +towers gloom dusky toward the murk of heaven. We wound in misty roads +and dropped upon the city through the great throats of its walled +bastions. There lay France—a strange, unknown, unfamiliar France. The +city was dispossessed. Through its streets—its narrow, winding streets, +old and low and dark, carven and quaint,—poured thousands upon +thousands of strange feet of khaki-clad foreigners, and the echoes threw +back awkward syllables that were never French. Here was France beaten to +her knees yet fighting as never nation fought before, calling in her +death agony across the seas till her help came and with all its strut +and careless braggadocio saved the worthiest nation of the world from +the wickedest fate ever plotted by Fools.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Tim Brimm was playing by the town-pump. Tim Brimm and the bugles of +Harlem blared in the little streets of Maron in far Lorraine. The tiny +streets were seas of mud. Dank mist and rain sifted through the cold air +above the blue Moselle. Soldiers—soldiers everywhere—black soldiers, +boys of Washington, Alabama, Philadelphia, Mississippi. Wild and sweet +and wooing leapt the strains upon the air. French children gazed in +wonder—women left their washing. Up in the window stood a black Major, +a Captain, a Teacher, and I—with tears behind our smiling eyes. Tim +Brimm was playing by the town-pump.</p> + +<p>The audience was framed in smoke. It rose ghost-like out of +memories—bitter memories of the officer near dead of pneumonia whose +pain was lighted up by the nurses waiting to know whether he must be +"Jim-Crowed" with privates or not. Memories of that great last morning +when the thunders of hell called the Ninety-second to its last drive. +Memories of bitter humiliations, determined triumphs, great victories, +and bugle-calls that sounded from earth to heaven. Like memories framed +in the breath of God, my audience peered in upon me—good, brown faces +with great, kind, beautiful eyes—black soldiers of America rescuing +beloved France—and the words came in praise and benediction there in +the "Y," with its little stock of cigarettes and candies and its rusty +wood stove.</p> + +<p>"<i>Alors</i>," said Madame, "<i>quatre sont morts</i>"—four dead—four tall, +strong sons dead for France—sons like the sweet and blue-eyed daughter +who was hiding her brave smile in the dusk. It was a tiny stone house +whose front window lipped the passing sidewalk where ever tramped the +feet of black soldiers marching home. There was a cavernous wardrobe, a +great fireplace invaded by a new and jaunty iron stove. <a name="Page_142" id="Page_142" />Vast, thick +piles of bedding rose in yonder corner. Without was the crowded kitchen +and up a half-stair was our bedroom that gave upon a tiny court with +arched stone staircase and one green tree. We were a touching family +party held together by a great sorrow and a great joy. How we laughed +over the salad that got brandy instead of vinegar—how we ate the golden +pile of fried potatoes and how we pored over the post-card from the +Lieutenant of the Senegalese—dear little vale of crushed and risen +France, in the day when Negroes went "over the top" at Pont-à-Mousson.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Paris, Paris by purple façade of the opera, the crowd on the Boulevard +des Italiens and the great swing of the Champs Elysées. But not the +Paris the world knows. Paris with its soul cut to the core—feverish, +crowded, nervous, hurried; full of uniforms and mourning bands, with +cafés closed at 9:30—no sugar, scarce bread, and tears so interwined +with joy that there is scant difference. Paris has been dreaming a +nightmare, and though she awakes, the grim terror is upon her—it lies +on the sand-closed art treasures of the Louvre. Only the flowers are +there, always the flowers, the Roses of England and the Lilies of +France.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>New York! Behind the Liberty that faces free France rise the white +cliffs of Manhattan, tier on tier, with a curving pinnacle, towers +square and twin, a giant inkwell daintily stoppered, an ancient pyramid +enthroned; beneath, low ramparts wide and mighty; while above, +faint-limned against the turbulent sky, looms the vast grace of that +Cathedral of the Purchased and Purchasing Poor, topping the world and +pointing higher.</p> + +<p>Yonder the gray cobwebs of the Brooklyn bridges leap the sea, and here +creep the argosies from all earth's ends. We move to this swift home on +dun and swelling waters and hear as we come the heartbeats of the new +world.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>New York and night from the Brooklyn Bridge: The bees and fireflies flit +and twinkle in their vast hives; curved clouds like the breath of gods +hover between the towers and the moon. One hears the hiss of lightnings, +the deep thunder of human things, and a fevered breathing as of some +attendant and invincible Powers. The glow of burning millions melts +outward into dim and fairy outlines until afar the liquid music born of +rushing crowds drips like a benediction on the sea.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>New York and morning: the sun is kissing the timid dew in Central Park, +and from the Fountain of Plenty one looks along that world street, Fifth +Avenue, and walks toward town. The earth life and curves graciously down +from the older mansions of princes to the newer shops of <a name="Page_143" id="Page_143" />luxury. Egypt +and Abyssinia, Paris and Damascus, London and India caress you by the +way; churches stand aloof while the shops swell to emporiums. But all +this is nothing. Everything is mankind. Humanity stands and flies and +walks and rolls about—the poor, the priceless, the world-known and the +forgotten; child and grandfather, king and leman—the pageant of the +world goes by, set in a frame of stone and jewels, clothed in scarlet +and rags. Princes Street and the Elysian Fields, the Strand and the +Ringstrasse—these are the Ways of the World today.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>New York and twilight, there where the Sixth Avenue "L" rises and leaps +above the tenements into the free air at 110th Street. It circles like a +bird with heaven and St. John's above and earth and the sweet green and +gold of the Park beneath. Beyond lie all the blue mists and mysteries of +distance; beneath, the city rushes and crawls. Behind echo all the roar +and war and care and maze of the wide city set in its sullen darkening +walls, flashing weird and crimson farewells. Out at the sides the stars +twinkle.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Again New York and Night and Harlem. A dark city of fifty thousand rises +like magic from the earth. Gone is the white world, the pale lips, the +lank hair; gone is the West and North—the East and South is here +triumphant. The street is crowd and leisure and laughter. Everywhere +black eyes, black and brown, and frizzled hair curled and sleek, and +skins that riot with luscious color and deep, burning blood. Humanity is +packed dense in high piles of close-knit homes that lie in layers above +gray shops of food and clothes and drink, with here and there a +moving-picture show. Orators declaim on the corners, lovers lark in the +streets, gamblers glide by the saloons, workers lounge wearily home. +Children scream and run and frolic, and all is good and human and +beautiful and ugly and evil, even as Life is elsewhere.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>And then—the Veil. It drops as drops the night on southern seas—vast, +sudden, unanswering. There is Hate behind it, and Cruelty and Tears. As +one peers through its intricate, unfathomable pattern of ancient, old, +old design, one sees blood and guilt and misunderstanding. And yet it +hangs there, this Veil, between Then and Now, between Pale and Colored +and Black and White—between You and Me. Surely it is a thought-thing, +tenuous, intangible; yet just as surely is it true and terrible and not +in our little day may you and I lift it. We may feverishly unravel its +edges and even climb slow with giant shears to where its ringed and +gilded top nestles close to the throne of God. But as we work and climb +we shall see through streaming eyes and hear with aching ears, lynching +and murder, cheating and despising, degrading <a name="Page_144" id="Page_144" />and lying, so flashed and +fleshed through this vast hanging darkness that the Doer never sees the +Deed and the Victim knows not the Victor and Each hates All in wild and +bitter ignorance. Listen, O Isles, to these Voices from within the Veil, +for they portray the most human hurt of the Twentieth Cycle of that poor +Jesus who was called the Christ!</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>There is something in the nature of Beauty that demands an end. Ugliness +may be indefinite. It may trail off into gray endlessness. But Beauty +must be complete—whether it be a field of poppies or a great life,—it +must end, and the End is part and triumph of the Beauty. I know there +are those who envisage a beauty eternal. But I cannot. I can dream of +great and never-ending processions of beautiful things and visions and +acts. But each must be complete or it cannot for me exist.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, Ugliness to me is eternal, not in the essence but in +its incompleteness; but its eternity does not daunt me, for its eternal +unfulfilment is a cause of joy. There is in it nothing new or +unexpected; it is the old evil stretching out and ever seeking the end +it cannot find; it may coil and writhe and recur in endless battle to +days without end, but it is the same human ill and bitter hurt. But +Beauty is fulfilment. It satisfies. It is always new and strange. It is +the reasonable thing. Its end is Death—the sweet silence of perfection, +the calm and balance of utter music. Therein is the triumph of Beauty.</p> + +<p>So strong is the spell of beauty that there are those who, contradicting +their own knowledge and experience, try to say that all is beauty. They +are called optimists, and they lie. All is not beauty. Ugliness and hate +and ill are here with all their contradiction and illogic; they will +always be here—perhaps, God send, with lessened volume and force, but +here and eternal, while beauty triumphs in its great completion—Death. +We cannot conjure the end of all ugliness in eternal beauty, for beauty +by its very being and definition has in each definition its ends and +limits; but while beauty lies implicit and revealed in its end, ugliness +writhes on in darkness forever. So the ugliness of continual birth +fulfils itself and conquers gloriously only in the beautiful end, Death.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>At last to us all comes happiness, there in the Court of Peace, where +the dead lie so still and calm and good. If we were not dead we would +lie and listen to the flowers grow. We would hear the birds sing and see +how the rain rises and blushes and burns and pales and dies in beauty. +We would see spring, summer, and the red riot of autumn, and then in +winter, beneath the soft white snow, sleep and dream of dreams. But we +know that being dead, our Happiness is a fine and finished thing and +that ten, a hundred, and a thousand years, we shall lie at rest, unhurt +in the Court of Peace.<a name="Page_145" id="Page_145" /></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 55%;" /> +<h3><a name="The_Prayers_of_God" id="The_Prayers_of_God" /><i>The Prayers of God</i></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>Name of God's Name!<br /></span> +<span>Red murder reigns;<br /></span> +<span>All hell is loose;<br /></span> +<span>On gold autumnal air<br /></span> +<span>Walk grinning devils, barbed and hoofed;<br /></span> +<span>While high on hills of hate,<br /></span> +<span>Black-blossomed, crimson-sky'd,<br /></span> +<span>Thou sittest, dumb.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Father Almighty!<br /></span> +<span>This earth is mad!<br /></span> +<span>Palsied, our cunning hands;<br /></span> +<span>Rotten, our gold;<br /></span> +<span>Our argosies reel and stagger<br /></span> +<span>Over empty seas;<br /></span> +<span>All the long aisles<br /></span> +<span>Of Thy Great Temples, God,<br /></span> +<span>Stink with the entrails<br /></span> +<span>Of our souls.<br /></span> +<span>And Thou art dumb.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Above the thunder of Thy Thunders, Lord,<br /></span> +<span>Lightening Thy Lightnings,<br /></span> +<span>Rings and roars<br /></span> +<span>The dark damnation<br /></span> +<span>Of this hell of war.<br /></span> +<span>Red piles the pulp of hearts and heads<br /></span> +<span>And little children's hands.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Allah!<br /></span> +<span>Elohim!<br /></span> +<span>Very God of God!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146" />Death is here!<br /></span> +<span>Dead are the living; deep—dead the dead.<br /></span> +<span>Dying are earth's unborn—<br /></span> +<span>The babes' wide eyes of genius and of joy,<br /></span> +<span>Poems and prayers, sun-glows and earth-songs,<br /></span> +<span>Great-pictured dreams,<br /></span> +<span>Enmarbled phantasies,<br /></span> +<span>High hymning heavens—all<br /></span> +<span>In this dread night<br /></span> +<span>Writhe and shriek and choke and die<br /></span> +<span>This long ghost-night—<br /></span> +<span>While Thou art dumb.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Have mercy!<br /></span> +<span>Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!<br /></span> +<span>Stand forth, unveil Thy Face,<br /></span> +<span>Pour down the light<br /></span> +<span>That seethes above Thy Throne,<br /></span> +<span>And blaze this devil's dance to darkness!<br /></span> +<span>Hear!<br /></span> +<span>Speak!<br /></span> +<span>In Christ's Great Name—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>I hear!<br /></span> +<span>Forgive me, God!<br /></span> +<span>Above the thunder I hearkened;<br /></span> +<span>Beneath the silence, now,—<br /></span> +<span>I hear!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>(Wait, God, a little space.<br /></span> +<span>It is so strange to talk with Thee—<br /></span> +<span>Alone!)<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>This gold?<br /></span> +<span>I took it.<br /></span> +<span>Is it Thine?<br /></span> +<span>Forgive; I did not know.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Blood? Is it wet with blood?<br /></span> +<span>'Tis from my brother's hands.<br /></span> +<span>(I know; his hands are mine.)<br /></span> +<span>It flowed for Thee, O Lord.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147" />War? Not so; not war—<br /></span> +<span>Dominion, Lord, and over black, not white;<br /></span> +<span>Black, brown, and fawn,<br /></span> +<span>And not Thy Chosen Brood, O God,<br /></span> +<span>We murdered.<br /></span> +<span>To build Thy Kingdom,<br /></span> +<span>To drape our wives and little ones,<br /></span> +<span>And set their souls a-glitter—<br /></span> +<span>For this we killed these lesser breeds<br /></span> +<span>And civilized their dead,<br /></span> +<span>Raping red rubber, diamonds, cocoa, gold!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>For this, too, once, and in Thy Name,<br /></span> +<span>I lynched a Nigger—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">(He raved and writhed,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">I heard him cry,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">I felt the life-light leap and lie,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">I saw him crackle there, on high,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">I watched him wither!)<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Thou?</i><br /></span> +<span><i>Thee?</i><br /></span> +<span><i>I lynched Thee?</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Awake me, God! I sleep!<br /></span> +<span>What was that awful word Thou saidst?<br /></span> +<span>That black and riven thing—was it Thee?<br /></span> +<span>That gasp—was it Thine?<br /></span> +<span>This pain—is it Thine?<br /></span> +<span>Are, then, these bullets piercing Thee?<br /></span> +<span>Have all the wars of all the world,<br /></span> +<span>Down all dim time, drawn blood from Thee?<br /></span> +<span>Have all the lies and thefts and hates—<br /></span> +<span>Is this Thy Crucifixion, God,<br /></span> +<span>And not that funny, little cross,<br /></span> +<span>With vinegar and thorns?<br /></span> +<span>Is this Thy kingdom here, not there,<br /></span> +<span>This stone and stucco drift of dreams?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Help!<br /></span> +<span>I sense that low and awful cry—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148" />Who cries?<br /></span> +<span>Who weeps?<br /></span> +<span>With silent sob that rends and tears—<br /></span> +<span>Can God sob?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Who prays?<br /></span> +<span>I hear strong prayers throng by,<br /></span> +<span>Like mighty winds on dusky moors—<br /></span> +<span>Can God pray?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Prayest Thou, Lord, and to me?<br /></span> +<span><i>Thou</i> needest me?<br /></span> +<span>Thou <i>needest</i> me?<br /></span> +<span>Thou needest <i>me</i>?<br /></span> +<span>Poor, wounded soul!<br /></span> +<span>Of this I never dreamed. I thought—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Courage, God,</i><br /></span> +<span><i>I come!</i><br /></span> +</div></div> +<div><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149" /></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 85%;" /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_X" id="Chapter_X" />X</h2> + +<h3>THE COMET</h3> + + +<p>He stood a moment on the steps of the bank, watching the human river +that swirled down Broadway. Few noticed him. Few ever noticed him save +in a way that stung. He was outside the world—"nothing!" as he said +bitterly. Bits of the words of the walkers came to him.</p> + +<p>"The comet?"</p> + +<p>"The comet——"</p> + +<p>Everybody was talking of it. Even the president, as he entered, smiled +patronizingly at him, and asked:</p> + +<p>"Well, Jim, are you scared?"</p> + +<p>"No," said the messenger shortly.</p> + +<p>"I thought we'd journeyed through the comet's tail once," broke in the +junior clerk affably.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that was Halley's," said the president; "this is a new comet, quite +a stranger, they say—wonderful, wonderful! I saw it last night. Oh, by +the way, Jim," turning again to the messenger, "I want you to go down +into the lower vaults today."</p> + +<p>The messenger followed the president silently. Of course, they wanted +<i>him</i> to go down to the lower vaults. It was too dangerous for more +valuable men. He smiled grimly and listened.</p> + +<p>"Everything of value has been moved out since the water began to seep +in," said the president; "but we miss two volumes of old records. +Suppose you nose around down there,—it isn't very pleasant, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Not very," said the messenger, as he walked out.</p> + +<p>"Well, Jim, the tail of the new comet hits us at noon this time," said +the vault clerk, as he passed over the keys; but the messenger passed +silently down the stairs. Down he went beneath Broadway, where the dim +light filtered through the feet of hurrying men; down to the dark +<a name="Page_150" id="Page_150" />basement beneath; down into the blackness and silence beneath that +lowest cavern. Here with his dark lantern he groped in the bowels of the +earth, under the world.</p> + +<p>He drew a long breath as he threw back the last great iron door and +stepped into the fetid slime within. Here at last was peace, and he +groped moodily forward. A great rat leaped past him and cobwebs crept +across his face. He felt carefully around the room, shelf by shelf, on +the muddied floor, and in crevice and corner. Nothing. Then he went back +to the far end, where somehow the wall felt different. He sounded and +pushed and pried. Nothing. He started away. Then something brought him +back. He was sounding and working again when suddenly the whole black +wall swung as on mighty hinges, and blackness yawned beyond. He peered +in; it was evidently a secret vault—some hiding place of the old bank +unknown in newer times. He entered hesitatingly. It was a long, narrow +room with shelves, and at the far end, an old iron chest. On a high +shelf lay the two missing volumes of records, and others. He put them +carefully aside and stepped to the chest. It was old, strong, and rusty. +He looked at the vast and old-fashioned lock and flashed his light on +the hinges. They were deeply incrusted with rust. Looking about, he +found a bit of iron and began to pry. The rust had eaten a hundred +years, and it had gone deep. Slowly, wearily, the old lid lifted, and +with a last, low groan lay bare its treasure—and he saw the dull sheen +of gold!</p> + +<p>"Boom!"</p> + +<p>A low, grinding, reverberating crash struck upon his ear. He started up +and looked about. All was black and still. He groped for his light and +swung it about him. Then he knew! The great stone door had swung to. He +forgot the gold and looked death squarely in the face. Then with a sigh +he went methodically to work. The cold sweat stood on his forehead; but +he searched, pounded, pushed, and worked until after what seemed endless +hours his hand struck a cold bit of metal and the great door swung again +harshly on its hinges, and then, striking against something soft and +heavy, stopped. He had just room to squeeze through. There lay the body +of the vault clerk, cold and stiff. He stared at it, and then felt sick +and nauseated. The air seemed unaccountably foul, with a strong, +peculiar odor. He stepped forward, clutched at the air, and fell +fainting across the corpse.</p> + +<p>He awoke with a sense of horror, leaped from the body, and groped up the +stairs, calling to the guard. The watchman sat as if asleep, with the +gate swinging free. With one glance at him the messenger hurried up to +the sub-vault. In vain he called to the guards. His voice echoed and +re-echoed weirdly. Up into the great basement he rushed. Here another +guard lay prostrate on his face, cold and still. A fear arose in the +messenger's heart. He dashed up to the cellar floor, up into the bank. +The stillness of death <a name="Page_151" id="Page_151" />lay everywhere and everywhere bowed, bent, and +stretched the silent forms of men. The messenger paused and glanced +about. He was not a man easily moved; but the sight was appalling! +"Robbery and murder," he whispered slowly to himself as he saw the +twisted, oozing mouth of the president where he lay half-buried on his +desk. Then a new thought seized him: If they found him here alone—with +all this money and all these dead men—what would his life be worth? He +glanced about, tiptoed cautiously to a side door, and again looked +behind. Quietly he turned the latch and stepped out into Wall Street.</p> + +<p>How silent the street was! Not a soul was stirring, and yet it was +high-noon—Wall Street? Broadway? He glanced almost wildly up and down, +then across the street, and as he looked, a sickening horror froze in +his limbs. With a choking cry of utter fright he lunged, leaned giddily +against the cold building, and stared helplessly at the sight.</p> + +<p>In the great stone doorway a hundred men and women and children lay +crushed and twisted and jammed, forced into that great, gaping doorway +like refuse in a can—as if in one wild, frantic rush to safety, they +had rushed and ground themselves to death. Slowly the messenger crept +along the walls, wetting his parched mouth and trying to comprehend, +stilling the tremor in his limbs and the rising terror in his heart. He +met a business man, silk-hatted and frock-coated, who had crept, too, +along that smooth wall and stood now stone dead with wonder written on +his lips. The messenger turned his eyes hastily away and sought the +curb. A woman leaned wearily against the signpost, her head bowed +motionless on her lace and silken bosom. Before her stood a street car, +silent, and within—but the messenger but glanced and hurried on. A +grimy newsboy sat in the gutter with the "last edition" in his uplifted +hand: "Danger!" screamed its black headlines. "Warnings wired around the +world. The Comet's tail sweeps past us at noon. Deadly gases expected. +Close doors and windows. Seek the cellar." The messenger read and +staggered on. Far out from a window above, a girl lay with gasping face +and sleevelets on her arms. On a store step sat a little, sweet-faced +girl looking upward toward the skies, and in the carriage by her +lay—but the messenger looked no longer. The cords gave way—the terror +burst in his veins, and with one great, gasping cry he sprang +desperately forward and ran,—ran as only the frightened run, shrieking +and fighting the air until with one last wail of pain he sank on the +grass of Madison Square and lay prone and still.</p> + +<p>When he rose, he gave no glance at the still and silent forms on the +benches, but, going to a fountain, bathed his face; then hiding himself +in a corner away from the drama of death, he quietly gripped himself and +thought the thing through: The comet had swept the earth and this was +the end. Was everybody dead? He must search and see.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152" />He knew that he must steady himself and keep calm, or he would go +insane. First he must go to a restaurant. He walked up Fifth Avenue to a +famous hostelry and entered its gorgeous, ghost-haunted halls. He beat +back the nausea, and, seizing a tray from dead hands, hurried into the +street and ate ravenously, hiding to keep out the sights.</p> + +<p>"Yesterday, they would not have served me," he whispered, as he forced +the food down.</p> + +<p>Then he started up the street,—looking, peering, telephoning, ringing +alarms; silent, silent all. Was nobody—nobody—he dared not think the +thought and hurried on.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he stopped still. He had forgotten. My God! How could he have +forgotten? He must rush to the subway—then he almost laughed. No—a +car; if he could find a Ford. He saw one. Gently he lifted off its +burden, and took his place on the seat. He tested the throttle. There +was gas. He glided off, shivering, and drove up the street. Everywhere +stood, leaned, lounged, and lay the dead, in grim and awful silence. On +he ran past an automobile, wrecked and overturned; past another, filled +with a gay party whose smiles yet lingered on their death-struck lips; +on past crowds and groups of cars, pausing by dead policemen; at 42nd +Street he had to detour to Park Avenue to avoid the dead congestion. He +came back on Fifth Avenue at 57th and flew past the Plaza and by the +park with its hushed babies and silent throng, until as he was rushing +past 72nd Street he heard a sharp cry, and saw a living form leaning +wildly out an upper window. He gasped. The human voice sounded in his +ears like the voice of God.</p> + +<p>"Hello—hello—help, in God's name!" wailed the woman. "There's a dead +girl in here and a man and—and see yonder dead men lying in the street +and dead horses—for the love of God go and bring the officers——" And +the words trailed off into hysterical tears.</p> + +<p>He wheeled the car in a sudden circle, running over the still body of a +child and leaping on the curb. Then he rushed up the steps and tried the +door and rang violently. There was a long pause, but at last the heavy +door swung back. They stared a moment in silence. She had not noticed +before that he was a Negro. He had not thought of her as white. She was +a woman of perhaps twenty-five—rarely beautiful and richly gowned, with +darkly-golden hair, and jewels. Yesterday, he thought with bitterness, +she would scarcely have looked at him twice. He would have been dirt +beneath her silken feet. She stared at him. Of all the sorts of men she +had pictured as coming to her rescue she had not dreamed of one like +him. Not that he was not human, but he dwelt in a world so far from +hers, so infinitely far, that he seldom even entered her thought. Yet as +she looked at him curiously he seemed quite commonplace and usual. He +was a tall, dark workingman of the better <a name="Page_153" id="Page_153" />class, with a sensitive face +trained to stolidity and a poor man's clothes and hands. His face was +soft and slow and his manner at once cold and nervous, like fires long +banked, but not out.</p> + +<p>So a moment each paused and gauged the other; then the thought of the +dead world without rushed in and they started toward each other.</p> + +<p>"What has happened?" she cried. "Tell me! Nothing stirs. All is silence! +I see the dead strewn before my window as winnowed by the breath of +God,—and see——" She dragged him through great, silken hangings to +where, beneath the sheen of mahogany and silver, a little French maid +lay stretched in quiet, everlasting sleep, and near her a butler lay +prone in his livery.</p> + +<p>The tears streamed down the woman's cheeks and she clung to his arm +until the perfume of her breath swept his face and he felt the tremors +racing through her body.</p> + +<p>"I had been shut up in my dark room developing pictures of the comet +which I took last night; when I came out—I saw the dead!</p> + +<p>"What has happened?" she cried again.</p> + +<p>He answered slowly:</p> + +<p>"Something—comet or devil—swept across the earth this morning +and—many are dead!"</p> + +<p>"Many? Very many?"</p> + +<p>"I have searched and I have seen no other living soul but you."</p> + +<p>She gasped and they stared at each other.</p> + +<p>"My—father!" she whispered.</p> + +<p>"Where is he?"</p> + +<p>"He started for the office."</p> + +<p>"Where is it?"</p> + +<p>"In the Metropolitan Tower."</p> + +<p>"Leave a note for him here and come."</p> + +<p>Then he stopped.</p> + +<p>"No," he said firmly—"first, we must go—to Harlem."</p> + +<p>"Harlem!" she cried. Then she understood. She tapped her foot at first +impatiently. She looked back and shuddered. Then she came resolutely +down the steps.</p> + +<p>"There's a swifter car in the garage in the court," she said.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how to drive it," he said.</p> + +<p>"I do," she answered.</p> + +<p>In ten minutes they were flying to Harlem on the wind. The Stutz rose +and raced like an airplane. They took the turn at 110th Street on two +wheels and slipped with a shriek into 135th.</p> + +<p>He was gone but a moment. Then he returned, and his face was gray. She +did not look, but said:</p> + +<p>"You have lost—somebody?"</p> + +<p>"<a name="Page_154" id="Page_154" />I have lost—everybody," he said, simply—"unless——"</p> + +<p>He ran back and was gone several minutes—hours they seemed to her.</p> + +<p>"Everybody," he said, and he walked slowly back with something film-like +in his hand which he stuffed into his pocket.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I was selfish," he said. But already the car was moving +toward the park among the dark and lined dead of Harlem—the brown, +still faces, the knotted hands, the homely garments, and the +silence—the wild and haunting silence. Out of the park, and down Fifth +Avenue they whirled. In and out among the dead they slipped and +quivered, needing no sound of bell or horn, until the great, square +Metropolitan Tower hove in sight. Gently he laid the dead elevator boy +aside; the car shot upward. The door of the office stood open. On the +threshold lay the stenographer, and, staring at her, sat the dead clerk. +The inner office was empty, but a note lay on the desk, folded and +addressed but unsent:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dear Daughter:</p> + +<p> I've gone for a hundred mile spin in Fred's new Mercedes. Shall not + be back before dinner. I'll bring Fred with me.</p> + +<p> J.B.H.</p></div> + +<p>"Come," she cried nervously. "We must search the city."</p> + +<p>Up and down, over and across, back again—on went that ghostly search. +Everywhere was silence and death—death and silence! They hunted from +Madison Square to Spuyten Duyvel; they rushed across the Williamsburg +Bridge; they swept over Brooklyn; from the Battery and Morningside +Heights they scanned the river. Silence, silence everywhere, and no +human sign. Haggard and bedraggled they puffed a third time slowly down +Broadway, under the broiling sun, and at last stopped. He sniffed the +air. An odor—a smell—and with the shifting breeze a sickening stench +filled their nostrils and brought its awful warning. The girl settled +back helplessly in her seat.</p> + +<p>"What can we do?" she cried.</p> + +<p>It was his turn now to take the lead, and he did it quickly.</p> + +<p>"The long distance telephone—the telegraph and the cable—night rockets +and then—flight!"</p> + +<p>She looked at him now with strength and confidence. He did not look like +men, as she had always pictured men; but he acted like one and she was +content. In fifteen minutes they were at the central telephone exchange. +As they came to the door he stepped quickly before her and pressed her +gently back as he closed it. She heard him moving to and fro, and knew +his burdens—the poor, little burdens he bore. When she entered, he was +alone in the room. The grim switchboard <a name="Page_155" id="Page_155" />flashed its metallic face in +cryptic, sphinx-like immobility. She seated herself on a stool and +donned the bright earpiece. She looked at the mouthpiece. She had never +looked at one so closely before. It was wide and black, pimpled with +usage; inert; dead; almost sarcastic in its unfeeling curves. It +looked—she beat back the thought—but it looked,—it persisted in +looking like—she turned her head and found herself alone. One moment +she was terrified; then she thanked him silently for his delicacy and +turned resolutely, with a quick intaking of breath.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" she called in low tones. She was calling to the world. The +world <i>must</i> answer. Would the world <i>answer</i>? Was the world——</p> + +<p>Silence!</p> + +<p>She had spoken too low.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" she cried, full-voiced.</p> + +<p>She listened. Silence! Her heart beat quickly. She cried in clear, +distinct, loud tones: "Hello—hello—hello!"</p> + +<p>What was that whirring? Surely—no—was it the click of a receiver?</p> + +<p>She bent close, she moved the pegs in the holes, and called and called, +until her voice rose almost to a shriek, and her heart hammered. It was +as if she had heard the last flicker of creation, and the evil was +silence. Her voice dropped to a sob. She sat stupidly staring into the +black and sarcastic mouthpiece, and the thought came again. Hope lay +dead within her. Yes, the cable and the rockets remained; but the +world—she could not frame the thought or say the word. It was too +mighty—too terrible! She turned toward the door with a new fear in her +heart. For the first time she seemed to realize that she was alone in +the world with a stranger, with something more than a stranger,—with a +man alien in blood and culture—unknown, perhaps unknowable. It was +awful! She must escape—she must fly; he must not see her again. Who +knew what awful thoughts—</p> + +<p>She gathered her silken skirts deftly about her young, smooth +limbs—listened, and glided into a sidehall. A moment she shrank back: +the hall lay filled with dead women; then she leaped to the door and +tore at it, with bleeding fingers, until it swung wide. She looked out. +He was standing at the top of the alley,—silhouetted, tall and black, +motionless. Was he looking at her or away? She did not know—she did not +care. She simply leaped and ran—ran until she found herself alone amid +the dead and the tall ramparts of towering buildings.</p> + +<p>She stopped. She was alone. Alone! Alone on the streets—alone in the +city—perhaps alone in the world! There crept in upon her the sense of +deception—of creeping hands behind her back—of silent, moving things +she could not see,—of voices hushed in fearsome conspiracy. She looked +behind and sideways, started at strange sounds and heard still stranger, +until every nerve within her stood sharp and quivering, <a name="Page_156" id="Page_156" />stretched to +scream at the barest touch. She whirled and flew back, whimpering like a +child, until she found that narrow alley again and the dark, silent +figure silhouetted at the top. She stopped and rested; then she walked +silently toward him, looked at him timidly; but he said nothing as he +handed her into the car. Her voice caught as she whispered:</p> + +<p>"Not—that."</p> + +<p>And he answered slowly: "No—not that!"</p> + +<p>They climbed into the car. She bent forward on the wheel and sobbed, +with great, dry, quivering sobs, as they flew toward the cable office on +the east side, leaving the world of wealth and prosperity for the world +of poverty and work. In the world behind them were death and silence, +grave and grim, almost cynical, but always decent; here it was hideous. +It clothed itself in every ghastly form of terror, struggle, hate, and +suffering. It lay wreathed in crime and squalor, greed and lust. Only in +its dread and awful silence was it like to death everywhere.</p> + +<p>Yet as the two, flying and alone, looked upon the horror of the world, +slowly, gradually, the sense of all-enveloping death deserted them. They +seemed to move in a world silent and asleep,—not dead. They moved in +quiet reverence, lest somehow they wake these sleeping forms who had, at +last, found peace. They moved in some solemn, world-wide <i>Friedhof</i>, +above which some mighty arm had waved its magic wand. All nature slept +until—until, and quick with the same startling thought, they looked +into each other's eyes—he, ashen, and she, crimson, with unspoken +thought. To both, the vision of a mighty beauty—of vast, unspoken +things, swelled in their souls; but they put it away.</p> + +<p>Great, dark coils of wire came up from the earth and down from the sun +and entered this low lair of witchery. The gathered lightnings of the +world centered here, binding with beams of light the ends of the earth. +The doors gaped on the gloom within. He paused on the threshold.</p> + +<p>"Do you know the code?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I know the call for help—we used it formerly at the bank."</p> + +<p>She hardly heard. She heard the lapping of the waters far below,—the +dark and restless waters—the cold and luring waters, as they called. He +stepped within. Slowly she walked to the wall, where the water called +below, and stood and waited. Long she waited, and he did not come. Then +with a start she saw him, too, standing beside the black waters. Slowly +he removed his coat and stood there silently. She walked quickly to him +and laid her hand on his arm. He did not start or look. The waters +lapped on in luring, deadly rhythm. He pointed down to the waters, and +said quietly:</p> + +<p>"The world lies beneath the waters now—may I go?"</p> + +<p>She looked into his stricken, tired face, and a great pity surged within +her heart. She answered in a voice clear and calm, "No."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157" />Upward they turned toward life again, and he seized the wheel. The +world was darkening to twilight, and a great, gray pall was falling +mercifully and gently on the sleeping dead. The ghastly glare of reality +seemed replaced with the dream of some vast romance. The girl lay +silently back, as the motor whizzed along, and looked half-consciously +for the elf-queen to wave life into this dead world again. She forgot to +wonder at the quickness with which he had learned to drive her car. It +seemed natural. And then as they whirled and swung into Madison Square +and at the door of the Metropolitan Tower she gave a low cry, and her +eyes were great! Perhaps she had seen the elf-queen?</p> + +<p>The man led her to the elevator of the tower and deftly they ascended. +In her father's office they gathered rugs and chairs, and he wrote a +note and laid it on the desk; then they ascended to the roof and he made +her comfortable. For a while she rested and sank to dreamy somnolence, +watching the worlds above and wondering. Below lay the dark shadows of +the city and afar was the shining of the sea. She glanced at him timidly +as he set food before her and took a shawl and wound her in it, touching +her reverently, yet tenderly. She looked up at him with thankfulness in +her eyes, eating what he served. He watched the city. She watched him. +He seemed very human,—very near now.</p> + +<p>"Have you had to work hard?" she asked softly.</p> + +<p>"Always," he said.</p> + +<p>"I have always been idle," she said. "I was rich."</p> + +<p>"I was poor," he almost echoed.</p> + +<p>"The rich and the poor are met together," she began, and he finished:</p> + +<p>"The Lord is the Maker of them all."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said slowly; "and how foolish our human distinctions +seem—now," looking down to the great dead city stretched below, +swimming in unlightened shadows.</p> + +<p>"Yes—I was not—human, yesterday," he said.</p> + +<p>She looked at him. "And your people were not my people," she said; "but +today——" She paused. He was a man,—no more; but he was in some larger +sense a gentleman,—sensitive, kindly, chivalrous, everything save his +hands and—his face. Yet yesterday——</p> + +<p>"Death, the leveler!" he muttered.</p> + +<p>"And the revealer," she whispered gently, rising to her feet with great +eyes. He turned away, and after fumbling a moment sent a rocket into the +darkening air. It arose, shrieked, and flew up, a slim path of light, +and scattering its stars abroad, dropped on the city below. She scarcely +noticed it. A vision of the world had risen before her. Slowly the +mighty prophecy of her destiny overwhelmed her. Above the dead past +hovered the Angel of Annunciation. She was no mere woman. She was +neither high nor low, white nor black, rich nor poor. She was primal +woman; <a name="Page_158" id="Page_158" />mighty mother of all men to come and Bride of Life. She looked +upon the man beside her and forgot all else but his manhood, his strong, +vigorous manhood—his sorrow and sacrifice. She saw him glorified. He +was no longer a thing apart, a creature below, a strange outcast of +another clime and blood, but her Brother Humanity incarnate, Son of God +and great All-Father of the race to be.</p> + +<p>He did not glimpse the glory in her eyes, but stood looking outward +toward the sea and sending rocket after rocket into the unanswering +darkness. Dark-purple clouds lay banked and billowed in the west. Behind +them and all around, the heavens glowed in dim, weird radiance that +suffused the darkening world and made almost a minor music. Suddenly, as +though gathered back in some vast hand, the great cloud-curtain fell +away. Low on the horizon lay a long, white star—mystic, wonderful! And +from it fled upward to the pole, like some wan bridal veil, a pale, wide +sheet of flame that lighted all the world and dimmed the stars.</p> + +<p>In fascinated silence the man gazed at the heavens and dropped his +rockets to the floor. Memories of memories stirred to life in the dead +recesses of his mind. The shackles seemed to rattle and fall from his +soul. Up from the crass and crushing and cringing of his caste leaped +the lone majesty of kings long dead. He arose within the shadows, tall, +straight, and stern, with power in his eyes and ghostly scepters +hovering to his grasp. It was as though some mighty Pharaoh lived again, +or curled Assyrian lord. He turned and looked upon the lady, and found +her gazing straight at him.</p> + +<p>Silently, immovably, they saw each other face to face—eye to eye. Their +souls lay naked to the night. It was not lust; it was not love—it was +some vaster, mightier thing that needed neither touch of body nor thrill +of soul. It was a thought divine, splendid.</p> + +<p>Slowly, noiselessly, they moved toward each other—the heavens above, +the seas around, the city grim and dead below. He loomed from out the +velvet shadows vast and dark. Pearl-white and slender, she shone beneath +the stars. She stretched her jeweled hands abroad. He lifted up his +mighty arms, and they cried each to the other, almost with one voice, +"The world is dead."</p> + +<p>"Long live the——"</p> + +<p>"Honk! Honk!" Hoarse and sharp the cry of a motor drifted clearly up +from the silence below. They started backward with a cry and gazed upon +each other with eyes that faltered and fell, with blood that boiled.</p> + +<p>"Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk!" came the mad cry again, and almost from their +feet a rocket blazed into the air and scattered its stars upon them. She +covered her eyes with her hands, and her shoulders heaved. He dropped +and bowed, groped blindly on his knees about the floor. A <a name="Page_159" id="Page_159" />blue flame +spluttered lazily after an age, and she heard the scream of an answering +rocket as it flew.</p> + +<p>Then they stood still as death, looking to opposite ends of the earth.</p> + +<p>"Clang—crash—clang!"</p> + +<p>The roar and ring of swift elevators shooting upward from below made the +great tower tremble. A murmur and babel of voices swept in upon the +night. All over the once dead city the lights blinked, flickered, and +flamed; and then with a sudden clanging of doors the entrance to the +platform was filled with men, and one with white and flying hair rushed +to the girl and lifted her to his breast. "My daughter!" he sobbed.</p> + +<p>Behind him hurried a younger, comelier man, carefully clad in motor +costume, who bent above the girl with passionate solicitude and gazed +into her staring eyes until they narrowed and dropped and her face +flushed deeper and deeper crimson.</p> + +<p>"Julia," he whispered; "my darling, I thought you were gone forever."</p> + +<p>She looked up at him with strange, searching eyes.</p> + +<p>"Fred," she murmured, almost vaguely, "is the world—gone?"</p> + +<p>"Only New York," he answered; "it is terrible—awful! You know,—but +you, how did you escape—how have you endured this horror? Are you well? +Unharmed?"</p> + +<p>"Unharmed!" she said.</p> + +<p>"And this man here?" he asked, encircling her drooping form with one arm +and turning toward the Negro. Suddenly he stiffened and his hand flew to +his hip. "Why!" he snarled. "It's—a—nigger—Julia! Has he—has he +dared——"</p> + +<p>She lifted her head and looked at her late companion curiously and then +dropped her eyes with a sigh.</p> + +<p>"He has dared—all, to rescue me," she said quietly, "and I—thank +him—much." But she did not look at him again. As the couple turned +away, the father drew a roll of bills from his pockets.</p> + +<p>"Here, my good fellow," he said, thrusting the money into the man's +hands, "take that,—what's your name?"</p> + +<p>"Jim Davis," came the answer, hollow-voiced.</p> + +<p>"Well, Jim, I thank you. I've always liked your people. If you ever want +a job, call on me." And they were gone.</p> + +<p>The crowd poured up and out of the elevators, talking and whispering.</p> + +<p>"Who was it?"</p> + +<p>"Are they alive?"</p> + +<p>"How many?"</p> + +<p>"Two!"</p> + +<p>"Who was saved?"</p> + +<p>"A white girl and a nigger—there she goes."</p> + +<p>"A nigger? Where is he? Let's lynch the damned——"</p> + +<p>"<a name="Page_160" id="Page_160" />Shut up—he's all right-he saved her."</p> + +<p>"Saved hell! He had no business——"</p> + +<p>"Here he comes."</p> + +<p>Into the glare of the electric lights the colored man moved slowly, with +the eyes of those that walk and sleep.</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you think of that?" cried a bystander; "of all New York, +just a white girl and a nigger!"</p> + +<p>The colored man heard nothing. He stood silently beneath the glare of +the light, gazing at the money in his hand and shrinking as he gazed; +slowly he put his other hand into his pocket and brought out a baby's +filmy cap, and gazed again. A woman mounted to the platform and looked +about, shading her eyes. She was brown, small, and toil-worn, and in one +arm lay the corpse of a dark baby. The crowd parted and her eyes fell on +the colored man; with a cry she tottered toward him.</p> + +<p>"Jim!"</p> + +<p>He whirled and, with a sob of joy, caught her in his arms.<a name="Page_161" id="Page_161" /></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 55%;" /> +<h3><a name="A_Hymn_to_the_Peoples" id="A_Hymn_to_the_Peoples" /><i>A Hymn to the Peoples</i></h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>O Truce of God!<br /></span> +<span>And primal meeting of the Sons of Man,<br /></span> +<span>Foreshadowing the union of the World!<br /></span> +<span>From all the ends of earth we come!<br /></span> +<span>Old Night, the elder sister of the Day,<br /></span> +<span>Mother of Dawn in the golden East,<br /></span> +<span>Meets in the misty twilight with her brood,<br /></span> +<span>Pale and black, tawny, red and brown,<br /></span> +<span>The mighty human rainbow of the world,<br /></span> +<span>Spanning its wilderness of storm.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Softly in sympathy the sunlight falls,<br /></span> +<span>Rare is the radiance of the moon;<br /></span> +<span>And on the darkest midnight blaze the stars—<br /></span> +<span>The far-flown shadows of whose brilliance<br /></span> +<span>Drop like a dream on the dim shores of Time,<br /></span> +<span>Forecasting Days that are to these<br /></span> +<span>As day to night.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>So sit we all as one.<br /></span> +<span>So, gloomed in tall and stone-swathed groves,<br /></span> +<span>The Buddha walks with Christ!<br /></span> +<span>And Al-Koran and Bible both be holy!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Almighty Word!<br /></span> +<span>In this Thine awful sanctuary,<br /></span> +<span>First and flame-haunted City of the Widened World,<br /></span> +<span>Assoil us, Lord of Lands and Seas!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162" />We are but weak and wayward men,<br /></span> +<span>Distraught alike with hatred and vainglory;<br /></span> +<span>Prone to despise the Soul that breathes within—<br /></span> +<span>High visioned hordes that lie and steal and kill,<br /></span> +<span>Sinning the sin each separate heart disclaims,<br /></span> +<span>Clambering upon our riven, writhing selves,<br /></span> +<span>Besieging Heaven by trampling men to Hell!<br /></span> +<span>We be blood-guilty! Lo, our hands be red!<br /></span> +<span>Not one may blame the other in this sin!<br /></span> +<span>But here—here in the white Silence of the Dawn,<br /></span> +<span>Before the Womb of Time,<br /></span> +<span>With bowed hearts all flame and shame,<br /></span> +<span>We face the birth-pangs of a world:<br /></span> +<span>We hear the stifled cry of Nations all but born—<br /></span> +<span>The wail of women ravished of their stunted brood!<br /></span> +<span>We see the nakedness of Toil, the poverty of Wealth,<br /></span> +<span>We know the Anarchy of Empire, and doleful Death of Life!<br /></span> +<span>And hearing, seeing, knowing all, we cry:<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Save us, World-Spirit, from our lesser selves!<br /></span> +<span>Grant us that war and hatred cease,<br /></span> +<span>Reveal our souls in every race and hue!<br /></span> +<span>Help us, O Human God, in this Thy Truce,<br /></span> +<span>To make Humanity divine!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<div><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163" /></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Darkwater, by W. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Darkwater + Voices From Within The Veil + +Author: W. E. B. Du Bois + +Release Date: February 28, 2005 [EBook #15210] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DARKWATER *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Audrey Longhurst, and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +DARKWATER + +Voices from within the Veil + +W.E.B. DU BOIS + + + + +Originally published in 1920 by Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York. + + + + +AD NINAM + +May 12, 1896 + + + + +POSTSCRIPT + + +These are the things of which men think, who live: of their own selves +and the dwelling place of their fathers; of their neighbors; of work and +service; of rule and reason and women and children; of Beauty and Death +and War. To this thinking I have only to add a point of view: I have +been in the world, but not of it. I have seen the human drama from a +veiled corner, where all the outer tragedy and comedy have reproduced +themselves in microcosm within. From this inner torment of souls the +human scene without has interpreted itself to me in unusual and even +illuminating ways. For this reason, and this alone, I venture to write +again on themes on which great souls have already said greater words, in +the hope that I may strike here and there a half-tone, newer even if +slighter, up from the heart of my problem and the problems of my people. + +Between the sterner flights of logic, I have sought to set some little +alightings of what may be poetry. They are tributes to Beauty, unworthy +to stand alone; yet perversely, in my mind, now at the end, I know not +whether I mean the Thought for the Fancy--or the Fancy for the Thought, +or why the book trails off to playing, rather than standing strong on +unanswering fact. But this is alway--is it not?--the Riddle of Life. + +Many of my words appear here transformed from other publications and I +thank the _Atlantic_, the _Independent_, the _Crisis_, and the _Journal +of Race Development_ for letting me use them again. + +W.E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS. +New York, 1919. + + + + +Contents + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + POSTSCRIPT ix + _Credo_ 1 + +I. THE SHADOW OF YEARS 3 + _A Litany at Atlanta_ 14 + +II. THE SOULS OF WHITE FOLK 17 + _The Riddle of the Sphinx_ 30 + +III. THE HANDS OF ETHIOPIA 32 + _The Princess of the Hither Isles_ 43 + +IV. OF WORK AND WEALTH 47 + _The Second Coming_ 60 + +V. "THE SERVANT IN THE HOUSE" 63 + _Jesus Christ in Texas_ 70 + +VI. OF THE RULING OF MEN 78 + _The Call_ 93 + +VII. THE DAMNATION OF WOMEN 95 + _Children of the Moon_ 109 + +VIII. THE IMMORTAL CHILD 114 + _Almighty Death_ 128 + +IX. OF BEAUTY AND DEATH 130 + _The Prayers of God_ 145 + +X. THE COMET 149 + _A Hymn to the Peoples_ 161 + + + + + + + + +_Credo_ + + +I believe in God, who made of one blood all nations that on earth do +dwell. I believe that all men, black and brown and white, are brothers, +varying through time and opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but +differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and the +possibility of infinite development. + +Especially do I believe in the Negro Race: in the beauty of its genius, +the sweetness of its soul, and its strength in that meekness which shall +yet inherit this turbulent earth. + +I believe in Pride of race and lineage and self: in pride of self so +deep as to scorn injustice to other selves; in pride of lineage so great +as to despise no man's father; in pride of race so chivalrous as neither +to offer bastardy to the weak nor beg wedlock of the strong, knowing +that men may be brothers in Christ, even though they be not +brothers-in-law. + +I believe in Service--humble, reverent service, from the blackening of +boots to the whitening of souls; for Work is Heaven, Idleness Hell, and +Wage is the "Well done!" of the Master, who summoned all them that labor +and are heavy laden, making no distinction between the black, sweating +cotton hands of Georgia and the first families of Virginia, since all +distinction not based on deed is devilish and not divine. + +I believe in the Devil and his angels, who wantonly work to narrow the +opportunity of struggling human beings, especially if they be black; who +spit in the faces of the fallen, strike them that cannot strike again, +believe the worst and work to prove it, hating the image which their +Maker stamped on a brother's soul. + +I believe in the Prince of Peace. I believe that War is Murder. I +believe that armies and navies are at bottom the tinsel and braggadocio +of oppression and wrong, and I believe that the wicked conquest of +weaker and darker nations by nations whiter and stronger but foreshadows +the death of that strength. + +I believe in Liberty for all men: the space to stretch their arms and +their souls, the right to breathe and the right to vote, the freedom to +choose their friends, enjoy the sunshine, and ride on the railroads, +uncursed by color; thinking, dreaming, working as they will in a kingdom +of beauty and love. + +I believe in the Training of Children, black even as white; the leading +out of little souls into the green pastures and beside the still waters, +not for pelf or peace, but for life lit by some large vision of beauty +and goodness and truth; lest we forget, and the sons of the fathers, +like Esau, for mere meat barter their birthright in a mighty nation. + +Finally, I believe in Patience--patience with the weakness of the Weak +and the strength of the Strong, the prejudice of the Ignorant and the +ignorance of the Blind; patience with the tardy triumph of Joy and the +mad chastening of Sorrow. + + + + +I + +THE SHADOW OF YEARS + + +I was born by a golden river and in the shadow of two great hills, five +years after the Emancipation Proclamation. The house was quaint, with +clapboards running up and down, neatly trimmed, and there were five +rooms, a tiny porch, a rosy front yard, and unbelievably delicious +strawberries in the rear. A South Carolinian, lately come to the +Berkshire Hills, owned all this--tall, thin, and black, with golden +earrings, and given to religious trances. We were his transient tenants +for the time. + +My own people were part of a great clan. Fully two hundred years before, +Tom Burghardt had come through the western pass from the Hudson with his +Dutch captor, "Coenraet Burghardt," sullen in his slavery and achieving +his freedom by volunteering for the Revolution at a time of sudden +alarm. His wife was a little, black, Bantu woman, who never became +reconciled to this strange land; she clasped her knees and rocked and +crooned: + + "Do bana coba--gene me, gene me! + Ben d'nuli, ben d'le--" + +Tom died about 1787, but of him came many sons, and one, Jack, who +helped in the War of 1812. Of Jack and his wife, Violet, was born a +mighty family, splendidly named: Harlow and Ira, Cloe, Lucinda, Maria, +and Othello! I dimly remember my grandfather, Othello,--or "Uncle +Tallow,"--a brown man, strong-voiced and redolent with tobacco, who sat +stiffly in a great high chair because his hip was broken. He was +probably a bit lazy and given to wassail. At any rate, grandmother had a +shrewish tongue and often berated him. This grandmother was Sarah--"Aunt +Sally"--a stern, tall, Dutch-African woman, beak-nosed, but +beautiful-eyed and golden-skinned. Ten or more children were theirs, of +whom the youngest was Mary, my mother. + +Mother was dark shining bronze, with a tiny ripple in her black hair, +black-eyed, with a heavy, kind face. She gave one the impression of +infinite patience, but a curious determination was concealed in her +softness. The family were small farmers on Egremont Plain, between Great +Barrington and Sheffield, Massachusetts. The bits of land were too small +to support the great families born on them and we were always poor. I +never remember being cold or hungry, but I do remember that shoes and +coal, and sometimes flour, caused mother moments of anxious thought in +winter, and a new suit was an event! + +At about the time of my birth economic pressure was transmuting the +family generally from farmers to "hired" help. Some revolted and +migrated westward, others went cityward as cooks and barbers. Mother +worked for some years at house service in Great Barrington, and after a +disappointed love episode with a cousin, who went to California, she met +and married Alfred Du Bois and went to town to live by the golden river +where I was born. + +Alfred, my father, must have seemed a splendid vision in that little +valley under the shelter of those mighty hills. He was small and +beautiful of face and feature, just tinted with the sun, his curly hair +chiefly revealing his kinship to Africa. In nature he was a +dreamer,--romantic, indolent, kind, unreliable. He had in him the making +of a poet, an adventurer, or a Beloved Vagabond, according to the life +that closed round him; and that life gave him all too little. His +father, Alexander Du Bois, cloaked under a stern, austere demeanor a +passionate revolt against the world. He, too, was small, but squarish. I +remember him as I saw him first, in his home in New Bedford,--white hair +close-cropped; a seamed, hard face, but high in tone, with a gray eye +that could twinkle or glare. + +Long years before him Louis XIV drove two Huguenots, Jacques and Louis +Du Bois, into wild Ulster County, New York. One of them in the third or +fourth generation had a descendant, Dr. James Du Bois, a gay, rich +bachelor, who made his money in the Bahamas, where he and the Gilberts +had plantations. There he took a beautiful little mulatto slave as his +mistress, and two sons were born: Alexander in 1803 and John, later. +They were fine, straight, clear-eyed boys, white enough to "pass." He +brought them to America and put Alexander in the celebrated Cheshire +School, in Connecticut. Here he often visited him, but one last time, +fell dead. He left no will, and his relations made short shrift of these +sons. They gathered in the property, apprenticed grandfather to a +shoemaker; then dropped him. + +Grandfather took his bitter dose like a thoroughbred. Wild as was his +inner revolt against this treatment, he uttered no word against the +thieves and made no plea. He tried his fortunes here and in Haiti, +where, during his short, restless sojourn, my own father was born. +Eventually, grandfather became chief steward on the passenger boat +between New York and New Haven; later he was a small merchant in +Springfield; and finally he retired and ended his days at New Bedford. +Always he held his head high, took no insults, made few friends. He was +not a "Negro"; he was a man! Yet the current was too strong even for +him. Then even more than now a colored man had colored friends or none +at all, lived in a colored world or lived alone. A few fine, strong, +black men gained the heart of this silent, bitter man in New York and +New Haven. If he had scant sympathy with their social clannishness, he +was with them in fighting discrimination. So, when the white +Episcopalians of Trinity Parish, New Haven, showed plainly that they no +longer wanted black Folks as fellow Christians, he led the revolt which +resulted in St. Luke's Parish, and was for years its senior warden. He +lies dead in the Grove Street Cemetery, beside Jehudi Ashmun. + +Beneath his sternness was a very human man. Slyly he wrote +poetry,--stilted, pleading things from a soul astray. He loved women in +his masterful way, marrying three beautiful wives in succession and +clinging to each with a certain desperate, even if unsympathetic, +affection. As a father he was, naturally, a failure,--hard, domineering, +unyielding. His four children reacted characteristically: one was until +past middle life a thin spinster, the mental image of her father; one +died; one passed over into the white world and her children's children +are now white, with no knowledge of their Negro blood; the fourth, my +father, bent before grandfather, but did not break--better if he had. He +yielded and flared back, asked forgiveness and forgot why, became the +harshly-held favorite, who ran away and rioted and roamed and loved and +married my brown mother. + +So with some circumstance having finally gotten myself born, with a +flood of Negro blood, a strain of French, a bit of Dutch, but, thank +God! no "Anglo-Saxon," I come to the days of my childhood. + +They were very happy. Early we moved back to Grandfather Burghardt's +home,--I barely remember its stone fireplace, big kitchen, and +delightful woodshed. Then this house passed to other branches of the +clan and we moved to rented quarters in town,--to one delectable place +"upstairs," with a wide yard full of shrubbery, and a brook; to another +house abutting a railroad, with infinite interests and astonishing +playmates; and finally back to the quiet street on which I was +born,--down a long lane and in a homely, cozy cottage, with a +living-room, a tiny sitting-room, a pantry, and two attic bedrooms. Here +mother and I lived until she died, in 1884, for father early began his +restless wanderings. I last remember urgent letters for us to come to +New Milford, where he had started a barber shop. Later he became a +preacher. But mother no longer trusted his dreams, and he soon faded out +of our lives into silence. + +From the age of five until I was sixteen I went to a school on the same +grounds,--down a lane, into a widened yard, with a big choke-cherry tree +and two buildings, wood and brick. Here I got acquainted with my world, +and soon had my criterions of judgment. + +Wealth had no particular lure. On the other hand, the shadow of wealth +was about us. That river of my birth was golden because of the woolen +and paper waste that soiled it. The gold was theirs, not ours; but the +gleam and glint was for all. To me it was all in order and I took it +philosophically. I cordially despised the poor Irish and South Germans, +who slaved in the mills, and annexed the rich and well-to-do as my +natural companions. Of such is the kingdom of snobs! + +Most of our townfolk were, naturally, the well-to-do, shading downward, +but seldom reaching poverty. As playmate of the children I saw the homes +of nearly every one, except a few immigrant New Yorkers, of whom none of +us approved. The homes I saw impressed me, but did not overwhelm me. +Many were bigger than mine, with newer and shinier things, but they did +not seem to differ in kind. I think I probably surprised my hosts more +than they me, for I was easily at home and perfectly happy and they +looked to me just like ordinary people, while my brown face and frizzled +hair must have seemed strange to them. + +Yet I was very much one of them. I was a center and sometimes the leader +of the town gang of boys. We were noisy, but never very bad,--and, +indeed, my mother's quiet influence came in here, as I realize now. She +did not try to make me perfect. To her I was already perfect. She simply +warned me of a few things, especially saloons. In my town the saloon was +the open door to hell. The best families had their drunkards and the +worst had little else. + +Very gradually,--I cannot now distinguish the steps, though here and +there I remember a jump or a jolt--but very gradually I found myself +assuming quite placidly that I was different from other children. At +first I think I connected the difference with a manifest ability to get +my lessons rather better than most and to recite with a certain happy, +almost taunting, glibness, which brought frowns here and there. Then, +slowly, I realized that some folks, a few, even several, actually +considered my brown skin a misfortune; once or twice I became painfully +aware that some human beings even thought it a crime. I was not for a +moment daunted,--although, of course, there were some days of secret +tears--rather I was spurred to tireless effort. If they beat me at +anything, I was grimly determined to make them sweat for it! Once I +remember challenging a great, hard farmer-boy to battle, when I knew he +could whip me; and he did. But ever after, he was polite. + +As time flew I felt not so much disowned and rejected as rather drawn up +into higher spaces and made part of a mightier mission. At times I +almost pitied my pale companions, who were not of the Lord's anointed +and who saw in their dreams no splendid quests of golden fleeces. + +Even in the matter of girls my peculiar phantasy asserted itself. +Naturally, it was in our town voted bad form for boys of twelve and +fourteen to show any evident weakness for girls. We tolerated them +loftily, and now and then they played in our games, when I joined in +quite as naturally as the rest. It was when strangers came, or summer +boarders, or when the oldest girls grew up that my sharp senses noted +little hesitancies in public and searchings for possible public opinion. +Then I flamed! I lifted my chin and strode off to the mountains, where I +viewed the world at my feet and strained my eyes across the shadow of +the hills. + +I was graduated from high school at sixteen, and I talked of "Wendell +Phillips." This was my first sweet taste of the world's applause. There +were flowers and upturned faces, music and marching, and there was my +mother's smile. She was lame, then, and a bit drawn, but very happy. It +was her great day and that very year she lay down with a sigh of content +and has not yet awakened. I felt a certain gladness to see her, at last, +at peace, for she had worried all her life. Of my own loss I had then +little realization. That came only with the after-years. Now it was the +choking gladness and solemn feel of wings! At last, I was going beyond +the hills and into the world that beckoned steadily. + +There came a little pause,--a singular pause. I was given to understand +that I was almost too young for the world. Harvard was the goal of my +dreams, but my white friends hesitated and my colored friends were +silent. Harvard was a mighty conjure-word in that hill town, and even +the mill owners' sons had aimed lower. Finally it was tactfully +explained that the place for me was in the South among my people. A +scholarship had been already arranged at Fisk, and my summer earnings +would pay the fare. My relatives grumbled, but after a twinge I felt a +strange delight! I forgot, or did not thoroughly realize, the curious +irony by which I was not looked upon as a real citizen of my birth-town, +with a future and a career, and instead was being sent to a far land +among strangers who were regarded as (and in truth were) "mine own +people." + +Ah! the wonder of that journey, with its faint spice of adventure, as I +entered the land of slaves; the never-to-be-forgotten marvel of that +first supper at Fisk with the world "colored" and opposite two of the +most beautiful beings God ever revealed to the eyes of seventeen. I +promptly lost my appetite, but I was deliriously happy! + +As I peer back through the shadow of my years, seeing not too clearly, +but through the thickening veil of wish and after-thought, I seem to +view my life divided into four distinct parts: the Age of Miracles, the +Days of Disillusion, the Discipline of Work and Play, and the Second +Miracle Age. + +The Age of Miracles began with Fisk and ended with Germany. I was +bursting with the joy of living. I seemed to ride in conquering might. I +was captain of my soul and master of fate! I _willed_ to do! It was +done. I _wished!_ The wish came true. + +Now and then out of the void flashed the great sword of hate to remind +me of the battle. I remember once, in Nashville, brushing by accident +against a white woman on the street. Politely and eagerly I raised my +hat to apologize. That was thirty-five years ago. From that day to this +I have never knowingly raised my hat to a Southern white woman. + +I suspect that beneath all of my seeming triumphs there were many +failures and disappointments, but the realities loomed so large that +they swept away even the memory of other dreams and wishes. Consider, +for a moment, how miraculous it all was to a boy of seventeen, just +escaped from a narrow valley: I willed and lo! my people came dancing +about me,--riotous in color, gay in laughter, full of sympathy, need, +and pleading; darkly delicious girls--"colored" girls--sat beside me and +actually talked to me while I gazed in tongue-tied silence or babbled in +boastful dreams. Boys with my own experiences and out of my own world, +who knew and understood, wrought out with me great remedies. I studied +eagerly under teachers who bent in subtle sympathy, feeling themselves +some shadow of the Veil and lifting it gently that we darker souls might +peer through to other worlds. + +I willed and lo! I was walking beneath the elms of Harvard,--the name of +allurement, the college of my youngest, wildest visions! I needed money; +scholarships and prizes fell into my lap,--not all I wanted or strove +for, but all I needed to keep in school. Commencement came and standing +before governor, president, and grave, gowned men, I told them certain +astonishing truths, waving my arms and breathing fast! They applauded +with what now seems to me uncalled-for fervor, but then! I walked home +on pink clouds of glory! I asked for a fellowship and got it. I +announced my plan of studying in Germany, but Harvard had no more +fellowships for me. A friend, however, told me of the Slater Fund and +how the Board was looking for colored men worth educating. No thought of +modest hesitation occurred to me. I rushed at the chance. + +The trustees of the Slater Fund excused themselves politely. They +acknowledged that they had in the past looked for colored boys of +ability to educate, but, being unsuccessful, they had stopped searching. +I went at them hammer and tongs! I plied them with testimonials and +mid-year and final marks. I intimated plainly, impudently, that they +were "stalling"! In vain did the chairman, Ex-President Hayes, explain +and excuse. I took no excuses and brushed explanations aside. I wonder +now that he did not brush me aside, too, as a conceited meddler, but +instead he smiled and surrendered. + +I crossed the ocean in a trance. Always I seemed to be saying, "It is +not real; I must be dreaming!" I can live it again--the little, Dutch +ship--the blue waters--the smell of new-mown hay--Holland and the Rhine. +I saw the Wartburg and Berlin; I made the Harzreise and climbed the +Brocken; I saw the Hansa towns and the cities and dorfs of South +Germany; I saw the Alps at Berne, the Cathedral at Milan, Florence, +Rome, Venice, Vienna, and Pesth; I looked on the boundaries of Russia; +and I sat in Paris and London. + +On mountain and valley, in home and school, I met men and women as I had +never met them before. Slowly they became, not white folks, but folks. +The unity beneath all life clutched me. I was not less fanatically a +Negro, but "Negro" meant a greater, broader sense of humanity and +world-fellowship. I felt myself standing, not against the world, but +simply against American narrowness and color prejudice, with the +greater, finer world at my back urging me on. + +I builded great castles in Spain and lived therein. I dreamed and loved +and wandered and sang; then, after two long years, I dropped suddenly +back into "nigger"-hating America! + +My Days of Disillusion were not disappointing enough to discourage me. I +was still upheld by that fund of infinite faith, although dimly about me +I saw the shadow of disaster. I began to realize how much of what I had +called Will and Ability was sheer Luck! _Suppose_ my good mother had +preferred a steady income from my child labor rather than bank on the +precarious dividend of my higher training? _Suppose_ that pompous old +village judge, whose dignity we often ruffled and whose apples we stole, +had had his way and sent me while a child to a "reform" school to learn +a "trade"? _Suppose_ Principal Hosmer had been born with no faith in +"darkies," and instead of giving me Greek and Latin had taught me +carpentry and the making of tin pans? _Suppose_ I had missed a Harvard +scholarship? _Suppose_ the Slater Board had then, as now, distinct ideas +as to where the education of Negroes should stop? Suppose _and_ suppose! +As I sat down calmly on flat earth and looked at my life a certain great +fear seized me. Was I the masterful captain or the pawn of laughing +sprites? Who was I to fight a world of color prejudice? I raise my hat +to myself when I remember that, even with these thoughts, I did not +hesitate or waver; but just went doggedly to work, and therein lay +whatever salvation I have achieved. + +First came the task of earning a living. I was not nice or hard to +please. I just got down on my knees and begged for work, anything and +anywhere. I wrote to Hampton, Tuskegee, and a dozen other places. They +politely declined, with many regrets. The trustees of a backwoods +Tennessee town considered me, but were eventually afraid. Then, +suddenly, Wilberforce offered to let me teach Latin and Greek at $750 a +year. I was overjoyed! + +I did not know anything about Latin and Greek, but I did know of +Wilberforce. The breath of that great name had swept the water and +dropped into southern Ohio, where Southerners had taken their cure at +Tawawa Springs and where white Methodists had planted a school; then +came the little bishop, Daniel Payne, who made it a school of the +African Methodists. This was the school that called me, and when +re-considered offers from Tuskegee and Jefferson City followed, I +refused; I was so thankful for that first offer. + +I went to Wilberforce with high ideals. I wanted to help to build a +great university. I was willing to work night as well as day. I taught +Latin, Greek, English, and German. I helped in the discipline, took part +in the social life, begged to be allowed to lecture on sociology, and +began to write books. But I found myself against a stone wall. Nothing +stirred before my impatient pounding! Or if it stirred, it soon slept +again. + +Of course, I was too impatient! The snarl of years was not to be undone +in days. I set at solving the problem before I knew it. Wilberforce was +a colored church-school. In it were mingled the problems of +poorly-prepared pupils, an inadequately-equipped plant, the natural +politics of bishoprics, and the provincial reactions of a country town +loaded with traditions. It was my first introduction to a Negro world, +and I was at once marvelously inspired and deeply depressed. I was +inspired with the children,--had I not rubbed against the children of +the world and did I not find here the same eagerness, the same joy of +life, the same brains as in New England, France, and Germany? But, on +the other hand, the ropes and myths and knots and hindrances; the +thundering waves of the white world beyond beating us back; the scalding +breakers of this inner world,--its currents and back eddies--its +meanness and smallness--its sorrow and tragedy--its screaming farce! + +In all this I was as one bound hand and foot. Struggle, work, fight as I +would, I seemed to get nowhere and accomplish nothing. I had all the +wild intolerance of youth, and no experience in human tangles. For the +first time in my life I realized that there were limits to my will to +do. The Day of Miracles was past, and a long, gray road of dogged work +lay ahead. + +I had, naturally, my triumphs here and there. I defied the bishops in +the matter of public extemporaneous prayer and they yielded. I bearded +the poor, hunted president in his den, and yet was re-elected to my +position. I was slowly winning a way, but quickly losing faith in the +value of the way won. Was this the place to begin my life work? Was this +the work which I was best fitted to do? What business had I, anyhow, to +teach Greek when I had studied men? I grew sure that I had made a +mistake. So I determined to leave Wilberforce and try elsewhere. Thus, +the third period of my life began. + +First, in 1896, I married--a slip of a girl, beautifully dark-eyed +and thorough and good as a German housewife. Then I accepted a job to +make a study of Negroes in Philadelphia for the University of +Pennsylvania,--one year at six hundred dollars. How did I dare these +two things? I do not know. Yet they spelled salvation. To remain at +Wilberforce without doing my ideals meant spiritual death. Both my +wife and I were homeless. I dared a home and a temporary job. But it +was a different daring from the days of my first youth. I was ready +to admit that the best of men might fail. I meant still to be captain +of my soul, but I realized that even captains are not omnipotent in +uncharted and angry seas. + +I essayed a thorough piece of work in Philadelphia. I labored morning, +noon, and night. Nobody ever reads that fat volume on "The Philadelphia +Negro," but they treat it with respect, and that consoles me. The +colored people of Philadelphia received me with no open arms. They had a +natural dislike to being studied like a strange species. I met again and +in different guise those curious cross-currents and inner social +whirlings of my own people. They set me to groping. I concluded that I +did not know so much as I might about my own people, and when President +Bumstead invited me to Atlanta University the next year to teach +sociology and study the American Negro, I accepted gladly, at a salary +of twelve hundred dollars. + +My real life work was done at Atlanta for thirteen years, from my +twenty-ninth to my forty-second birthday. They were years of great +spiritual upturning, of the making and unmaking of ideals, of hard work +and hard play. Here I found myself. I lost most of my mannerisms. I grew +more broadly human, made my closest and most holy friendships, and +studied human beings. I became widely-acquainted with the real condition +of my people. I realized the terrific odds which faced them. At +Wilberforce I was their captious critic. In Philadelphia I was their +cold and scientific investigator, with microscope and probe. It took but +a few years of Atlanta to bring me to hot and indignant defense. I saw +the race-hatred of the whites as I had never dreamed of it +before,--naked and unashamed! The faint discrimination of my hopes and +intangible dislikes paled into nothing before this great, red monster +of cruel oppression. I held back with more difficulty each day my +mounting indignation against injustice and misrepresentation. + +With all this came the strengthening and hardening of my own character. +The billows of birth, love, and death swept over me. I saw life through +all its paradox and contradiction of streaming eyes and mad merriment. I +emerged into full manhood, with the ruins of some ideals about me, but +with others planted above the stars; scarred and a bit grim, but hugging +to my soul the divine gift of laughter and withal determined, even unto +stubbornness, to fight the good fight. + +At last, forbear and waver as I would, I faced the great Decision. My +life's last and greatest door stood ajar. What with all my dreaming, +studying, and teaching was I going to _do_ in this fierce fight? Despite +all my youthful conceit and bumptiousness, I found developed beneath it +all a reticence and new fear of forwardness, which sprang from searching +criticisms of motive and high ideals of efficiency; but contrary to my +dream of racial solidarity and notwithstanding my deep desire to serve +and follow and think, rather than to lead and inspire and decide, I +found myself suddenly the leader of a great wing of people fighting +against another and greater wing. + +Nor could any effort of mine keep this fight from sinking to the +personal plane. Heaven knows I tried. That first meeting of a knot of +enthusiasts, at Niagara Falls, had all the earnestness of self-devotion. +At the second meeting, at Harper's Ferry, it arose to the solemnity of a +holy crusade and yet without and to the cold, hard stare of the world it +seemed merely the envy of fools against a great man, Booker Washington. + +Of the movement I was willy-nilly leader. I hated the role. For the +first time I faced criticism and _cared_. Every ideal and habit of my +life was cruelly misjudged. I who had always overstriven to give credit +for good work, who had never consciously stooped to envy was accused by +honest colored people of every sort of small and petty jealousy, while +white people said I was ashamed of my race and wanted to be white! And +this of me, whose one life fanaticism had been belief in my Negro blood! + +Away back in the little years of my boyhood I had sold the Springfield +_Republican_ and written for Mr. Fortune's _Globe_. I dreamed of being +an editor myself some day. I am an editor. In the great, slashing days +of college life I dreamed of a strong organization to fight the battles +of the Negro race. The National Association for the Advancement of +Colored People is such a body, and it grows daily. In the dark days at +Wilberforce I planned a time when I could speak freely to my people and +of them, interpreting between two worlds. I am speaking now. In the +study at Atlanta I grew to fear lest my radical beliefs should so hurt +the college that either my silence or the institution's ruin would +result. Powers and principalities have not yet curbed my tongue and +Atlanta still lives. + +It all came--this new Age of Miracles--because a few persons in 1909 +determined to celebrate Lincoln's Birthday properly by calling for the +final emancipation of the American Negro. I came at their call. My +salary even for a year was not assured, but it was the "Voice without +reply." The result has been the National Association for the Advancement +of Colored People and _The Crisis_ and this book, which I am finishing +on my Fiftieth Birthday. + +Last year I looked death in the face and found its lineaments not +unkind. But it was not my time. Yet in nature some time soon and in the +fullness of days I shall die, quietly, I trust, with my face turned +South and eastward; and, dreaming or dreamless, I shall, I am sure, +enjoy death as I have enjoyed life. + + + + + +_A Litany at Atlanta_ + +O Silent God, Thou whose voice afar in mist and mystery hath left our +ears an-hungered in these fearful days-- + +_Hear us, good Lord!_ + +Listen to us, Thy children: our faces dark with doubt are made a mockery +in Thy Sanctuary. With uplifted hands we front Thy Heaven, O God, +crying: + +_We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!_ + +We are not better than our fellows, Lord; we are but weak and human men. +When our devils do deviltry, curse Thou the doer and the deed,--curse +them as we curse them, do to them all and more than ever they have done +to innocence and weakness, to womanhood and home. + +_Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!_ + +And yet, whose is the deeper guilt? Who made these devils? Who nursed +them in crime and fed them on injustice? Who ravished and debauched +their mothers and their grandmothers? Who bought and sold their crime +and waxed fat and rich on public iniquity? + +_Thou knowest, good God!_ + +Is this Thy Justice, O Father, that guile be easier than innocence and +the innocent be crucified for the guilt of the untouched guilty? + +_Justice, O Judge of men!_ + +Wherefore do we pray? Is not the God of the Fathers dead? Have not seers +seen in Heaven's halls Thine hearsed and lifeless form stark amidst the +black and rolling smoke of sin, where all along bow bitter forms of +endless dead? + +_Awake, Thou that sleepest!_ + +Thou art not dead, but flown afar, up hills of endless light, through +blazing corridors of suns, where worlds do swing of good and gentle men, +of women strong and free--far from the cozenage, black hypocrisy, and +chaste prostitution of this shameful speck of dust! + +_Turn again, O Lord; leave us not to perish in our sin!_ + +From lust of body and lust of blood,-- + +_Great God, deliver us!_ + +From lust of power and lust of gold,-- + +_Great God, deliver us!_ + +From the leagued lying of despot and of brute,-- + +_Great God, deliver us!_ + +A city lay in travail, God our Lord, and from her loins sprang twin +Murder and Black Hate. Red was the midnight; clang, crack, and cry of +death and fury filled the air and trembled underneath the stars where +church spires pointed silently to Thee. And all this was to sate the +greed of greedy men who hide behind the veil of vengeance! + +_Bend us Thine ear, O Lord!_ + +In the pale, still morning we looked upon the deed. We stopped our ears +and held our leaping hands, but they--did they not wag their heads and +leer and cry with bloody jaws: _Cease from Crime!_ The word was mockery, +for thus they train a hundred crimes while we do cure one. + +_Turn again our captivity, O Lord!_ + +Behold this maimed and broken thing, dear God; it was an humble black +man, who toiled and sweat to save a bit from the pittance paid him. They +told him: _Work and Rise!_ He worked. Did this man sin? Nay, but someone +told how someone said another did--one whom he had never seen nor known. +Yet for that man's crime this man lieth maimed and murdered, his wife +naked to shame, his children to poverty and evil. + +_Hear us, O heavenly Father!_ + +Doth not this justice of hell stink in Thy nostrils, O God? How long +shall the mounting flood of innocent blood roar in Thine ears and pound +in our hearts for vengeance? Pile the pale frenzy of blood-crazed +brutes, who do such deeds, high on Thine Altar, Jehovah Jireh, and burn +it in hell forever and forever! + +_Forgive us, good Lord; we know not what we say!_ + +Bewildered we are and passion-tossed, mad with the madness of a mobbed +and mocked and murdered people; straining at the armposts of Thy throne, +we raise our shackled hands and charge Thee, God, by the bones of our +stolen fathers, by the tears of our dead mothers, by the very blood of +Thy crucified Christ: What meaneth this? Tell us the plan; give us the +sign! + +_Keep not Thou silent, O God!_ + +Sit not longer blind, Lord God, deaf to our prayer and dumb to our dumb +suffering. Surely Thou, too, art not white, O Lord, a pale, bloodless, +heartless thing! + +_Ah! Christ of all the Pities!_ + +Forgive the thought! Forgive these wild, blasphemous words! Thou art +still the God of our black fathers and in Thy Soul's Soul sit some soft +darkenings of the evening, some shadowings of the velvet night. + +But whisper--speak--call, great God, for Thy silence is white terror to +our hearts! The way, O God, show us the way and point us the path! + +Whither? North is greed and South is blood; within, the coward, and +without, the liar. Whither? To death? + +_Amen! Welcome, dark sleep!_ + +Whither? To life? But not this life, dear God, not this. Let the cup +pass from us, tempt us not beyond our strength, for there is that +clamoring and clawing within, to whose voice we would not listen, yet +shudder lest we must,--and it is red. Ah! God! It is a red and awful +shape. + +_Selah!_ + +In yonder East trembles a star. + +_Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the Lord!_ + +Thy Will, O Lord, be done! + +_Kyrie Eleison!_ + +Lord, we have done these pleading, wavering words. + +_We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!_ + +We bow our heads and hearken soft to the sobbing of women and little +children. + +_We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!_ + +Our voices sink in silence and in night. + +_Hear us, good Lord!_ + +In night, O God of a godless land! + +_Amen!_ + +In silence, O Silent God. + +_Selah!_ + + + + + +II + +THE SOULS OF WHITE FOLK + + +High in the tower, where I sit above the loud complaining of the human +sea, I know many souls that toss and whirl and pass, but none there are +that intrigue me more than the Souls of White Folk. + +Of them I am singularly clairvoyant. I see in and through them. I view +them from unusual points of vantage. Not as a foreigner do I come, for I +am native, not foreign, bone of their thought and flesh of their +language. Mine is not the knowledge of the traveler or the colonial +composite of dear memories, words and wonder. Nor yet is my knowledge +that which servants have of masters, or mass of class, or capitalist of +artisan. Rather I see these souls undressed and from the back and side. +I see the working of their entrails. I know their thoughts and they know +that I know. This knowledge makes them now embarrassed, now furious. +They deny my right to live and be and call me misbirth! My word is to +them mere bitterness and my soul, pessimism. And yet as they preach and +strut and shout and threaten, crouching as they clutch at rags of facts +and fancies to hide their nakedness, they go twisting, flying by my +tired eyes and I see them ever stripped,--ugly, human. + +The discovery of personal whiteness among the world's peoples is a very +modern thing,--a nineteenth and twentieth century matter, indeed. The +ancient world would have laughed at such a distinction. The Middle Age +regarded skin color with mild curiosity; and even up into the eighteenth +century we were hammering our national manikins into one, great, +Universal Man, with fine frenzy which ignored color and race even more +than birth. Today we have changed all that, and the world in a sudden, +emotional conversion has discovered that it is white and by that token, +wonderful! + +This assumption that of all the hues of God whiteness alone is +inherently and obviously better than brownness or tan leads to curious +acts; even the sweeter souls of the dominant world as they discourse +with me on weather, weal, and woe are continually playing above their +actual words an obligato of tune and tone, saying: + +"My poor, un-white thing! Weep not nor rage. I know, too well, that the +curse of God lies heavy on you. Why? That is not for me to say, but be +brave! Do your work in your lowly sphere, praying the good Lord that +into heaven above, where all is love, you may, one day, be born--white!" + +I do not laugh. I am quite straight-faced as I ask soberly: + +"But what on earth is whiteness that one should so desire it?" Then +always, somehow, some way, silently but clearly, I am given to +understand that whiteness is the ownership of the earth forever and +ever, Amen! + +Now what is the effect on a man or a nation when it comes passionately +to believe such an extraordinary dictum as this? That nations are coming +to believe it is manifest daily. Wave on wave, each with increasing +virulence, is dashing this new religion of whiteness on the shores of +our time. Its first effects are funny: the strut of the Southerner, the +arrogance of the Englishman amuck, the whoop of the hoodlum who +vicariously leads your mob. Next it appears dampening generous +enthusiasm in what we once counted glorious; to free the slave is +discovered to be tolerable only in so far as it freed his master! Do we +sense somnolent writhings in black Africa or angry groans in India or +triumphant banzais in Japan? "To your tents, O Israel!" These nations +are not white! + +After the more comic manifestations and the chilling of generous +enthusiasm come subtler, darker deeds. Everything considered, the title +to the universe claimed by White Folk is faulty. It ought, at least, to +look plausible. How easy, then, by emphasis and omission to make +children believe that every great soul the world ever saw was a white +man's soul; that every great thought the world ever knew was a white +man's thought; that every great deed the world ever did was a white +man's deed; that every great dream the world ever sang was a white man's +dream. In fine, that if from the world were dropped everything that +could not fairly be attributed to White Folk, the world would, if +anything, be even greater, truer, better than now. And if all this be a +lie, is it not a lie in a great cause? + +Here it is that the comedy verges to tragedy. The first minor note is +struck, all unconsciously, by those worthy souls in whom consciousness +of high descent brings burning desire to spread the gift abroad,--the +obligation of nobility to the ignoble. Such sense of duty assumes two +things: a real possession of the heritage and its frank appreciation by +the humble-born. So long, then, as humble black folk, voluble with +thanks, receive barrels of old clothes from lordly and generous whites, +there is much mental peace and moral satisfaction. But when the black +man begins to dispute the white man's title to certain alleged bequests +of the Fathers in wage and position, authority and training; and when +his attitude toward charity is sullen anger rather than humble jollity; +when he insists on his human right to swagger and swear and waste,--then +the spell is suddenly broken and the philanthropist is ready to believe +that Negroes are impudent, that the South is right, and that Japan wants +to fight America. + +After this the descent to Hell is easy. On the pale, white faces which +the great billows whirl upward to my tower I see again and again, often +and still more often, a writing of human hatred, a deep and passionate +hatred, vast by the very vagueness of its expressions. Down through the +green waters, on the bottom of the world, where men move to and fro, I +have seen a man--an educated gentleman--grow livid with anger because a +little, silent, black woman was sitting by herself in a Pullman car. He +was a white man. I have seen a great, grown man curse a little child, +who had wandered into the wrong waiting-room, searching for its mother: +"Here, you damned black--" He was white. In Central Park I have seen the +upper lip of a quiet, peaceful man curl back in a tigerish snarl of rage +because black folk rode by in a motor car. He was a white man. We have +seen, you and I, city after city drunk and furious with ungovernable +lust of blood; mad with murder, destroying, killing, and cursing; +torturing human victims because somebody accused of crime happened to be +of the same color as the mob's innocent victims and because that color +was not white! We have seen,--Merciful God! in these wild days and in +the name of Civilization, Justice, and Motherhood,--what have we not +seen, right here in America, of orgy, cruelty, barbarism, and murder +done to men and women of Negro descent. + +Up through the foam of green and weltering waters wells this great mass +of hatred, in wilder, fiercer violence, until I look down and know that +today to the millions of my people no misfortune could happen,--of death +and pestilence, failure and defeat--that would not make the hearts of +millions of their fellows beat with fierce, vindictive joy! Do you doubt +it? Ask your own soul what it would say if the next census were to +report that half of black America was dead and the other half dying. + +Unfortunate? Unfortunate. But where is the misfortune? Mine? Am I, in my +blackness, the sole sufferer? I suffer. And yet, somehow, above the +suffering, above the shackled anger that beats the bars, above the hurt +that crazes there surges in me a vast pity,--pity for a people +imprisoned and enthralled, hampered and made miserable for such a cause, +for such a phantasy! + +Conceive this nation, of all human peoples, engaged in a crusade to +make the "World Safe for Democracy"! Can you imagine the United States +protesting against Turkish atrocities in Armenia, while the Turks are +silent about mobs in Chicago and St. Louis; what is Louvain compared +with Memphis, Waco, Washington, Dyersburg, and Estill Springs? In short, +what is the black man but America's Belgium, and how could America +condemn in Germany that which she commits, just as brutally, within her +own borders? + +A true and worthy ideal frees and uplifts a people; a false ideal +imprisons and lowers. Say to men, earnestly and repeatedly: "Honesty is +best, knowledge is power; do unto others as you would be done by." Say +this and act it and the nation must move toward it, if not to it. But +say to a people: "The one virtue is to be white," and the people rush to +the inevitable conclusion, "Kill the 'nigger'!" + +Is not this the record of present America? Is not this its headlong +progress? Are we not coming more and more, day by day, to making the +statement "I am white," the one fundamental tenet of our practical +morality? Only when this basic, iron rule is involved is our defense of +right nation-wide and prompt. Murder may swagger, theft may rule and +prostitution may flourish and the nation gives but spasmodic, +intermittent and lukewarm attention. But let the murderer be black or +the thief brown or the violator of womanhood have a drop of Negro blood, +and the righteousness of the indignation sweeps the world. Nor would +this fact make the indignation less justifiable did not we all know that +it was blackness that was condemned and not crime. + +In the awful cataclysm of World War, where from beating, slandering, and +murdering us the white world turned temporarily aside to kill each +other, we of the Darker Peoples looked on in mild amaze. + +Among some of us, I doubt not, this sudden descent of Europe into hell +brought unbounded surprise; to others, over wide area, it brought the +_Schaden Freude_ of the bitterly hurt; but most of us, I judge, looked +on silently and sorrowfully, in sober thought, seeing sadly the prophecy +of our own souls. + +Here is a civilization that has boasted much. Neither Roman nor Arab, +Greek nor Egyptian, Persian nor Mongol ever took himself and his own +perfectness with such disconcerting seriousness as the modern white man. +We whose shame, humiliation, and deep insult his aggrandizement so often +involved were never deceived. We looked at him clearly, with world-old +eyes, and saw simply a human thing, weak and pitiable and cruel, even as +we are and were. + +These super-men and world-mastering demi-gods listened, however, to no +low tongues of ours, even when we pointed silently to their feet of +clay. Perhaps we, as folk of simpler soul and more primitive type, have +been most struck in the welter of recent years by the utter failure of +white religion. We have curled our lips in something like contempt as we +have witnessed glib apology and weary explanation. Nothing of the sort +deceived us. A nation's religion is its life, and as such white +Christianity is a miserable failure. + +Nor would we be unfair in this criticism: We know that we, too, have +failed, as you have, and have rejected many a Buddha, even as you have +denied Christ; but we acknowledge our human frailty, while you, claiming +super-humanity, scoff endlessly at our shortcomings. + +The number of white individuals who are practising with even reasonable +approximation the democracy and unselfishness of Jesus Christ is so +small and unimportant as to be fit subject for jest in Sunday +supplements and in _Punch_, _Life_, _Le Rire_, and _Fliegende Blaetter_. +In her foreign mission work the extraordinary self-deception of white +religion is epitomized: solemnly the white world sends five million +dollars worth of missionary propaganda to Africa each year and in the +same twelve months adds twenty-five million dollars worth of the vilest +gin manufactured. Peace to the augurs of Rome! + +We may, however, grant without argument that religious ideals have +always far outrun their very human devotees. Let us, then, turn to more +mundane matters of honor and fairness. The world today is trade. The +world has turned shopkeeper; history is economic history; living is +earning a living. Is it necessary to ask how much of high emprise and +honorable conduct has been found here? Something, to be sure. The +establishment of world credit systems is built on splendid and +realizable faith in fellow-men. But it is, after all, so low and +elementary a step that sometimes it looks merely like honor among +thieves, for the revelations of highway robbery and low cheating in the +business world and in all its great modern centers have raised in the +hearts of all true men in our day an exceeding great cry for revolution +in our basic methods and conceptions of industry and commerce. + +We do not, for a moment, forget the robbery of other times and races +when trade was a most uncertain gamble; but was there not a certain +honesty and frankness in the evil that argued a saner morality? There +are more merchants today, surer deliveries, and wider well-being, but +are there not, also, bigger thieves, deeper injustice, and more +calloused selfishness in well-being? Be that as it may,--certainly the +nicer sense of honor that has risen ever and again in groups of +forward-thinking men has been curiously and broadly blunted. Consider +our chiefest industry,--fighting. Laboriously the Middle Ages built its +rules of fairness--equal armament, equal notice, equal conditions. What +do we see today? Machine-guns against assegais; conquest sugared with +religion; mutilation and rape masquerading as culture,--all this, with +vast applause at the superiority of white over black soldiers! + +War is horrible! This the dark world knows to its awful cost. But has +it just become horrible, in these last days, when under essentially +equal conditions, equal armament, and equal waste of wealth white men +are fighting white men, with surgeons and nurses hovering near? + +Think of the wars through which we have lived in the last decade: in +German Africa, in British Nigeria, in French and Spanish Morocco, in +China, in Persia, in the Balkans, in Tripoli, in Mexico, and in a dozen +lesser places--were not these horrible, too? Mind you, there were for +most of these wars no Red Cross funds. + +Behold little Belgium and her pitiable plight, but has the world +forgotten Congo? What Belgium now suffers is not half, not even a tenth, +of what she has done to black Congo since Stanley's great dream of 1880. +Down the dark forests of inmost Africa sailed this modern Sir Galahad, +in the name of "the noble-minded men of several nations," to introduce +commerce and civilization. What came of it? "Rubber and murder, slavery +in its worst form," wrote Glave in 1895. + +Harris declares that King Leopold's regime meant the death of twelve +million natives, "but what we who were behind the scenes felt most +keenly was the fact that the real catastrophe in the Congo was +desolation and murder in the larger sense. The invasion of family life, +the ruthless destruction of every social barrier, the shattering of +every tribal law, the introduction of criminal practices which struck +the chiefs of the people dumb with horror--in a word, a veritable +avalanche of filth and immorality overwhelmed the Congo tribes." + +Yet the fields of Belgium laughed, the cities were gay, art and science +flourished; the groans that helped to nourish this civilization fell on +deaf ears because the world round about was doing the same sort of thing +elsewhere on its own account. + +As we saw the dead dimly through rifts of battlesmoke and heard faintly +the cursings and accusations of blood brothers, we darker men said: This +is not Europe gone mad; this is not aberration nor insanity; this _is_ +Europe; this seeming Terrible is the real soul of white culture--back of +all culture,--stripped and visible today. This is where the world has +arrived,--these dark and awful depths and not the shining and ineffable +heights of which it boasted. Here is whither the might and energy of +modern humanity has really gone. + +But may not the world cry back at us and ask: "What better thing have +you to show? What have you done or would do better than this if you had +today the world rule? Paint with all riot of hateful colors the thin +skin of European culture,--is it not better than any culture that arose +in Africa or Asia?" + +It is. Of this there is no doubt and never has been; but why is it +better? Is it better because Europeans are better, nobler, greater, and +more gifted than other folk? It is not. Europe has never produced and +never will in our day bring forth a single human soul who cannot be +matched and over-matched in every line of human endeavor by Asia and +Africa. Run the gamut, if you will, and let us have the Europeans who in +sober truth over-match Nefertari, Mohammed, Rameses and Askia, +Confucius, Buddha, and Jesus Christ. If we could scan the calendar of +thousands of lesser men, in like comparison, the result would be the +same; but we cannot do this because of the deliberately educated +ignorance of white schools by which they remember Napoleon and forget +Sonni Ali. + +The greatness of Europe has lain in the width of the stage on which she +has played her part, the strength of the foundations on which she has +builded, and a natural, human ability no whit greater (if as great) than +that of other days and races. In other words, the deeper reasons for the +triumph of European civilization lie quite outside and beyond +Europe,--back in the universal struggles of all mankind. + +Why, then, is Europe great? Because of the foundations which the mighty +past have furnished her to build upon: the iron trade of ancient, black +Africa, the religion and empire-building of yellow Asia, the art and +science of the "dago" Mediterranean shore, east, south, and west, as +well as north. And where she has builded securely upon this great past +and learned from it she has gone forward to greater and more splendid +human triumph; but where she has ignored this past and forgotten and +sneered at it, she has shown the cloven hoof of poor, crucified +humanity,--she has played, like other empires gone, the world fool! + +If, then, European triumphs in culture have been greater, so, too, may +her failures have been greater. How great a failure and a failure in +what does the World War betoken? Was it national jealousy of the sort of +the seventeenth century? But Europe has done more to break down national +barriers than any preceding culture. Was it fear of the balance of power +in Europe? Hardly, save in the half-Asiatic problems of the Balkans. +What, then, does Hauptmann mean when he says: "Our jealous enemies +forged an iron ring about our breasts and we knew our breasts had to +expand,--that we had to split asunder this ring or else we had to cease +breathing. But Germany will not cease to breathe and so it came to pass +that the iron ring was forced apart." + +Whither is this expansion? What is that breath of life, thought to be so +indispensable to a great European nation? Manifestly it is expansion +overseas; it is colonial aggrandizement which explains, and alone +adequately explains, the World War. How many of us today fully realize +the current theory of colonial expansion, of the relation of Europe +which is white, to the world which is black and brown and yellow? +Bluntly put, that theory is this: It is the duty of white Europe to +divide up the darker world and administer it for Europe's good. + +This Europe has largely done. The European world is using black and +brown men for all the uses which men know. Slowly but surely white +culture is evolving the theory that "darkies" are born beasts of burden +for white folk. It were silly to think otherwise, cries the cultured +world, with stronger and shriller accord. The supporting arguments grow +and twist themselves in the mouths of merchant, scientist, soldier, +traveler, writer, and missionary: Darker peoples are dark in mind as +well as in body; of dark, uncertain, and imperfect descent; of frailer, +cheaper stuff; they are cowards in the face of mausers and maxims; they +have no feelings, aspirations, and loves; they are fools, illogical +idiots,--"half-devil and half-child." + +Such as they are civilization must, naturally, raise them, but soberly +and in limited ways. They are not simply dark white men. They are not +"men" in the sense that Europeans are men. To the very limited extent of +their shallow capacities lift them to be useful to whites, to raise +cotton, gather rubber, fetch ivory, dig diamonds,--and let them be paid +what men think they are worth--white men who know them to be well-nigh +worthless. + +Such degrading of men by men is as old as mankind and the invention of +no one race or people. Ever have men striven to conceive of their +victims as different from the victors, endlessly different, in soul and +blood, strength and cunning, race and lineage. It has been left, +however, to Europe and to modern days to discover the eternal world-wide +mark of meanness,--color! + +Such is the silent revolution that has gripped modern European culture +in the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its zenith came in +Boxer times: White supremacy was all but world-wide, Africa was dead, +India conquered, Japan isolated, and China prostrate, while white +America whetted her sword for mongrel Mexico and mulatto South America, +lynching her own Negroes the while. Temporary halt in this program was +made by little Japan and the white world immediately sensed the peril of +such "yellow" presumption! What sort of a world would this be if yellow +men must be treated "white"? Immediately the eventual overthrow of Japan +became a subject of deep thought and intrigue, from St. Petersburg to +San Francisco, from the Key of Heaven to the Little Brother of the Poor. + +The using of men for the benefit of masters is no new invention of +modern Europe. It is quite as old as the world. But Europe proposed to +apply it on a scale and with an elaborateness of detail of which no +former world ever dreamed. The imperial width of the thing,--the +heaven-defying audacity--makes its modern newness. + +The scheme of Europe was no sudden invention, but a way out of +long-pressing difficulties. It is plain to modern white civilization +that the subjection of the white working classes cannot much longer be +maintained. Education, political power, and increased knowledge of the +technique and meaning of the industrial process are destined to make a +more and more equitable distribution of wealth in the near future. The +day of the very rich is drawing to a close, so far as individual white +nations are concerned. But there is a loophole. There is a chance for +exploitation on an immense scale for inordinate profit, not simply to +the very rich, but to the middle class and to the laborers. This chance +lies in the exploitation of darker peoples. It is here that the golden +hand beckons. Here are no labor unions or votes or questioning onlookers +or inconvenient consciences. These men may be used down to the very +bone, and shot and maimed in "punitive" expeditions when they revolt. In +these dark lands "industrial development" may repeat in exaggerated form +every horror of the industrial history of Europe, from slavery and rape +to disease and maiming, with only one test of success,--dividends! + +This theory of human culture and its aims has worked itself through warp +and woof of our daily thought with a thoroughness that few realize. +Everything great, good, efficient, fair, and honorable is "white"; +everything mean, bad, blundering, cheating, and dishonorable is +"yellow"; a bad taste is "brown"; and the devil is "black." The changes +of this theme are continually rung in picture and story, in newspaper +heading and moving-picture, in sermon and school book, until, of course, +the King can do no wrong,--a White Man is always right and a Black Man +has no rights which a white man is bound to respect. + +There must come the necessary despisings and hatreds of these savage +half-men, this unclean _canaille_ of the world--these dogs of men. All +through the world this gospel is preaching. It has its literature, it +has its secret propaganda and above all--it pays! + +There's the rub,--it pays. Rubber, ivory, and palm-oil; tea, coffee, and +cocoa; bananas, oranges, and other fruit; cotton, gold, and +copper--they, and a hundred other things which dark and sweating bodies +hand up to the white world from pits of slime, pay and pay well, but of +all that the world gets the black world gets only the pittance that the +white world throws it disdainfully. + +Small wonder, then, that in the practical world of things-that-be there +is jealousy and strife for the possession of the labor of dark millions, +for the right to bleed and exploit the colonies of the world where this +golden stream may be had, not always for the asking, but surely for the +whipping and shooting. It was this competition for the labor of yellow, +brown, and black folks that was the cause of the World War. Other causes +have been glibly given and other contributing causes there doubtless +were, but they were subsidiary and subordinate to this vast quest of the +dark world's wealth and toil. + +Colonies, we call them, these places where "niggers" are cheap and the +earth is rich; they are those outlands where like a swarm of hungry +locusts white masters may settle to be served as kings, wield the lash +of slave-drivers, rape girls and wives, grow as rich as Croesus and send +homeward a golden stream. They belt the earth, these places, but they +cluster in the tropics, with its darkened peoples: in Hong Kong and +Anam, in Borneo and Rhodesia, in Sierra Leone and Nigeria, in Panama and +Havana--these are the El Dorados toward which the world powers stretch +itching palms. + +Germany, at last one and united and secure on land, looked across the +seas and seeing England with sources of wealth insuring a luxury and +power which Germany could not hope to rival by the slower processes of +exploiting her own peasants and workingmen, especially with these +workers half in revolt, immediately built her navy and entered into a +desperate competition for possession of colonies of darker peoples. To +South America, to China, to Africa, to Asia Minor, she turned like a +hound quivering on the leash, impatient, suspicious, irritable, with +blood-shot eyes and dripping fangs, ready for the awful word. England +and France crouched watchfully over their bones, growling and wary, but +gnawing industriously, while the blood of the dark world whetted their +greedy appetites. In the background, shut out from the highway to the +seven seas, sat Russia and Austria, snarling and snapping at each other +and at the last Mediterranean gate to the El Dorado, where the Sick Man +enjoyed bad health, and where millions of serfs in the Balkans, Russia, +and Asia offered a feast to greed well-nigh as great as Africa. + +The fateful day came. It had to come. The cause of war is preparation +for war; and of all that Europe has done in a century there is nothing +that has equaled in energy, thought, and time her preparation for +wholesale murder. The only adequate cause of this preparation was +conquest and conquest, not in Europe, but primarily among the darker +peoples of Asia and Africa; conquest, not for assimilation and uplift, +but for commerce and degradation. For this, and this mainly, did Europe +gird herself at frightful cost for war. + +The red day dawned when the tinder was lighted in the Balkans and +Austro-Hungary seized a bit which brought her a step nearer to the +world's highway; she seized one bit and poised herself for another. Then +came that curious chorus of challenges, those leaping suspicions, raking +all causes for distrust and rivalry and hatred, but saying little of the +real and greatest cause. + +Each nation felt its deep interests involved. But how? Not, surely, in +the death of Ferdinand the Warlike; not, surely, in the old, +half-forgotten _revanche_ for Alsace-Lorraine; not even in the +neutrality of Belgium. No! But in the possession of land overseas, in +the right to colonies, the chance to levy endless tribute on the darker +world,--on coolies in China, on starving peasants in India, on black +savages in Africa, on dying South Sea Islanders, on Indians of the +Amazon--all this and nothing more. + +Even the broken reed on which we had rested high hopes of eternal +peace,--the guild of the laborers--the front of that very important +movement for human justice on which we had builded most, even this flew +like a straw before the breath of king and kaiser. Indeed, the flying +had been foreshadowed when in Germany and America "international" +Socialists had all but read yellow and black men out of the kingdom of +industrial justice. Subtly had they been bribed, but effectively: Were +they not lordly whites and should they not share in the spoils of rape? +High wages in the United States and England might be the skilfully +manipulated result of slavery in Africa and of peonage in Asia. + +With the dog-in-the-manger theory of trade, with the determination to +reap inordinate profits and to exploit the weakest to the utmost there +came a new imperialism,--the rage for one's own nation to own the earth +or, at least, a large enough portion of it to insure as big profits as +the next nation. Where sections could not be owned by one dominant +nation there came a policy of "open door," but the "door" was open to +"white people only." As to the darkest and weakest of peoples there was +but one unanimity in Europe,--that which Hen Demberg of the German +Colonial Office called the agreement with England to maintain white +"prestige" in Africa,--the doctrine of the divine right of white people +to steal. + +Thus the world market most wildly and desperately sought today is the +market where labor is cheapest and most helpless and profit is most +abundant. This labor is kept cheap and helpless because the white world +despises "darkies." If one has the temerity to suggest that these +workingmen may walk the way of white workingmen and climb by votes and +self-assertion and education to the rank of men, he is howled out of +court. They cannot do it and if they could, they shall not, for they are +the enemies of the white race and the whites shall rule forever and +forever and everywhere. Thus the hatred and despising of human beings +from whom Europe wishes to extort her luxuries has led to such jealousy +and bickering between European nations that they have fallen afoul of +each other and have fought like crazed beasts. Such is the fruit of +human hatred. + +But what of the darker world that watches? Most men belong to this +world. With Negro and Negroid, East Indian, Chinese, and Japanese they +form two-thirds of the population of the world. A belief in humanity is +a belief in colored men. If the uplift of mankind must be done by men, +then the destinies of this world will rest ultimately in the hands of +darker nations. + +What, then, is this dark world thinking? It is thinking that as wild +and awful as this shameful war was, _it is nothing to compare with that +fight for freedom which black and brown and yellow men must and will +make unless their oppression and humiliation and insult at the hands of +the White World cease. The Dark World is going to submit to its present +treatment just as long as it must and not one moment longer._ + +Let me say this again and emphasize it and leave no room for mistaken +meaning: The World War was primarily the jealous and avaricious struggle +for the largest share in exploiting darker races. As such it is and must +be but the prelude to the armed and indignant protest of these despised +and raped peoples. Today Japan is hammering on the door of justice, +China is raising her half-manacled hands to knock next, India is +writhing for the freedom to knock, Egypt is sullenly muttering, the +Negroes of South and West Africa, of the West Indies, and of the United +States are just awakening to their shameful slavery. Is, then, this war +the end of wars? Can it be the end, so long as sits enthroned, even in +the souls of those who cry peace, the despising and robbing of darker +peoples? If Europe hugs this delusion, then this is not the end of world +war,--it is but the beginning! + +We see Europe's greatest sin precisely where we found Africa's and +Asia's,--in human hatred, the despising of men; with this difference, +however: Europe has the awful lesson of the past before her, has the +splendid results of widened areas of tolerance, sympathy, and love among +men, and she faces a greater, an infinitely greater, world of men than +any preceding civilization ever faced. + +It is curious to see America, the United States, looking on herself, +first, as a sort of natural peacemaker, then as a moral protagonist in +this terrible time. No nation is less fitted for this role. For two or +more centuries America has marched proudly in the van of human +hatred,--making bonfires of human flesh and laughing at them hideously, +and making the insulting of millions more than a matter of +dislike,--rather a great religion, a world war-cry: Up white, down +black; to your tents, O white folk, and world war with black and +parti-colored mongrel beasts! + +Instead of standing as a great example of the success of democracy and +the possibility of human brotherhood America has taken her place as an +awful example of its pitfalls and failures, so far as black and brown +and yellow peoples are concerned. And this, too, in spite of the fact +that there has been no actual failure; the Indian is not dying out, the +Japanese and Chinese have not menaced the land, and the experiment of +Negro suffrage has resulted in the uplift of twelve million people at a +rate probably unparalleled in history. But what of this? America, Land +of Democracy, wanted to believe in the failure of democracy so far as +darker peoples were concerned. Absolutely without excuse she established +a caste system, rushed into preparation for war, and conquered tropical +colonies. She stands today shoulder to shoulder with Europe in Europe's +worst sin against civilization. She aspires to sit among the great +nations who arbitrate the fate of "lesser breeds without the law" and +she is at times heartily ashamed even of the large number of "new" white +people whom her democracy has admitted to place and power. Against this +surging forward of Irish and German, of Russian Jew, Slav and "dago" her +social bars have not availed, but against Negroes she can and does take +her unflinching and immovable stand, backed by this new public policy of +Europe. She trains her immigrants to this despising of "niggers" from +the day of their landing, and they carry and send the news back to the +submerged classes in the fatherlands. + + * * * * * + +All this I see and hear up in my tower, above the thunder of the seven +seas. From my narrowed windows I stare into the night that looms beneath +the cloud-swept stars. Eastward and westward storms are +breaking,--great, ugly whirlwinds of hatred and blood and cruelty. I +will not believe them inevitable. I will not believe that all that was +must be, that all the shameful drama of the past must be done again +today before the sunlight sweeps the silver seas. + +If I cry amid this roar of elemental forces, must my cry be in vain, +because it is but a cry,--a small and human cry amid Promethean gloom? + +Back beyond the world and swept by these wild, white faces of the awful +dead, why will this Soul of White Folk,--this modern Prometheus,--hang +bound by his own binding, tethered by a fable of the past? I hear his +mighty cry reverberating through the world, "I am white!" Well and good, +O Prometheus, divine thief! Is not the world wide enough for two colors, +for many little shinings of the sun? Why, then, devour your own vitals +if I answer even as proudly, "I am black!" + + + + + +_The Riddle of the Sphinx_ + + + Dark daughter of the lotus leaves that watch the Southern Sea! + Wan spirit of a prisoned soul a-panting to be free! + The muttered music of thy streams, the whisper of the deep, + Have kissed each other in God's name and kissed a world to sleep. + + The will of the world is a whistling wind, sweeping a cloud-swept sky, + And not from the East and not from the West knelled that + soul-waking cry, + But out of the South,--the sad, black South--it screamed from + the top of the sky, + Crying: "Awake, O ancient race!" Wailing, "O woman, arise!" + And crying and sighing and crying again as a voice in the + midnight cries,-- + But the burden of white men bore her back and the white world + stifled her sighs. + + The white world's vermin and filth: + All the dirt of London, + All the scum of New York; + Valiant spoilers of women + And conquerers of unarmed men; + Shameless breeders of bastards, + Drunk with the greed of gold, + Baiting their blood-stained hooks + With cant for the souls of the simple; + Bearing the white man's burden + Of liquor and lust and lies! + + Unthankful we wince in the East, + Unthankful we wail from the westward, + Unthankfully thankful, we curse, + In the unworn wastes of the wild: + I hate them, Oh! + I hate them well, + I hate them, Christ! + As I hate hell! + If I were God, + I'd sound their knell + This day! + Who raised the fools to their glory, + But black men of Egypt and Ind, + Ethiopia's sons of the evening, + Indians and yellow Chinese, + Arabian children of morning, + And mongrels of Rome and Greece? + Ah, well! + And they that raised the boasters + Shall drag them down again,-- + Down with the theft of their thieving + And murder and mocking of men; + Down with their barter of women + And laying and lying of creeds; + Down with their cheating of childhood + And drunken orgies of war,-- + down + down + deep down, + Till the devil's strength be shorn, + Till some dim, darker David, a-hoeing of his corn, + And married maiden, mother of God, + Bid the black Christ be born! + Then shall our burden be manhood, + Be it yellow or black or white; + And poverty and justice and sorrow, + The humble, and simple and strong + Shall sing with the sons of morning + And daughters of even-song: + Black mother of the iron hills that ward the blazing sea, + Wild spirit of a storm-swept soul, a-struggling to be free, + Where 'neath the bloody finger-marks thy riven bosom quakes, + Thicken the thunders of God's Voice and lo! a world awakes! + + + + +III + +THE HANDS OF ETHIOPIA + + +"_Semper novi quid ex Africa_," cried the Roman proconsul, and he voiced +the verdict of forty centuries. Yet there are those who would write +world history and leave out of account this most marvelous of +continents. Particularly today most men assume that Africa is far afield +from the center of our burning social problems and especially from our +problem of world war. + +Always Africa is giving us something new or some metempsychosis of a +world-old thing. On its black bosom arose one of the earliest, if not +the earliest, of self-protecting civilizations, which grew so mightily +that it still furnishes superlatives to thinking and speaking men. Out +of its darker and more remote forest fastnesses came, if we may credit +many recent scientists, the first welding of iron, and we know that +agriculture and trade flourished there when Europe was a wilderness. + +Nearly every human empire that has arisen in the world, material and +spiritual, has found some of its greatest crises on this continent of +Africa, from Greece to Great Britain. As Mommsen says: "It was through +Africa that Christianity became the religion of the world." In Africa +the last flood of Germanic invasions spent itself within hearing of the +last gasp of Byzantium, and it was through Africa that Islam came to +play its great role of conqueror and civilizer. + +With the Renaissance and the widened world of modern thought Africa came +no less suddenly with her new-old gift. Shakespeare's "Ancient Pistol" +cries: + + A foutre for the world and worldlings base! + I speak of Africa and golden joys! + +He echoes a legend of gold from the days of Punt and Ophir to those of +Ghana, the Gold Coast, and the Rand. This thought had sent the world's +greed scurrying down the hot, mysterious coasts of Africa to the Good +Hope of gain, until for the first time a real world-commerce was born, +albeit it started as a commerce mainly in the bodies and souls of men. + +The present problem of problems is nothing more than democracy beating +itself helplessly against the color bar,--purling, seeping, seething, +foaming to burst through, ever and again overwhelming the emerging +masses of white men in its rolling backwaters and held back by those who +dream of future kingdoms of greed built on black and brown and yellow +slavery. + +The indictment of Africa against Europe is grave. For four hundred years +white Europe was the chief support of that trade in human beings which +first and last robbed black Africa of a hundred million human beings, +transformed the face of her social life, overthrew organized government, +distorted ancient industry, and snuffed out the lights of cultural +development. Today instead of removing laborers from Africa to distant +slavery, industry built on a new slavery approaches Africa to deprive +the natives of their land, to force them to toil, and to reap all the +profit for the white world. + +It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader of the essential facts +underlying these broad assertions. A recent law of the Union of South +Africa assigns nearly two hundred and fifty million acres of the best of +natives' land to a million and a half whites and leaves thirty-six +million acres of swamp and marsh for four and a half-million blacks. In +Rhodesia over ninety million acres have been practically confiscated. In +the Belgian Congo all the land was declared the property of the state. + +Slavery in all but name has been the foundation of the cocoa industry in +St. Thome and St. Principe and in the mines of the Rand. Gin has been +one of the greatest of European imports, having increased fifty per +cent. in ten years and reaching a total of at least twenty-five million +dollars a year today. Negroes of ability have been carefully gotten rid +of, deposed from authority, kept out of positions of influence, and +discredited in their people's eyes, while a caste of white overseers and +governing officials has appeared everywhere. + +Naturally, the picture is not all lurid. David Livingstone has had his +successors and Europe has given Africa something of value in the +beginning of education and industry. Yet the balance of iniquity is +desperately large; but worse than that, it has aroused no world protest. +A great Englishman, familiar with African problems for a generation, +says frankly today: "There does not exist any real international +conscience to which you can appeal." + +Moreover, that treatment shows no certain signs of abatement. Today in +England the Empire Resources Development Committee proposes to treat +African colonies as "crown estates" and by intensive scientific +exploitation of both land and labor to make these colonies pay the +English national debt after the war! German thinkers, knowing the +tremendous demand for raw material which would follow the war, had +similar plans of exploitation. "It is the clear, common sense of the +African situation," says H.G. Wells, "that while these precious regions +of raw material remain divided up between a number of competitive +European imperialisms, each resolutely set upon the exploitation of its +'possessions' to its own advantage and the disadvantage of the others, +there can be no permanent peace in the world. It is impossible." + +We, then, who fought the war against war; who in a hell of blood and +suffering held hardly our souls in leash by the vision of a world +organized for peace; who are looking for industrial democracy and for +the organization of Europe so as to avoid incentives to war,--we, least +of all, should be willing to leave the backward world as the greatest +temptation, not only to wars based on international jealousies, but to +the most horrible of wars,--which arise from the revolt of the maddened +against those who hold them in common contempt. + +Consider, my reader,--if you were today a man of some education and +knowledge, but born a Japanese or a Chinaman, an East Indian or a Negro, +what would you do and think? What would be in the present chaos your +outlook and plan for the future? Manifestly, you would want freedom for +your people,--freedom from insult, from segregation, from poverty, from +physical slavery. If the attitude of the European and American worlds is +in the future going to be based essentially upon the same policies as in +the past, then there is but one thing for the trained man of darker +blood to do and that is definitely and as openly as possible to organize +his world for war against Europe. He may have to do it by secret, +underground propaganda, as in Egypt and India and eventually in the +United States; or by open increase of armament, as in Japan; or by +desperate efforts at modernization, as in China; but he must do it. He +represents the vast majority of mankind. To surrender would be far worse +than physical death. There is no way out unless the white world gives up +such insult as its modern use of the adjective "yellow" indicates, or +its connotation of "chink" and "nigger" implies; either it gives up the +plan of color serfdom which its use of the other adjective "white" +implies, as indicating everything decent and every part of the world +worth living in,--or trouble is written in the stars! + +It is, therefore, of singular importance after disquieting delay to see +the real Pacifist appear. Both England and Germany have recently been +basing their claims to parts of black Africa on the wishes and interests +of the black inhabitants. Lloyd George has declared "the general +principle of national self-determination applicable at least to German +Africa," while Chancellor Hertling once welcomed a discussion "on the +reconstruction of the world's colonial possessions." + +The demand that an Africa for Africans shall replace the present +barbarous scramble for exploitation by individual states comes from +singularly different sources. Colored America demands that "the +conquered German colonies should not be returned to Germany, neither +should they be held by the Allies. Here is the opportunity for the +establishment of a nation that may never recur. Thousands of colored +men, sick of white arrogance and hypocrisy, see in this their race's +only salvation." + +Sir Harry H. Johnston recently said: "If we are to talk, as we do, +sentimentally but justly about restoring the nationhood of Poland, about +giving satisfaction to the separatist feeling in Ireland, and about what +is to be done for European nations who are oppressed, then we can hardly +exclude from this feeling the countries of Africa." + +Laborers, black laborers, on the Canal Zone write: "Out of this chaos +may be the great awakening of our race. There is cause for rejoicing. If +we fail to embrace this opportunity now, we fail to see how we will be +ever able to solve the race question. It is for the British Negro, the +French Negro, and the American Negro to rise to the occasion and start a +national campaign, jointly and collectively, with this aim in view." + +From British West Africa comes the bitter complaint "that the West +Africans should have the right or opportunity to settle their future for +themselves is a thing which hardly enters the mind of the European +politician. That the Balkan States should be admitted to the Council of +Peace and decide the government under which they are to live is taken as +a matter of course because they are Europeans, but no extra-European is +credited, even by the extremist advocates of human equality, with any +right except to humbly accept the fate which Europe shall decide for +him." + +Here, then, is the danger and the demand; and the real Pacifist will +seek to organize, not simply the masses in white nations, guarding +against exploitation and profiteering, but will remember that no +permanent relief can come but by including in this organization the +lowest and the most exploited races in the world. World philanthropy, +like national philanthropy, must come as uplift and prevention and not +merely as alleviation and religious conversion. Reverence for humanity, +as such, must be installed in the world, and Africa should be the +talisman. + +Black Africa, including British, French, Belgian, Portuguese, Italian, +and Spanish possessions and the independent states of Abyssinia and +Liberia and leaving out of account Egypt and North Africa, on the one +hand, and South Africa, on the other, has an area of 8,200,000 square +miles and a population well over one hundred millions of black men, +with less than one hundred thousand whites. + +Commercial exploitation in Africa has already larger results to show +than most people realize. Annually $200,000,000 worth of goods was +coming out of black Africa before the World War, including a third of +the world's supply of rubber, a quarter of all of the world's cocoa, and +practically all of the world's cloves, gum-arabic, and palm-oil. In +exchange there was being returned to Africa one hundred millions in +cotton cloth, twenty-five millions in iron and steel, and as much in +foods, and probably twenty-five millions in liquors. + +Here are the beginnings of a modern industrial system: iron and steel +for permanent investment, bound to yield large dividends; cloth as the +cheapest exchange for invaluable raw material; liquor to tickle the +appetites of the natives and render the alienation of land and the +breakdown of customary law easier; eventually forced and contract labor +under white drivers to increase and systematize the production of raw +materials. These materials are capable of indefinite expansion: cotton +may yet challenge the southern United States, fruits and vegetables, +hides and skins, lumber and dye-stuffs, coffee and tea, grain and +tobacco, and fibers of all sorts can easily follow organized and +systematic toil. + +Is it a paradise of industry we thus contemplate? It is much more likely +to be a hell. Under present plans there will be no voice or law or +custom to protect labor, no trades unions, no eight-hour laws, no +factory legislation,--nothing of that great body of legislation built up +in modern days to protect mankind from sinking to the level of beasts of +burden. All the industrial deviltry, which civilization has been driving +to the slums and the backwaters, will have a voiceless continent to +conceal it. If the slave cannot be taken from Africa, slavery can be +taken to Africa. + +Who are the folk who live here? They are brown and black, curly and +crisp-haired, short and tall, and longheaded. Out of them in days +without date flowed the beginnings of Egypt; among them rose, later, +centers of culture at Ghana, Melle, and Timbuktu. Kingdoms and empires +flourished in Songhay and Zymbabwe, and art and industry in Yoruba and +Benin. They have fought every human calamity in its most hideous form +and yet today they hold some similar vestiges of a mighty past,--their +work in iron, their weaving and carving, their music and singing, their +tribal government, their town-meeting and marketplace, their desperate +valor in war. + +Missionaries and commerce have left some good with all their evil. In +black Africa today there are more than a thousand government schools and +some thirty thousand mission schools, with a more or less regular +attendance of three-quarters of a million school children. In a few +cases training of a higher order is given chiefs' sons and selected +pupils. These beginnings of education are not much for so vast a land +and there is no general standard or set plan of development, but, after +all, the children of Africa are beginning to learn. + +In black Africa today only one-seventeenth of the land and a ninth of +the people in Liberia and Abyssinia are approximately independent, +although menaced and policed by European capitalism. Half the land and +the people are in domains under Portugal, France, and Belgium, held with +the avowed idea of exploitation for the benefit of Europe under a system +of caste and color serfdom. Out of this dangerous nadir of development +stretch two paths: one is indicated by the condition of about three per +cent of the people who in Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and French +Senegal, are tending toward the path of modern development; the other +path, followed by a fourth of the land and people, has local +self-government and native customs and might evolve, if undisturbed, a +native culture along their own peculiar lines. A tenth of the land, +sparsely settled, is being monopolized and held for whites to make an +African Australia. To these later folk must be added the four and +one-half millions of the South African Union, who by every modern device +are being forced into landless serfdom. + +Before the World War tendencies were strongly toward the destruction of +independent Africa, the industrial slavery of the mass of the blacks and +the encouragement of white immigration, where possible, to hold the +blacks in subjection. + +Against this idea let us set the conception of a new African World +State, a Black Africa, applying to these peoples the splendid +pronouncements which have of late been so broadly and perhaps carelessly +given the world: recognizing in Africa the declaration of the American +Federation of Labor, that "no people must be forced under sovereignty +under which it does not wish to live"; recognizing in President Wilson's +message to the Russians, the "principle of the undictated development of +all peoples"; recognizing the resolution of the recent conference of the +Aborigines Protection Society of England, "that in any reconstruction of +Africa, which may result from this war, the interests of the native +inhabitants and also their wishes, in so far as those wishes can be +clearly ascertained, should be recognized as among the principal factors +upon which the decision of their destiny should be based." In other +words, recognizing for the first time in the history of the modern world +that black men are human. + +It may not be possible to build this state at once. With the victory of +the Entente Allies, the German colonies, with their million of square +miles and one-half million black inhabitants, should form such a +nucleus. It would give Black Africa its physical beginnings. Beginning +with the German colonies two other sets of colonies could be added, for +obvious reasons. Neither Portugal nor Belgium has shown any particular +capacity for governing colonial peoples. Valid excuses may in both cases +be advanced, but it would certainly be fair to Belgium to have her start +her great task of reorganization after the World War with neither the +burden nor the temptation of colonies; and in the same way Portugal has, +in reality, the alternative of either giving up her colonies to an +African State or to some other European State in the near future. These +two sets of colonies would add 1,700,000 square miles and eighteen +million inhabitants. It would not, however, be fair to despoil Germany, +Belgium, and Portugal of their colonies unless, as Count Hertling once +demanded, the whole question of colonies be opened. + +How far shall the modern world recognize nations which are not nations, +but combinations of a dominant caste and a suppressed horde of serfs? +Will it not be possible to rebuild a world with compact nations, empires +of self-governing elements, and colonies of backward peoples under +benevolent international control? + +The great test would be easy. Does England propose to erect in India and +Nigeria nations brown and black which shall be eventually independent, +self-governing entities, with a full voice in the British Imperial +Government? If not, let these states either have independence at once +or, if unfitted for that, be put under international tutelage and +guardianship. It is possible that France, with her great heart, may +welcome a Black France,--an enlarged Senegal in Africa; but it would +seem that eventually all Africa south of twenty degrees north latitude +and north of the Union of South Africa should be included in a new +African State. Somaliland and Eritrea should be given to Abyssinia, and +then with Liberia we would start with two small, independent African +states and one large state under international control. + +Does this sound like an impossible dream? No one could be blamed for so +regarding it before 1914. I, myself, would have agreed with them. But +since the nightmare of 1914-1918, since we have seen the impossible +happen and the unspeakable become so common as to cease to stir us; in a +day when Russia has dethroned her Czar, England has granted the suffrage +to women and is in the act of giving Home Rule to Ireland; when Germany +has adopted parliamentary government; when Jerusalem has been delivered +from the Turks; and the United States has taken control of its +railroads,--is it really so far-fetched to think of an Africa for the +Africans, guided by organized civilization? + +No one would expect this new state to be independent and self-governing +from the start. Contrary, however, to present schemes for Africa the +world would expect independence and self-government as the only possible +end of the experiment At first we can conceive of no better way of +governing this state than through that same international control by +which we hope to govern the world for peace. A curious and instructive +parallel has been drawn by Simeon Strunsky: "Just as the common +ownership of the northwest territory helped to weld the colonies into +the United States, so could not joint and benevolent domination of +Africa and of other backward parts of the world be a cornerstone upon +which the future federation of the world could be built?" + +From the British Labor Party comes this declaration: "With regard to the +colonies of the several belligerents in tropical Africa, from sea to +sea, the British Labor Movement disclaims all sympathy with the +imperialist idea that these should form the booty of any nation, should +be exploited for the profit of the capitalists, or should be used for +the promotion of the militarists' aims of government. In view of the +fact that it is impracticable here to leave the various peoples +concerned to settle their own destinies it is suggested that the +interests of humanity would be best served by the full and frank +abandonment by all the belligerents of any dreams of an African Empire; +the transfer of the present colonies of the European Powers in tropical +Africa, however, and the limits of this area may be defined to the +proposed Supernational Authority, or League of Nations." + +Lloyd George himself has said in regard to the German colonies a word +difficult to restrict merely to them: "I have repeatedly declared that +they are held at the disposal of a conference, whose decision must have +primary regard to the wishes and interests of the native inhabitants of +such colonies. None of those territories is inhabited by Europeans. The +governing considerations, therefore, must be that the inhabitants should +be placed under the control of an administration acceptable to +themselves, one of whose main purposes will be to prevent their +exploitation for the benefit of European capitalists or governments." + +The special commission for the government of this African State must, +naturally, be chosen with great care and thought. It must represent, not +simply governments, but civilization, science, commerce, social reform, +religious philanthropy without sectarian propaganda. It must include, +not simply white men, but educated and trained men of Negro blood. The +guiding principles before such a commission should be clearly +understood. In the first place, it ought by this time to be realized by +the labor movement throughout the world that no industrial democracy can +be built on industrial despotism, whether the two systems are in the +same country or in different countries, since the world today so nearly +approaches a common industrial unity. If, therefore, it is impossible in +any single land to uplift permanently skilled labor without also raising +common labor, so, too, there can be no permanent uplift of American or +European labor as long as African laborers are slaves. + +Secondly, this building of a new African State does not mean the +segregation in it of all the world's black folk. It is too late in the +history of the world to go back to the idea of absolute racial +segregation. The new African State would not involve any idea of a vast +transplantation of the twenty-seven million Negroids of the western +world, of Africa, or of the gathering there of Negroid Asia. The Negroes +in the United States and the other Americas have earned the right to +fight out their problems where they are, but they could easily furnish +from time to time technical experts, leaders of thought, and +missionaries of culture for their backward brethren in the new Africa. + +With these two principles, the practical policies to be followed out in +the government of the new states should involve a thorough and complete +system of modern education, built upon the present government, religion, +and customary laws of the natives. There should be no violent tampering +with the curiously efficient African institutions of local +self-government through the family and the tribe; there should be no +attempt at sudden "conversion" by religious propaganda. Obviously +deleterious customs and unsanitary usages must gradually be abolished, +but the general government, set up from without, must follow the example +of the best colonial administrators and build on recognized, established +foundations rather than from entirely new and theoretical plans. + +The real effort to modernize Africa should be through schools rather +than churches. Within ten years, twenty million black children ought to +be in school. Within a generation young Africa should know the essential +outlines of modern culture and groups of bright African students could +be going to the world's great universities. From the beginning the +actual general government should use both colored and white officials +and later natives should be worked in. Taxation and industry could +follow the newer ideals of industrial democracy, avoiding private land +monopoly and poverty, and promoting co-operation in production and the +socialization of income. Difficulties as to capital and revenue would be +far less than many imagine. If a capable English administrator of +British Nigeria could with $1,500 build up a cocoa industry of twenty +million dollars annually, what might not be done in all Africa, without +gin, thieves, and hypocrisy? + +Capital could not only be accumulated in Africa, but attracted from the +white world, with one great difference from present usage: no return so +fabulous would be offered that civilized lands would be tempted to +divert to colonial trade and invest materials and labor needed by the +masses at home, but rather would receive the same modest profits as +legitimate home industry offers. + +There is no sense in asserting that the ideal of an African State, thus +governed and directed toward independence and self-government, is +impossible of realization. The first great essential is that the +civilized world believe in its possibility. By reason of a crime +(perhaps the greatest crime in human history) the modern world has been +systematically taught to despise colored peoples. Men of education and +decency ask, and ask seriously, if it is really possible to uplift +Africa. Are Negroes human, or, if human, developed far enough to absorb, +even under benevolent tutelage, any appreciable part of modern culture? +Has not the experiment been tried in Haiti and Liberia, and failed? + +One cannot ignore the extraordinary fact that a world campaign beginning +with the slave-trade and ending with the refusal to capitalize the word +"Negro," leading through a passionate defense of slavery by attributing +every bestiality to blacks and finally culminating in the evident modern +profit which lies in degrading blacks,--all this has unconsciously +trained millions of honest, modern men into the belief that black folk +are sub-human. This belief is not based on science, else it would be +held as a postulate of the most tentative kind, ready at any time to be +withdrawn in the face of facts; the belief is not based on history, for +it is absolutely contradicted by Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and +Arabian experience; nor is the belief based on any careful survey of the +social development of men of Negro blood to-day in Africa and America. +It is simply passionate, deep-seated heritage, and as such can be moved +by neither argument nor fact. Only faith in humanity will lead the world +to rise above its present color prejudice. + +Those who do believe in men, who know what black men have done in human +history, who have taken pains to follow even superficially the story of +the rise of the Negro in Africa, the West Indies, and the Americas of +our day know that our modern contempt of Negroes rests upon no +scientific foundation worth a moment's attention. It is nothing more +than a vicious habit of mind. It could as easily be overthrown as our +belief in war, as our international hatreds, as our old conception of +the status of women, as our fear of educating the masses, and as our +belief in the necessity of poverty. We can, if we will, inaugurate on +the Dark Continent a last great crusade for humanity. With Africa +redeemed Asia would be safe and Europe indeed triumphant. + +I have not mentioned North and South Africa, because my eye was centered +on the main mass of the Negro race. Yet it is clear that for the +development of Central Africa, Egypt should be free and independent, +there along the highway to a free and independent India; while Morocco, +Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli must become a part of Europe, with modern +development and home rule. South Africa, stripped of its black serfs and +their lands, must admit the resident natives and colored folk to its +body politic as equals. + +The hands which Ethiopia shall soon stretch out unto God are not mere +hands of helplessness and supplication, but rather are they hands of +pain and promise; hard, gnarled, and muscled for the world's real work; +they are hands of fellowship for the half-submerged masses of a +distempered world; they are hands of helpfulness for an agonized God! + + * * * * * + +Twenty centuries before Christ a great cloud swept over seas and settled +on Africa, darkening and well-nigh blotting out the culture of the land +of Egypt. For half a thousand years it rested there, until a black +woman, Queen Nefertari, "the most venerated figure in Egyptian history," +rose to the throne of the Pharaohs and redeemed the world and her +people. Twenty centuries after Christ, Black Africa,--prostrated, raped, +and shamed, lies at the feet of the conquering Philistines of Europe. +Beyond the awful sea a black woman is weeping and waiting, with her sons +on her breast. What shall the end be? The world-old and fearful +things,--war and wealth, murder and luxury? Or shall it be a new +thing,--a new peace and a new democracy of all races,--a great humanity +of equal men? "_Semper novi quid ex Africa_!" + + + + +_The Princess of the Hither Isles_ + + +Her soul was beautiful, wherefore she kept it veiled in lightly-laced +humility and fear, out of which peered anxiously and anon the white and +blue and pale-gold of her face,-beautiful as daybreak or as the laughing +of a child. She sat in the Hither Isles, well walled between the This +and Now, upon a low and silver throne, and leaned upon its armposts, +sadly looking upward toward the sun. Now the Hither Isles are flat and +cold and swampy, with drear-drab light and all manner of slimy, creeping +things, and piles of dirt and clouds of flying dust and sordid scraping +and feeding and noise. + +She hated them and ever as her hands and busy feet swept back the dust +and slime her soul sat silver-throned, staring toward the great hill to +the westward, which shone so brilliant-golden beneath the sunlight and +above the sea. + +The sea moaned and with it moaned the princess' soul, for she was +lonely,--very, very lonely, and full weary of the monotone of life. So +she was glad to see a moving in Yonder Kingdom on the mountainside, +where the sun shone warm, and when the king of Yonder Kingdom, silken in +robe and golden-crowned and warded by his hound, walked down along the +restless waters and sat beside the armpost of her throne, she wondered +why she could not love him and fly with him up the shining mountain's +side, out of the dirt and dust that nested between the This and Now. She +looked at him and tried to be glad, for he was bonny and good to look +upon, this king of Yonder Kingdom,--tall and straight, thin-lipped and +white and tawny. So, again, this last day, she strove to burn life into +his singularly sodden clay,--to put his icy soul aflame wherewith to +warm her own, to set his senses singing. Vacantly he heard her winged +words, staring and curling his long mustaches with vast thoughtfulness. +Then he said: + +"We've found more gold in Yonder Kingdom." + +"Hell seize your gold!" blurted the princess. + +"No,--it's mine," he maintained stolidly. + +She raised her eyes. "It belongs," she said, "to the Empire of the Sun." + +"Nay,--the Sun belongs to us," said the king calmly as he glanced to +where Yonder Kingdom blushed above the sea. She glanced, too, and a +softness crept into her eyes. + +"No, no," she murmured as with hesitating pause she raised her eyes +above the sea, above the hill, up into the sky where the sun hung silent +and splendid. Its robes were heaven's blue, lined and broidered in +living flame, and its crown was one vast jewel, glistening in glittering +glory that made the sun's own face a blackness,--the blackness of utter +light. With blinded, tear-filled eyes she peered into that formless +black and burning face and sensed in its soft, sad gleam unfathomed +understanding. With sudden, wild abandon she stretched her arms toward +it appealing, beseeching, entreating, and lo! + +"Niggers and dagoes," said the king of Yonder Kingdom, glancing +carelessly backward and lighting in his lips a carefully rolled wisp of +fragrant tobacco. She looked back, too, but in half-wondering terror, +for it seemed-- + +A beggar man was creeping across the swamp, shuffling through the dirt +and slime. He was little and bald and black, rough-clothed, sodden with +dirt, and bent with toil. Yet withal something she sensed about him and +it seemed,-- + +The king of Yonder Kingdom lounged more comfortably beside the silver +throne and let curl a tiny trail of light-blue smoke. + +"I hate beggars," he said, "especially brown and black ones." And he +then pointed at the beggar's retinue and laughed,--an unpleasant laugh, +welded of contempt and amusement. The princess looked and shrank on her +throne. He, the beggar man, was--was what? But his retinue,--that +squalid, sordid, parti-colored band of vacant, dull-faced filth and +viciousness--was writhing over the land, and he and they seemed almost +crouching underneath the scorpion lash of one tall skeleton, that looked +like Death, and the twisted woman whom men called Pain. Yet they all +walked as one. + +The King of Yonder Kingdom laughed, but the princess shrank on her +throne, and the king on seeing her thus took a gold-piece from out of +his purse and tossed it carelessly to the passing throng. She watched it +with fascinated eyes,--how it rose and sailed and whirled and struggled +in the air, then seemed to burst, and upward flew its light and sheen +and downward dropped its dross. She glanced at the king, but he was +lighting a match. She watched the dross wallow in the slime, but the +sunlight fell on the back of the beggar's neck, and he turned his head. + +The beggar passing afar turned his head and the princess straightened +on her throne; he turned his head and she shivered forward on her +silver seat; he looked upon her full and slow and suddenly she saw +within that formless black and burning face the same soft, glad gleam of +utter understanding, seen so many times before. She saw the suffering of +endless years and endless love that softened it. She saw the burning +passion of the sun and with it the cold, unbending duty-deeds of upper +air. All she had seen and dreamed of seeing in the rising, blazing sun +she saw now again and with it myriads more of human tenderness, of +longing, and of love. So, then, she knew. She rose as to a dream come +true, with solemn face and waiting eyes. + +With her rose the king of Yonder Kingdom, almost eagerly. + +"You'll come?" he cried. "You'll come and see my gold?" And then in +sudden generosity, he added: "You'll have a golden throne,-up there-when +we marry." + +But she, looking up and on with radiant face, answered softly: "I come." + +So down and up and on they mounted,-the black beggar man and his +cavalcade of Death and Pain, and then a space; and then a lone, black +hound that nosed and whimpered as he ran, and then a space; and then the +king of Yonder Kingdom in his robes, and then a space; and last the +princess of the Hither Isles, with face set sunward and lovelight in her +eyes. + +And so they marched and struggled on and up through endless years and +spaces and ever the black beggar looked back past death and pain toward +the maid and ever the maid strove forward with lovelit eyes, but ever +the great and silken shoulders of the king of Yonder Kingdom arose +between the princess and the sun like a cloud of storms. + +Now, finally, they neared unto the hillsides topmost shoulder and there +most eagerly the king bent to the bowels of the earth and bared its +golden entrails,-all green and gray and rusted-while the princess +strained her pitiful eyes aloft to where the beggar, set 'twixt Death +and Pain, whirled his slim back against the glory of the setting sun and +stood somber in his grave majesty, enhaloed and transfigured, +outstretching his long arms, and around all heaven glittered jewels in a +cloth of gold. + +A while the princess stood and moaned in mad amaze, then with one wilful +wrench she bared the white flowers of her breast and snatching forth her +own red heart held it with one hand aloft while with the other she +gathered close her robe and poised herself. + +The king of Yonder Kingdom looked upward quickly, curiously, still +fingering the earth, and saw the offer of her bleeding heart. + +"It's a Negro!" he growled darkly; "it may not be." + +The woman quivered. + +"It's a nigger!" he repeated fiercely. "It's neither God nor man, but a +nigger!" + +The princess stepped forward. + +The king grasped his sword and looked north and east; he raised his +sword and looked south and west. + +"I seek the sun," the princess sang, and started into the west. + +"Never!" cried the king of Yonder Kingdom, "for such were blasphemy and +defilement and the making of all evil." + +So, raising his great sword he struck with all his might, and more. Down +hissed the blow and it bit that little, white, heart-holding hand until +it flew armless and disbodied up through the sunlit air. Down hissed the +blow and it clove the whimpering hound until his last shriek shook the +stars. Down hissed the blow and it rent the earth. It trembled, fell +apart, and yawned to a chasm wide as earth from heaven, deep as hell, +and empty, cold, and silent. + +On yonder distant shore blazed the mighty Empire of the Sun in warm and +blissful radiance, while on this side, in shadows cold and dark, gloomed +the Hither Isles and the hill that once was golden, but now was green +and slimy dross; all below was the sad and moaning sea, while between +the Here and There flew the severed hand and dripped the bleeding heart. + +Then up from the soul of the princess welled a cry of dark +despair,--such a cry as only babe-raped mothers know and murdered loves. +Poised on the crumbling edge of that great nothingness the princess +hung, hungering with her eyes and straining her fainting ears against +the awful splendor of the sky. + +Out from the slime and shadows groped the king, thundering: "Back--don't +be a fool!" + +But down through the thin ether thrilled the still and throbbing warmth +of heaven's sun, whispering "Leap!" + +And the princess leapt. + + + + +IV + +OF WORK AND WEALTH + + +For fifteen years I was a teacher of youth. They were years out of the +fullness and bloom of my younger manhood. They were years mingled of +half breathless work, of anxious self-questionings, of planning and +replanning, of disillusion, or mounting wonder. + +The teacher's life is a double one. He stands in a certain fear. He +tends to be stilted, almost dishonest, veiling himself before those +awful eyes. Not the eyes of Almighty God are so straight, so +penetrating, so all-seeing as the wonder-swept eyes of youth. You walk +into a room: to the left is a tall window, bright with colors of crimson +and gold and sunshine. Here are rows of books and there is a table. +Somber blackboards clothe the walls to the right and beside your desk is +the delicate ivory of a nobly cast head. But you see nothing of this: +you see only a silence and eyes,--fringed, soft eyes; hard eyes; eyes +great and small; eyes here so poignant with beauty that the sob +struggles in your throat; eyes there so hard with sorrow that laughter +wells up to meet and beat it back; eyes through which the mockery and +ridicule of hell or some pulse of high heaven may suddenly flash. Ah! +That mighty pause before the class,--that orison and benediction--how +much of my life it has been and made. + +I fought earnestly against posing before my class. I tried to be natural +and honest and frank, but it was a bitter hard. What would you say to a +soft, brown face, aureoled in a thousand ripples of gray-black hair, +which knells suddenly: "Do you trust white people?" You do not and you +know that you do not, much as you want to; yet you rise and lie and say +you do; you must say it for her salvation and the world's; you repeat +that she must trust them, that most white folks are honest, and all the +while you are lying and every level, silent eye there knows you are +lying, and miserably you sit and lie on, to the greater glory of God. + +I taught history and economics and something called "sociology" at +Atlanta University, where, as our Mr. Webster used to say, we professors +occupied settees and not mere chairs. I was fortunate with this teaching +in having vivid in the minds of my pupils a concrete social problem of +which we all were parts and which we desperately desired to solve. There +was little danger, then, of my teaching or of their thinking becoming +purely theoretical. Work and wage were thrilling realities to us all. +What did we study? I can tell you best by taking a concrete human case, +such as was continually leaping to our eyes and thought and demanding +understanding and interpretation and what I could bring of prophecy. + + * * * * * + +St. Louis sprawls where mighty rivers meet,--as broad as Philadelphia, +but three stories high instead of two, with wider streets and dirtier +atmosphere, over the dull-brown of wide, calm rivers. The city overflows +into the valleys of Illinois and lies there, writhing under its grimy +cloud. The other city is dusty and hot beyond all dream,--a feverish +Pittsburg in the Mississippi Valley--a great, ruthless, terrible thing! +It is the sort that crushes man and invokes some living superman,--a +giant of things done, a clang of awful accomplishment. + +Three men came wandering across this place. They were neither kings nor +wise men, but they came with every significance--perhaps even +greater--than that which the kings bore in the days of old. There was +one who came from the North,--brawny and riotous with energy, a man of +concentrated power, who held all the thunderbolts of modern capital in +his great fists and made flour and meat, iron and steel, cunning +chemicals, wood, paint and paper, transforming to endless tools a +disemboweled earth. He was one who saw nothing, knew nothing, sought +nothing but the making and buying of that which sells; who out from the +magic of his hand rolled over miles of iron road, ton upon ton of food +and metal and wood, of coal and oil and lumber, until the thronging of +knotted ways in East and real St. Louis was like the red, festering +ganglia of some mighty heart. + +Then from the East and called by the crash of thunderbolts and +forked-flame came the Unwise Man,--unwise by the theft of endless ages, +but as human as anything God ever made. He was the slave for the miracle +maker. It was he that the thunderbolts struck and electrified into +gasping energy. The rasp of his hard breathing shook the midnights of +all this endless valley and the pulse of his powerful arms set the great +nation to trembling. + +And then, at last, out of the South, like a still, small voice, came the +third man,--black, with great eyes and greater memories; hesitantly +eager and yet with the infinite softness and ancient calm which come +from that eternal race whose history is not the history of a day, but +of endless ages. Here, surely, was fit meeting-place for these curiously +intent forces, for these epoch-making and age-twisting forces, for these +human feet on their super-human errands. + +Yesterday I rode in East St. Louis. It is the kind of place one quickly +recognizes,--tireless and with no restful green of verdure; hard and +uneven of street; crude, cold, and even hateful of aspect; conventional, +of course, in its business quarter, but quickly beyond one sees the ruts +and the hollows, the stench of ill-tamed sewerage, unguarded railroad +crossings, saloons outnumbering churches and churches catering to +saloons; homes impudently strait and new, prostitutes free and happy, +gamblers in paradise, the town "wide open," shameless and frank; great +factories pouring out stench, filth, and flame--these and all other +things so familiar in the world market places, where industry triumphs +over thought and products overwhelm men. May I tell, too, how yesterday +I rode in this city past flame-swept walls and over gray ashes; in +streets almost wet with blood and beside ruins, where the bones of dead +men new-bleached peered out at me in sullen wonder? + +Across the river, in the greater city, where bronze St. Louis,--that +just and austere king--looks with angry, fear-swept eyes down from the +rolling heights of Forest Park, which knows him not nor heeds him, there +is something of the same thing, but this city is larger and older and +the forces of evil have had some curbing from those who have seen the +vision and panted for life; but eastward from St. Louis there is a land +of no taxes for great industries; there is a land where you may buy +grafting politicians at far less rate than you would pay for franchises +or privileges in a modern town. There, too, you may escape the buying of +indulgences from the great terminal fist, which squeezes industry out of +St. Louis. In fact, East St. Louis is a paradise for high and frequent +dividends and for the piling up of wealth to be spent in St. Louis and +Chicago and New York and when the world is sane again, across the seas. + +So the Unwise Men pouring out of the East,--falling, scrambling, rushing +into America at the rate of a million a year,--ran, walked, and crawled +to this maelstrom of the workers. They garnered higher wage than ever +they had before, but not all of it came in cash. A part, and an +insidious part, was given to them transmuted into whiskey, prostitutes, +and games of chance. They laughed and disported themselves. God! Had not +their mothers wept enough? It was a good town. There was no veil of +hypocrisy here, but a wickedness, frank, ungilded, and open. To be sure, +there were things sometimes to reveal the basic savagery and thin +veneer. Once, for instance, a man was lynched for brawling on the public +square of the county seat; once a mayor who sought to "clean up" was +publicly assassinated; always there was theft and rumors of theft, +until St. Clair County was a hissing in good men's ears; but always, +too, there were good wages and jolly hoodlums and unchecked wassail of +Saturday nights. Gamblers, big and little, rioted in East St. Louis. The +little gamblers used cards and roulette wheels and filched the weekly +wage of the workers. The greater gamblers used meat and iron and undid +the foundations of the world. All the gods of chance flaunted their wild +raiment here, above the brown flood of the Mississippi. + +Then the world changed; then civilization, built for culture, rebuilt +itself for wilful murder in Europe, Asia, America, and the Southern +Seas. Hands that made food made powder, and iron for railways was iron +for guns. The wants of common men were forgotten before the groan of +giants. Streams of gold, lost from the world's workers, filtered and +trickled into the hands of gamblers and put new power into the +thunderbolts of East St. Louis. + +Wages had been growing before the World War. Slowly but remorselessly +the skilled and intelligent, banding themselves, had threatened the +coffers of the mighty, and slowly the mighty had disgorged. Even the +common workers, the poor and unlettered, had again and again gripped the +sills of the city walls and pulled themselves to their chins; but, alas! +there were so many hands and so many mouths and the feet of the +Disinherited kept coming across the wet paths of the sea to this old El +Dorado. + +War brought subtle changes. Wages stood still while prices fattened. It +was not that the white American worker was threatened with starvation, +but it was what was, after all, a more important question,--whether or +not he should lose his front-room and victrola and even the dream of a +Ford car. + +There came a whirling and scrambling among the workers,--they fought +each other; they climbed on each others' backs. The skilled and +intelligent, banding themselves even better than before, bargained with +the men of might and held them by bitter threats; the less skilled and +more ignorant seethed at the bottom and tried, as of old, to bring it +about that the ignorant and unlettered should learn to stand together +against both capital and skilled labor. + +It was here that there came out of the East a beam of unearthly +light,--a triumph of possible good in evil so strange that the workers +hardly believed it. Slowly they saw the gates of Ellis Island closing, +slowly the footsteps of the yearly million men became fainter and +fainter, until the stream of immigrants overseas was stopped by the +shadow of death at the very time when new murder opened new markets over +all the world to American industry; and the giants with the thunderbolts +stamped and raged and peered out across the world and called for men and +evermore,--men! + +The Unwise Men laughed and squeezed reluctant dollars out of the fists +of the mighty and saw in their dream the vision of a day when labor, as +they knew it, should come into its own; saw this day and saw it with +justice and with right, save for one thing, and that was the sound of +the moan of the Disinherited, who still lay without the walls. When they +heard this moan and saw that it came not across the seas, they were at +first amazed and said it was not true; and then they were mad and said +it should not be. Quickly they turned and looked into the red blackness +of the South and in their hearts were fear and hate! + +What did they see? They saw something at which they had been taught to +laugh and make sport; they saw that which the heading of every newspaper +column, the lie of every cub reporter, the exaggeration of every press +dispatch, and the distortion of every speech and book had taught them +was a mass of despicable men, inhuman; at best, laughable; at worst, the +meat of mobs and fury. + +What did they see? They saw nine and one-half millions of human beings. +They saw the spawn of slavery, ignorant by law and by deviltry, crushed +by insult and debauched by systematic and criminal injustice. They saw a +people whose helpless women have been raped by thousands and whose men +lynched by hundreds in the face of a sneering world. They saw a people +with heads bloody, but unbowed, working faithfully at wages fifty per +cent. lower than the wages of the nation and under conditions which +shame civilization, saving homes, training children, hoping against +hope. They saw the greatest industrial miracle of modern days,--slaves +transforming themselves to freemen and climbing out of perdition by +their own efforts, despite the most contemptible opposition God ever +saw,--they saw all this and what they saw the distraught employers of +America saw, too. + +The North called to the South. A scream of rage went up from the cotton +monopolists and industrial barons of the new South. Who was this who +dared to "interfere" with their labor? Who sought to own their black +slaves but they? Who honored and loved "niggers" as they did? + +They mobilized all the machinery of modern oppression: taxes, city +ordinances, licenses, state laws, municipal regulations, wholesale +police arrests and, of course, the peculiarly Southern method of the mob +and the lyncher. They appealed frantically to the United States +Government; they groveled on their knees and shed wild tears at the +"suffering" of their poor, misguided black friends, and yet, despite +this, the Northern employers simply had to offer two and three dollars a +day and from one-quarter to one-half a million dark workers arose and +poured themselves into the North. They went to the mines of West +Virginia, because war needs coal; they went to the industries of New +Jersey and Pennsylvania, because war needs ships and iron; they went to +the automobiles of Detroit and the load-carrying of Chicago; and they +went to East St. Louis. + +Now there came fear in the hearts of the Unwise Men. It was not that +their wages were lowered,--they went even higher. They received, not +simply, a living wage, but a wage that paid for some of the decencies, +and, in East St. Louis, many of the indecencies of life. What they +feared was not deprivation of the things they were used to and the +shadow of poverty, but rather the definite death of their rising dreams. +But if fear was new-born in the hearts of the Unwise Men, the black man +was born in a house of fear; to him poverty of the ugliest and straitest +type was father, mother, and blood-brother. He was slipping stealthily +northward to escape hunger and insult, the hand of oppression, and the +shadow of death. + +Here, then, in the wide valley which Father Marquette saw peaceful and +golden, lazy with fruit and river, half-asleep beneath the nod of +God,--here, then, was staged every element for human tragedy, every +element of the modern economic paradox. + + * * * * * + +Ah! That hot, wide plain of East St. Louis is a gripping thing. The +rivers are dirty with sweat and toil and lip, like lakes, along the low +and burdened shores; flatboats ramble and thread among them, and above +the steamers bridges swing on great arches of steel, striding with +mighty grace from shore to shore. Everywhere are brick kennels,--tall, +black and red chimneys, tongues of flame. The ground is littered with +cars and iron, tracks and trucks, boxes and crates, metals and coal and +rubber. Nature-defying cranes, grim elevators rise above pile on pile of +black and grimy lumber. And ever below is the water,--wide and silent, +gray-brown and yellow. + +This is the stage for the tragedy: the armored might of the modern world +urged by the bloody needs of the world wants, fevered today by a +fabulous vision of gain and needing only hands, hands, hands! Fear of +loss and greed of gain in the hearts of the giants; the clustered +cunning of the modern workman, skilled as artificer and skilled in the +rhythm of the habit of work, tasting the world's good and panting for +more; fear of poverty and hate of "scabs" in the hearts of the workers; +the dumb yearning in the hearts of the oppressed; the echo of laughter +heard at the foot of the Pyramids; the faithful, plodding slouch of the +laborers; fear of the Shadow of Death in the hearts of black men. + +We ask, and perhaps there is no answer, how far may the captain of the +world's industry do his deeds, despite the grinding tragedy of its +doing? How far may men fight for the beginning of comfort, out beyond +the horrid shadow of poverty, at the cost of starving other and what the +world calls lesser men? How far may those who reach up out of the slime +that fills the pits of the world's damned compel men with loaves to +divide with men who starve? + +The answers to these questions are hard, but yet one answer looms above +all,--justice lies with the lowest; the plight of the lowest man,--the +plight of the black man--deserves the first answer, and the plight of +the giants of industry, the last. + +Little cared East St. Louis for all this bandying of human problems, so +long as its grocers and saloon-keepers flourished and its industries +steamed and screamed and smoked and its bankers grew rich. Stupidity, +license, and graft sat enthroned in the City Hall. The new black folk +were exploited as cheerfully as white Polacks and Italians; the rent of +shacks mounted merrily, the street car lines counted gleeful gains, and +the crimes of white men and black men flourished in the dark. The high +and skilled and smart climbed on the bent backs of the ignorant; harder +the mass of laborers strove to unionize their fellows and to bargain +with employers. + +Nor were the new blacks fools. They had no love for nothings in labor; +they had no wish to make their fellows' wage envelopes smaller, but they +were determined to make their own larger. They, too, were willing to +join in the new union movement. But the unions did not want them. Just +as employers monopolized meat and steel, so they sought to monopolize +labor and beat a giant's bargain. In the higher trades they succeeded. +The best electrician in the city was refused admittance to the union and +driven from the town because he was black. No black builder, printer, or +machinist could join a union or work in East St. Louis, no matter what +his skill or character. But out of the stink of the stockyards and the +dust of the aluminum works and the sweat of the lumber yards the willing +blacks could not be kept. + +They were invited to join unions of the laborers here and they joined. +White workers and black workers struck at the aluminum works in the fall +and won higher wages and better hours; then again in the spring they +struck to make bargaining compulsory for the employer, but this time +they fronted new things. The conflagration of war had spread to America; +government and court stepped in and ordered no hesitation, no strikes; +the work must go on. + +Deeper was the call for workers. Black men poured in and red anger +flamed in the hearts of the white workers. The anger was against the +wielders of the thunderbolts, but here it was impotent because employers +stood with the hand of the government before their faces; it was against +entrenched union labor, which had risen on the backs of the unskilled +and unintelligent and on the backs of those whom for any reason of race +or prejudice or chicane they could beat beyond the bars of competition; +and finally the anger of the mass of white workers was turned toward +these new black interlopers, who seemed to come to spoil their last +dream of a great monopoly of common labor. + +These angers flamed and the union leaders, fearing their fury and +knowing their own guilt, not only in the larger and subtler matter of +bidding their way to power across the weakness of their less fortunate +fellows, but also conscious of their part in making East St. Louis a +miserable town of liquor and lust, leaped quickly to ward the gathering +thunder from their own heads. The thing they wanted was even at their +hands: here were black men, guilty not only of bidding for jobs which +white men could have held at war prices, even if they could not fill, +but also guilty of being black! It was at this blackness that the unions +pointed the accusing finger. It was here that they committed the +unpardonable crime. It was here that they entered the Shadow of Hell, +where suddenly from a fight for wage and protection against industrial +oppression East St. Louis became the center of the oldest and nastiest +form of human oppression,--race hatred. + +The whole situation lent itself to this terrible transformation. +Everything in the history of the United States, from slavery to Sunday +supplements, from disfranchisement to residence segregation, from +"Jim-Crow" cars to a "Jim-Crow" army draft--all this history of +discrimination and insult festered to make men think and willing to +think that the venting of their unbridled anger against 12,000,000 +humble, upstriving workers was a way of settling the industrial tangle +of the ages. It was the logic of the broken plate, which, seared of old +across its pattern, cracks never again, save along the old destruction. + +So hell flamed in East St. Louis! The white men drove even black union +men out of their unions and when the black men, beaten by night and +assaulted, flew to arms and shot back at the marauders, five thousand +rioters arose and surged like a crested stormwave, from noonday until +midnight; they killed and beat and murdered; they dashed out the brains +of children and stripped off the clothes of women; they drove victims +into the flames and hanged the helpless to the lighting poles. Fathers +were killed before the faces of mothers; children were burned; heads +were cut off with axes; pregnant women crawled and spawned in dark, wet +fields; thieves went through houses and firebrands followed; bodies were +thrown from bridges; and rocks and bricks flew through the air. + +The Negroes fought. They grappled with the mob like beasts at bay. They +drove them back from the thickest cluster of their homes and piled the +white dead on the street, but the cunning mob caught the black men +between the factories and their homes, where they knew they were armed +only with their dinner pails. Firemen, policemen, and militiamen stood +with hanging hands or even joined eagerly with the mob. + +It was the old world horror come to life again: all that Jews suffered +in Spain and Poland; all that peasants suffered in France, and Indians +in Calcutta; all that aroused human deviltry had accomplished in ages +past they did in East St. Louis, while the rags of six thousand +half-naked black men and women fluttered across the bridges of the calm +Mississippi. + +The white South laughed,--it was infinitely funny--the "niggers" who had +gone North to escape slavery and lynching had met the fury of the mob +which they had fled. Delegations rushed North from Mississippi and +Texas, with suspicious timeliness and with great-hearted offers to take +these workers back to a lesser hell. The man from Greensville, +Mississippi, who wanted a thousand got six, because, after all, the end +was not so simple. + +No, the end was not simple. On the contrary, the problem raised by East +St. Louis was curiously complex. The ordinary American, tired of the +persistence of "the Negro problem," sees only another anti-Negro mob and +wonders, not when we shall settle this problem, but when we shall be +well rid of it. The student of social things sees another mile-post in +the triumphant march of union labor; he is sorry that blood and rapine +should mark its march,--but, what will you? War is life! + +Despite these smug reasonings the bare facts were these: East St. Louis, +a great industrial center, lost 5,000 laborers,--good, honest, +hard-working laborers. It was not the criminals, either black or white, +who were driven from East St. Louis. They are still there. They will +stay there. But half the honest black laborers were gone. The crippled +ranks of industrial organization in the mid-Mississippi Valley cannot be +recruited from Ellis Island, because in Europe men are dead and maimed, +and restoration, when restoration comes, will raise a European demand +for labor such as this age has never seen. The vision of industrial +supremacy has come to the giants who lead American industry and finance. +But it can never be realized unless the laborers are here to do the +work,--the skilled laborers, the common laborers, the willing laborers, +the well-paid laborers. The present forces, organized however cunningly, +are not large enough to do what America wants; but there is another +group of laborers, 12,000,000 strong, the natural heirs, by every logic +of justice, to the fruits of America's industrial advance. They will be +used simply because they must be used,--but their using means East St. +Louis! + +Eastward from St. Louis lie great centers, like Chicago, Indianapolis, +Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and New York; in every one +of these and in lesser centers there is not only the industrial unrest +of war and revolutionized work, but there is the call for workers, the +coming of black folk, and the deliberate effort to divert the thoughts +of men, and particularly of workingmen, into channels of race hatred +against blacks. In every one of these centers what happened in East St. +Louis has been attempted, with more or less success. Yet the American +Negroes stand today as the greatest strategic group in the world. Their +services are indispensable, their temper and character are fine, and +their souls have seen a vision more beautiful than any other mass of +workers. They may win back culture to the world if their strength can be +used with the forces of the world that make for justice and not against +the hidden hates that fight for barbarism. For fight they must and fight +they will! + +Rising on wings we cross again the rivers of St. Louis, winding and +threading between the towers of industry that threaten and drown the +towers of God. Far, far beyond, we sight the green of fields and hills; +but ever below lies the river, blue,--brownish-gray, touched with the +hint of hidden gold. Drifting through half-flooded lowlands, with +shanties and crops and stunted trees, past struggling corn and +straggling village, we rush toward the Battle of the Marne and the West, +from this dread Battle of the East. Westward, dear God, the fire of Thy +Mad World crimsons our Heaven. Our answering Hell rolls eastward from +St. Louis. + + * * * * * + +Here, in microcosm, is the sort of economic snarl that arose continually +for me and my pupils to solve. We could bring to its unraveling little +of the scholarly aloofness and academic calm of most white universities. +To us this thing was Life and Hope and Death! + +How should we think such a problem through, not simply as Negroes, but +as men and women of a new century, helping to build a new world? And +first of all, here is no simple question of race antagonism. There are +no races, in the sense of great, separate, pure breeds of men, differing +in attainment, development, and capacity. There are great groups,--now +with common history, now with common interests, now with common +ancestry; more and more common experience and present interest drive +back the common blood and the world today consists, not of races, but of +the imperial commercial group of master capitalists, international and +predominantly white; the national middle classes of the several nations, +white, yellow, and brown, with strong blood bonds, common languages, and +common history; the international laboring class of all colors; the +backward, oppressed groups of nature-folk, predominantly yellow, brown, +and black. + +Two questions arise from the work and relations of these groups: how to +furnish goods and services for the wants of men and how equitably and +sufficiently to satisfy these wants. There can be no doubt that we have +passed in our day from a world that could hardly satisfy the physical +wants of the mass of men, by the greatest effort, to a world whose +technique supplies enough for all, if all can claim their right. Our +great ethical question today is, therefore, how may we justly distribute +the world's goods to satisfy the necessary wants of the mass of men. + +What hinders the answer to this question? Dislikes, jealousies, +hatreds,--undoubtedly like the race hatred in East St. Louis; the +jealousy of English and German; the dislike of the Jew and the Gentile. +But these are, after all, surface disturbances, sprung from ancient +habit more than from present reason. They persist and are encouraged +because of deeper, mightier currents. If the white workingmen of East +St. Louis felt sure that Negro workers would not and could not take the +bread and cake from their mouths, their race hatred would never have +been translated into murder. If the black workingmen of the South could +earn a decent living under decent circumstances at home, they would not +be compelled to underbid their white fellows. + +Thus the shadow of hunger, in a world which never needs to be hungry, +drives us to war and murder and hate. But why does hunger shadow so vast +a mass of men? Manifestly because in the great organizing of men for +work a few of the participants come out with more wealth than they can +possibly use, while a vast number emerge with less than can decently +support life. In earlier economic stages we defended this as the reward +of Thrift and Sacrifice, and as the punishment of Ignorance and Crime. +To this the answer is sharp: Sacrifice calls for no such reward and +Ignorance deserves no such punishment. The chief meaning of our present +thinking is that the disproportion between wealth and poverty today +cannot be adequately accounted for by the thrift and ignorance of the +rich and the poor. + +Yesterday we righted one great mistake when we realized that the +ownership of the laborer did not tend to increase production. The world +at large had learned this long since, but black slavery arose again in +America as an inexplicable anachronism, a wilful crime. The freeing of +the black slaves freed America. Today we are challenging another +ownership,-the ownership of materials which go to make the goods we +need. Private ownership of land, tools, and raw materials may at one +stage of economic development be a method of stimulating production and +one which does not greatly interfere with equitable distribution. When, +however, the intricacy and length of technical production increased, the +ownership of these things becomes a monopoly, which easily makes the +rich richer and the poor poorer. Today, therefore, we are challenging +this ownership; we are demanding general consent as to what materials +shall be privately owned and as to how materials shall be used. We are +rapidly approaching the day when we shall repudiate all private property +in raw materials and tools and demand that distribution hinge, not on +the power of those who monopolize the materials, but on the needs of the +mass of men. + +Can we do this and still make sufficient goods, justly gauge the needs +of men, and rightly decide who are to be considered "men"? How do we +arrange to accomplish these things today? Somebody decides whose wants +should be satisfied. Somebody organizes industry so as to satisfy these +wants. What is to hinder the same ability and foresight from being used +in the future as in the past? The amount and kind of human ability +necessary need not be decreased,--it may even be vastly increased, with +proper encouragement and rewards. Are we today evoking the necessary +ability? On the contrary, it is not the Inventor, the Manager, and the +Thinker who today are reaping the great rewards of industry, but rather +the Gambler and the Highwayman. Rightly-organized industry might easily +save the Gambler's Profit and the Monopolist's Interest and by paying a +more discriminating reward in wealth and honor bring to the service of +the state more ability and sacrifice than we can today command. If we do +away with interest and profit, consider the savings that could be made; +but above all, think how great the revolution would be when we ask the +mysterious Somebody to decide in the light of public opinion whose wants +should be satisfied. This is the great and real revolution that is +coming in future industry. + +But this is not the need of the revolution nor indeed, perhaps, its real +beginning. What we must decide sometime is who are to be considered +"men." Today, at the beginning of this industrial change, we are +admitting that economic classes must give way. The laborers' hire must +increase, the employers' profit must be curbed. But how far shall this +change go? Must it apply to all human beings and to all work throughout +the world? + +Certainly not. We seek to apply it slowly and with some reluctance to +white men and more slowly and with greater reserve to white women, but +black folk and brown and for the most part yellow folk we have widely +determined shall not be among those whose needs must justly be heard and +whose wants must be ministered to in the great organization of world +industry. + +In the teaching of my classes I was not willing to stop with showing +that this was unfair,--indeed I did not have to do this. They knew +through bitter experience its rank injustice, because they were black. +What I had to show was that no real reorganization of industry could be +permanently made with the majority of mankind left out. These +disinherited darker peoples must either share in the future industrial +democracy or overturn the world. + +Of course, the foundation of such a system must be a high, ethical +ideal. We must really envisage the wants of humanity. We must want the +wants of all men. We must get rid of the fascination for exclusiveness. +Here, in a world full of folk, men are lonely. The rich are lonely. We +are all frantic for fellow-souls, yet we shut souls out and bar the ways +and bolster up the fiction of the Elect and the Superior when the great +mass of men is capable of producing larger and larger numbers for every +human height of attainment. To be sure, there are differences between +men and groups and there will ever be, but they will be differences of +beauty and genius and of interest and not necessarily of ugliness, +imbecility, and hatred. + +The meaning of America is the beginning of the discovery of the Crowd. +The crowd is not so well-trained as a Versailles garden party of Louis +XIV, but it is far better trained than the Sans-culottes and it has +infinite possibilities. What a world this will be when human +possibilities are freed, when we discover each other, when the stranger +is no longer the potential criminal and the certain inferior! + +What hinders our approach to the ideals outlined above? Our profit from +degradation, our colonial exploitation, our American attitude toward the +Negro. Think again of East St. Louis! Think back of that to slavery and +Reconstruction! Do we want the wants of American Negroes satisfied? Most +certainly not, and that negative is the greatest hindrance today to the +reorganization of work and redistribution of wealth, not only in +America, but in the world. + +All humanity must share in the future industrial democracy of the world. +For this it must be trained in intelligence and in appreciation of the +good and the beautiful. Present Big Business,--that Science of Human +Wants--must be perfected by eliminating the price paid for waste, which +is Interest, and for Chance, which is Profit, and making all income a +personal wage for service rendered by the recipient; by recognizing no +possible human service as great enough to enable a person to designate +another as an idler or as a worker at work which he cannot do. Above +all, industry must minister to the wants of the many and not to the few, +and the Negro, the Indian, the Mongolian, and the South Sea Islander +must be among the many as well as Germans, Frenchmen, and Englishmen. + +In this coming socialization of industry we must guard against that same +tyranny of the majority that has marked democracy in the making of laws. +There must, for instance, persist in this future economics a certain +minimum of machine-like work and prompt obedience and submission. This +necessity is a simple corollary from the hard facts of the physical +world. It must be accepted with the comforting thought that its routine +need not demand twelve hours a day or even eight. With Work for All and +All at Work probably from three to six hours would suffice, and leave +abundant time for leisure, exercise, study, and avocations. + +But what shall we say of work where spiritual values and social +distinctions enter? Who shall be Artists and who shall be Servants in +the world to come? Or shall we all be artists and all serve? + + + + +_The Second Coming_ + + +Three bishops sat in San Francisco, New Orleans, and New York, peering +gloomily into three flickering fires, which cast and recast shuddering +shadows on book-lined walls. Three letters lay in their laps, which +said: + +"And thou, Valdosta, in the land of Georgia, art not least among the +princes of America, for out of thee shall come a governor who shall rule +my people." + +The white bishop of New York scowled and impatiently threw the letter +into the fire. "Valdosta?" he thought,--"That's where I go to the +governor's wedding of little Marguerite, my white flower,--" Then he +forgot the writing in his musing, but the paper flared red in the +fireplace. + +"Valdosta?" said the black bishop of New Orleans, turning uneasily in +his chair. "I must go down there. Those colored folk are acting +strangely. I don't know where all this unrest and moving will lead to. +Then, there's poor Lucy--" And he threw the letter into the fire, but +eyed it suspiciously as it flamed green. "Stranger things than that have +happened," he said slowly, "'and ye shall hear of wars and rumors of +wars ... for nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against +kingdom.'" + +In San Francisco the priest of Japan, abroad to study strange lands, sat +in his lacquer chair, with face like soft-yellow and wrinkled parchment. +Slowly he wrote in a great and golden book: "I have been strangely +bidden to the Val d' Osta, where one of those religious cults that swarm +here will welcome a prophet. I shall go and report to Kioto." + +So in the dim waning of the day before Christmas three bishops met in +Valdosta and saw its mills and storehouses, its wide-throated and sandy +streets, in the mellow glow of a crimson sun. The governor glared +anxiously up the street as he helped the bishop of New York into his car +and welcomed him graciously. + +"I am troubled," said the governor, "about the niggers. They are acting +queerly. I'm not certain but Fleming is back of it." + +"Fleming?" + +"Yes! He's running against me next term for governor; he's a firebrand; +wants niggers to vote and all that--pardon me a moment, there's a darky +I know--" and he hurried to the black bishop, who had just descended +from the "Jim-Crow" car, and clasped his hand cordially. They talked in +whispers. "Search diligently," said the governor in parting, "and bring +me word again." Then returning to his guest, "You will excuse me, won't +you?" he asked, "but I am sorely troubled! I never saw niggers act so. +They're leaving by the hundreds and those who stay are getting impudent! +They seem to be expecting something. What's the crowd, Jim?" + +The chauffeur said that there was some sort of Chinese official in town +and everybody wanted to glimpse him. He drove around another way. + +It all happened very suddenly. The bishop of New York, in full +canonicals for the early wedding, stepped out on the rear balcony of his +mansion, just as the dying sun lit crimson clouds of glory in the East +and burned the West. + +"Fire!" yelled a wag in the surging crowd that was gathering to +celebrate a southern Christmas-eve; all laughed and ran. + +The bishop of New York did not understand. He peered around. Was it that +dark, little house in the far backyard that flamed? Forgetful of his +robes he hurried down,--a brave, white figure in the sunset. He found +himself before an old, black, rickety stable. He could hear the mules +stamping within. + +No. It was not fire. It was the sunset glowing through the cracks. +Behind the hut its glory rose toward God like flaming wings of cherubim. +He paused until he heard the faint wail of a child. Hastily he entered. +A white girl crouched before him, down by the very mules' feet, with a +baby in her arms,-a little mite of a baby that wailed weakly. Behind +mother and child stood a shadow. The bishop of New York turned to the +right, inquiringly, and saw a black man in bishop's robes that faintly +re-echoed his own. He turned away to the left and saw a golden Japanese +in golden garb. Then he heard the black man mutter behind him: "But He +was to come the second time in clouds of glory, with the nations +gathered around Him and angels--" at the word a shaft of glorious light +fell full upon the child, while without came the tramping of unnumbered +feet and the whirring of wings. + +The bishop of New York bent quickly over the baby. It was black! He +stepped back with a gesture of disgust, hardly listening to and yet +hearing the black bishop, who spoke almost as if in apology: + +"She's not really white; I know Lucy--you see, her mother worked for the +governor--" The white bishop turned on his heel and nearly trod on the +yellow priest, who knelt with bowed head before the pale mother and +offered incense and a gift of gold. + +Out into the night rushed the bishop of New York. The wings of the +cherubim were folded black against the stars. As he hastened down the +front staircase the governor came rushing up the street steps. + +"We are late!" he cried nervously. "The bride awaits!" He hurried the +bishop to the waiting limousine, asking him anxiously: "Did you hear +anything? Do you hear that noise? The crowd is growing strangely on the +streets and there seems to be a fire over toward the East. I never saw +so many people here--I fear violence--a mob--a lynching--I fear--hark!" + +What was that which he, too, heard beneath the rhythm of unnumbered +feet? Deep in his heart a wonder grew. What was it? Ah, he knew! It was +music,--some strong and mighty chord. It rose higher as the +brilliantly-lighted church split the night, and swept radiantly toward +them. So high and clear that music flew, it seemed above, around, behind +them. The governor, ashen-faced, crouched in the car; but the bishop +said softly as the ecstasy pulsed in his heart: + +"Such music, such wedding music! What choir is it?" + + + + +V + +"THE SERVANT IN THE HOUSE" + + +The lady looked at me severely; I glanced away. I had addressed the +little audience at some length on the disfranchisement of my people in +society, politics, and industry and had studiously avoided the while her +cold, green eye. I finished and shook weary hands, while she lay in +wait. I knew what was coming and braced my soul. + +"Do you know where I can get a good colored cook?" she asked. I +disclaimed all guilty concupiscence. She came nearer and spitefully +shook a finger in my face. + +"Why--won't--Negroes--work!" she panted. "I have given money for years +to Hampton and Tuskegee and yet I can't get decent servants. They won't +try. They're lazy! They're unreliable! They're impudent and they leave +without notice. They all want to be lawyers and doctors and" (she spat +the word in venom) "ladies!" + +"God forbid!" I answered solemnly, and then being of gentle birth, and +unminded to strike a defenseless female of uncertain years, I ran; I ran +home and wrote a chapter in my book and this is it. + + * * * * * + +I speak and speak bitterly as a servant and a servant's son, for my +mother spent five or more years of her life as a menial; my father's +family escaped, although grandfather as a boat steward had to fight hard +to be a man and not a lackey. He fought and won. My mother's folk, +however, during my childhood, sat poised on that thin edge between the +farmer and the menial. The surrounding Irish had two chances, the +factory and the kitchen, and most of them took the factory, with all its +dirt and noise and low wage. The factory was closed to us. Our little +lands were too small to feed most of us. A few clung almost sullenly to +the old homes, low and red things crouching on a wide level; but the +children stirred restlessly and walked often to town and saw its +wonders. Slowly they dribbled off,--a waiter here, a cook there, help +for a few weeks in Mrs. Blank's kitchen when she had summer boarders. + +Instinctively I hated such work from my birth. I loathed it and shrank +from it. Why? I could not have said. Had I been born in Carolina instead +of Massachusetts I should hardly have escaped the taint of "service." +Its temptations in wage and comfort would soon have answered my +scruples; and yet I am sure I would have fought long even in Carolina, +for I knew in my heart that thither lay Hell. + +I mowed lawns on contract, did "chores" that left me my own man, sold +papers, and peddled tea--anything to escape the shadow of the awful +thing that lurked to grip my soul. Once, and once only, I felt the sting +of its talons. I was twenty and had graduated from Fisk with a +scholarship for Harvard; I needed, however, travel money and clothes and +a bit to live on until the scholarship was due. Fortson was a +fellow-student in winter and a waiter in summer. He proposed that the +Glee Club Quartet of Fisk spend the summer at the hotel in Minnesota +where he worked and that I go along as "Business Manager" to arrange for +engagements on the journey back. We were all eager, but we knew nothing +of table-waiting. "Never mind," said Fortson, "you can stand around the +dining-room during meals and carry out the big wooden trays of dirty +dishes. Thus you can pick up knowledge of waiting and earn good tips and +get free board." I listened askance, but I went. + +I entered that broad and blatant hotel at Lake Minnetonka with distinct +forebodings. The flamboyant architecture, the great verandas, rich +furniture, and richer dresses awed us mightily. The long loft reserved +for us, with its clean little cots, was reassuring; the work was not +difficult,--but the meals! There were no meals. At first, before the +guests ate, a dirty table in the kitchen was hastily strewn with +uneatable scraps. We novices were the only ones who came to eat, while +the guests' dining-room, with its savors and sights, set our appetites +on edge! After a while even the pretense of meals for us was dropped. We +were sure we were going to starve when Dug, one of us, made a startling +discovery: the waiters stole their food and they stole the best. We +gulped and hesitated. Then we stole, too, (or, at least, they stole and +I shared) and we all fattened, for the dainties were marvelous. You +slipped a bit here and hid it there; you cut off extra portions and gave +false orders; you dashed off into darkness and hid in corners and ate +and ate! It was nasty business. I hated it. I was too cowardly to steal +much myself, and not coward enough to refuse what others stole. + +Our work was easy, but insipid. We stood about and watched overdressed +people gorge. For the most part we were treated like furniture and were +supposed to act the wooden part. I watched the waiters even more than +the guests. I saw that it paid to amuse and to cringe. One particular +black man set me crazy. He was intelligent and deft, but one day I +caught sight of his face as he served a crowd of men; he was playing the +clown,--crouching, grinning, assuming a broad dialect when he usually +spoke good English--ah! it was a heartbreaking sight, and he made more +money than any waiter in the dining-room. + +I did not mind the actual work or the kind of work, but it was the +dishonesty and deception, the flattery and cajolery, the unnatural +assumption that worker and diner had no common humanity. It was uncanny. +It was inherently and fundamentally wrong. I stood staring and thinking, +while the other boys hustled about. Then I noticed one fat hog, feeding +at a heavily gilded trough, who could not find his waiter. He beckoned +me. It was not his voice, for his mouth was too full. It was his way, +his air, his assumption. Thus Caesar ordered his legionaries or +Cleopatra her slaves. Dogs recognized the gesture. I did not. He may be +beckoning yet for all I know, for something froze within me. I did not +look his way again. Then and there I disowned menial service for me and +my people. + +I would work my hands off for an honest wage, but for "tips" and +"hand-me-outs," never! Fortson was a pious, honest fellow, who regarded +"tips" as in the nature of things, being to the manner born; but the +hotel that summer in other respects rather astonished even him. He came +to us much flurried one night and got us to help him with a memorial to +the absentee proprietor, telling of the wild and gay doings of midnights +in the rooms and corridors among "tired" business men and their +prostitutes. We listened wide-eyed and eager and wrote the filth out +manfully. The proprietor did not thank Fortson. He did not even answer +the letter. + +When I finally walked out of that hotel and out of menial service +forever, I felt as though, in a field of flowers, my nose had been held +unpleasantly long to the worms and manure at their roots. + + * * * * * + +"Cursed be Canaan!" cried the Hebrew priests. "A servant of servants +shall he be unto his brethren." With what characteristic complacency did +the slaveholders assume that Canaanites were Negroes and their +"brethren" white? Are not Negroes servants? _Ergo_! Upon such spiritual +myths was the anachronism of American slavery built, and this was the +degradation that once made menial servants the aristocrats among colored +folk. House servants secured some decencies of food and clothing and +shelter; they could more easily reach their master's ear; their personal +abilities of character became known and bonds grew between slave and +master which strengthened from friendship to love, from mutual service +to mutual blood. + +Naturally out of this the West Indian servant climbed out of slavery +into citizenship, for few West Indian masters--fewer Spanish or +Dutch--were callous enough to sell their own children into slavery. Not +so with English and Americans. With a harshness and indecency seldom +paralleled in the civilized world white masters on the mainland sold +their mulatto children, half-brothers and half-sisters, and their own +wives in all but name, into life-slavery by the hundreds and thousands. +They originated a special branch of slave-trading for this trade and the +white aristocrats of Virginia and the Carolinas made more money by this +business during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries than in any +other way. + +The clang of the door of opportunity thus knelled in the ears of the +colored house servant whirled the whole face of Negro advancement as on +some great pivot. The movement was slow, but vast. When emancipation +came, before and after 1863, the house servant still held advantages. He +had whatever education the race possessed and his white father, no +longer able to sell him, often helped him with land and protection. +Notwithstanding this the lure of house service for the Negro was gone. +The path of salvation for the emancipated host of black folk lay no +longer through the kitchen door, with its wide hall and pillared veranda +and flowered yard beyond. It lay, as every Negro soon knew and knows, in +escape from menial serfdom. + +In 1860, 98 per cent of the Negroes were servants and serfs. In 1880, 30 +per cent were servants and 65 per cent were serfs. The percentage of +servants then rose slightly and fell again until 21 per cent were in +service in 1910 and, doubtless, much less than 20 per cent today. This +is the measure of our rise, but the Negro will not approach freedom +until this hateful badge of slavery and mediaevalism has been reduced to +less than 10 per cent. + +Not only are less than a fifth of our workers servants today, but the +character of their service has been changed. The million menial workers +among us include 300,000 upper servants,--skilled men and women of +character, like hotel waiters, Pullman porters, janitors, and cooks, +who, had they been white, could have called on the great labor movement +to lift their work out of slavery, to standardize their hours, to define +their duties, and to substitute a living, regular wage for personal +largess in the shape of tips, old clothes, and cold leavings of food. +But the labor movement turned their backs on those black men when the +white world dinned in their ears. _Negroes are servants; servants are +Negroes._ They shut the door of escape to factory and trade in their +fellows' faces and battened down the hatches, lest the 300,000 should be +workers equal in pay and consideration with white men. + +But, if the upper servants could not escape to modern, industrial +conditions, how much the more did they press down on the bodies and +souls of 700,000 washerwomen and household drudges,--ignorant, +unskilled offal of a millionaire industrial system. Their pay was the +lowest and their hours the longest of all workers. The personal +degradation of their work is so great that any white man of decency +would rather cut his daughter's throat than let her grow up to such a +destiny. There is throughout the world and in all races no greater +source of prostitution than this grade of menial service, and the Negro +race in America has largely escaped this destiny simply because its +innate decency leads black women to choose irregular and temporary +sexual relations with men they like rather than to sell themselves to +strangers. To such sexual morals is added (in the nature of +self-defense) that revolt against unjust labor conditions which +expresses itself in "soldiering," sullenness, petty pilfering, +unreliability, and fast and fruitless changes of masters. + +Indeed, here among American Negroes we have exemplified the last and +worst refuge of industrial caste. Menial service is an anachronism,--the +refuse of mediaeval barbarism. Whey, then, does it linger? Why are we +silent about it? Why in the minds of so many decent and up-seeing folks +does the whole Negro problem resolve itself into the matter of their +getting a cook or a maid? + +No one knows better than I the capabilities of a system of domestic +service at its best. I have seen children who were spiritual sons and +daughters of their masters, girls who were friends of their mistresses, +and old servants honored and revered. But in every such case the Servant +had transcended the Menial, the Service had been exalted above the Wage. +Now to accomplish this permanently and universally, calls for the same +revolution in household help as in factory help and public service. +While organized industry has been slowly making its help into +self-respecting, well-paid men, and while public service is beginning to +call for the highest types of educated and efficient thinkers, domestic +service lags behind and insists upon seeking to evolve the best types of +men from the worst conditions. + +The cause of this perversity, to my mind, is twofold. First, the ancient +high estate of Service, now pitifully fallen, yet gasping for breath; +secondly, the present low estate of the outcasts of the world, peering +with blood-shot eyes at the gates of the industrial heaven. + +The Master spoke no greater word than that which said: "Whosoever will +be great among you, let him be your servant!" What is greater than +Personal Service! Surely no social service, no wholesale helping of +masses of men can exist which does not find its effectiveness and beauty +in the personal aid of man to man. It is the purest and holiest of +duties. Some mighty glimmer of this truth survived in those who made the +First Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, the Keepers of the Robes, and the +Knights of the Bath, the highest nobility that hedged an anointed king. +Nor does it differ today in what the mother does for the child or the +daughter for the mother, in all the personal attentions in the +old-fashioned home; this is Service! Think of what Friend has meant, not +simply in spiritual sympathies, but in physical helpfulness. In the +world today what calls for more of love, sympathy, learning, sacrifice, +and long-suffering than the care of children, the preparation of food, +the cleansing and ordering of the home, personal attendance and +companionship, the care of bodies and their raiment--what greater, more +intimate, more holy Services are there than these? + +And yet we are degrading these services and loathing them and scoffing +at them and spitting upon them, first, by turning them over to the +lowest and least competent and worst trained classes in the world, and +then by yelling like spoiled children if our babies are neglected, our +biscuits sodden, our homes dirty, and our baths unpoured. Let one +suggest that the only cure for such deeds is in the uplift of the doer +and our rage is even worse and less explicable. We will call them by +their first names, thus blaspheming a holy intimacy; we will confine +them to back doors; we will insist that their meals be no gracious +ceremony nor even a restful sprawl, but usually a hasty, heckled gulp +amid garbage; we exact, not a natural, but a purchased deference, and we +leave them naked to insult by our children and by our husbands. + +I remember a girl,--how pretty she was, with the crimson flooding the +old ivory of her cheeks and her gracious plumpness! She had come to the +valley during the summer to "do housework." I met and walked home with +her, in the thrilling shadows, to an old village home I knew well; then +as I turned to leave I learned that she was there alone in that house +for a week-end with only one young white man to represent the family. +Oh, he was doubtless a "gentleman" and all that, but for the first time +in my life I saw what a snare the fowler was spreading at the feet of +the daughters of my people, baited by church and state. + +Not alone is the hurt thus offered to the lowly,--Society and Science +suffer. The unit which we seek to make the center of society,--the +Home--is deprived of the help of scientific invention and suggestion. It +is only slowly and by the utmost effort that some small foothold has +been gained for the vacuum cleaner, the washing-machine, the power tool, +and the chemical reagent. In our frantic effort to preserve the last +vestiges of slavery and mediaevalism we not only set out faces against +such improvements, but we seek to use education and the power of the +state to train the servants who do not naturally appear. + +Meantime the wild rush from house service, on the part of all who can +scramble or run, continues. The rules of the labor union are designed, +not simply to raise wages, but to guard against any likeness between +artisan and servant. There is no essential difference in ability and +training between a subway guard and a Pullman porter, but between their +union cards lies a whole world. + +Yet we are silent. Menial service is not a "social problem." It is not +really discussed. There is no scientific program for its "reform." There +is but one panacea: Escape! Get yourselves and your sons and daughters +out of the shadow of this awful thing! Hire servants, but never be one. +Indeed, subtly but surely the ability to hire at least "a maid" is still +civilization's patent to respectability, while "a man" is the first word +of aristocracy. + +All this is because we still consciously and unconsciously hold to the +"manure" theory of social organization. We believe that at the bottom of +organized human life there are necessary duties and services which no +real human being ought to be compelled to do. We push below this mudsill +the derelicts and half-men, whom we hate and despise, and seek to build +above it--Democracy! On such foundations is reared a Theory of +Exclusiveness, a feeling that the world progresses by a process of +excluding from the benefits of culture the majority of men, so that a +gifted minority may blossom. Through this door the modern democrat +arrives to the place where he is willing to allot two able-bodied men +and two fine horses to the task of helping one wizened beldam to take +the morning air. + +Here the absurdity ends. Here all honest minds turn back and ask: Is +menial service permanent or necessary? Can we not transfer cooking from +the home to the scientific laboratory, along with the laundry? Cannot +machinery, in the hands of self-respecting and well-paid artisans, do +our cleaning, sewing, moving, and decorating? Cannot the training of +children become an even greater profession than the attending of the +sick? And cannot personal service and companionship be coupled with +friendship and love where it belongs and whence it can never be divorced +without degradation and pain? + +In fine, can we not, black and white, rich and poor, look forward to a +world of Service without Servants? + +A miracle! you say? True. And only to be performed by the Immortal +Child. + + + + +_Jesus Christ in Texas_ + + +It was in Waco, Texas. + +The convict guard laughed. "I don't know," he said, "I hadn't thought of +that." He hesitated and looked at the stranger curiously. In the solemn +twilight he got an impression of unusual height and soft, dark eyes. +"Curious sort of acquaintance for the colonel," he thought; then he +continued aloud: "But that nigger there is bad, a born thief, and ought +to be sent up for life; got ten years last time--" + +Here the voice of the promoter, talking within, broke in; he was bending +over his figures, sitting by the colonel. He was slight, with a sharp +nose. + +"The convicts," he said, "would cost us $96 a year and board. Well, we +can squeeze this so that it won't be over $125 apiece. Now if these +fellows are driven, they can build this line within twelve months. It +will be running by next April. Freights will fall fifty per cent. Why, +man, you'll be a millionaire in less than ten years." + +The colonel started. He was a thick, short man, with a clean-shaven face +and a certain air of breeding about the lines of his countenance; the +word millionaire sounded well to his ears. He thought--he thought a +great deal; he almost heard the puff of the fearfully costly automobile +that was coming up the road, and he said: + +"I suppose we might as well hire them." + +"Of course," answered the promoter. + +The voice of the tall stranger in the corner broke in here: + +"It will be a good thing for them?" he said, half in question. + +The colonel moved. "The guard makes strange friends," he thought to +himself. "What's this man doing here, anyway?" He looked at him, or +rather looked at his eyes, and then somehow he felt a warming toward +him. He said: + +"Well, at least, it can't harm them; they're beyond that." + +"It will do them good, then," said the stranger again. + +The promoter shrugged his shoulders. "It will do us good," he said. + +But the colonel shook his head impatiently. He felt a desire to justify +himself before those eyes, and he answered: "Yes, it will do them good; +or at any rate it won't make them any worse than they are." Then he +started to say something else, but here sure enough the sound of the +automobile breathing at the gate stopped him and they all arose. + +"It is settled, then," said the promoter. + +"Yes," said the colonel, turning toward the stranger again. "Are you +going into town?" he asked with the Southern courtesy of white men to +white men in a country town. The stranger said he was. "Then come along +in my machine. I want to talk with you about this." + +They went out to the car. The stranger as he went turned again to look +back at the convict. He was a tall, powerfully built black fellow. His +face was sullen, with a low forehead, thick, hanging lips, and bitter +eyes. There was revolt written about his mouth despite the hang-dog +expression. He stood bending over his pile of stones, pounding +listlessly. Beside him stood a boy of twelve,--yellow, with a hunted, +crafty look. The convict raised his eyes and they met the eyes of the +stranger. The hammer fell from his hands. + +The stranger turned slowly toward the automobile and the colonel +introduced him. He had not exactly caught his name, but he mumbled +something as he presented him to his wife and little girl, who were +waiting. + +As they whirled away the colonel started to talk, but the stranger had +taken the little girl into his lap and together they conversed in low +tones all the way home. + +In some way, they did not exactly know how, they got the impression that +the man was a teacher and, of course, he must be a foreigner. The long, +cloak-like coat told this. They rode in the twilight through the lighted +town and at last drew up before the colonel's mansion, with its +ghost-like pillars. + +The lady in the back seat was thinking of the guests she had invited to +dinner and was wondering if she ought not to ask this man to stay. He +seemed cultured and she supposed he was some acquaintance of the +colonel's. It would be rather interesting to have him there, with the +judge's wife and daughter and the rector. She spoke almost before she +thought: + +"You will enter and rest awhile?" + +The colonel and the little girl insisted. For a moment the stranger +seemed about to refuse. He said he had some business for his father, +about town. Then for the child's sake he consented. + +Up the steps they went and into the dark parlor where they sat and +talked a long time. It was a curious conversation. Afterwards they did +not remember exactly what was said and yet they all remembered a certain +strange satisfaction in that long, low talk. + +Finally the nurse came for the reluctant child and the hostess +bethought herself: + +"We will have a cup of tea; you will be dry and tired." + +She rang and switched on a blaze of light. With one accord they all +looked at the stranger, for they had hardly seen him well in the +glooming twilight. The woman started in amazement and the colonel half +rose in anger. Why, the man was a mulatto, surely; even if he did not +own the Negro blood, their practised eyes knew it. He was tall and +straight and the coat looked like a Jewish gabardine. His hair hung in +close curls far down the sides of his face and his face was olive, even +yellow. + +A peremptory order rose to the colonel's lips and froze there as he +caught the stranger's eyes. Those eyes,--where had he seen those eyes +before? He remembered them long years ago. The soft, tear-filled eyes of +a brown girl. He remembered many things, and his face grew drawn and +white. Those eyes kept burning into him, even when they were turned half +away toward the staircase, where the white figure of the child hovered +with her nurse and waved good-night. The lady sank into her chair and +thought: "What will the judge's wife say? How did the colonel come to +invite this man here? How shall we be rid of him?" She looked at the +colonel in reproachful consternation. + +Just then the door opened and the old butler came in. He was an ancient +black man, with tufted white hair, and he held before him a large, +silver tray filled with a china tea service. The stranger rose slowly +and stretched forth his hands as if to bless the viands. The old man +paused in bewilderment, tottered, and then with sudden gladness in his +eyes dropped to his knees, and the tray crashed to the floor. + +"My Lord and my God!" he whispered; but the woman screamed: "Mother's +china!" + +The doorbell rang. + +"Heavens! here is the dinner party!" exclaimed the lady. She turned +toward the door, but there in the hall, clad in her night clothes, was +the little girl. She had stolen down the stairs to see the stranger +again, and the nurse above was calling in vain. The woman felt +hysterical and scolded at the nurse, but the stranger had stretched out +his arms and with a glad cry the child nestled in them. They caught some +words about the "Kingdom of Heaven" as he slowly mounted the stairs with +his little, white burden. + +The mother was glad of anything to get rid of the interloper, even for a +moment. The bell rang again and she hastened toward the door, which the +loitering black maid was just opening. She did not notice the shadow of +the stranger as he came slowly down the stairs and paused by the newel +post, dark and silent. + +The judge's wife came in. She was an old woman, frilled and powdered +into a semblance of youth, and gorgeously gowned. She came forward, +smiling with extended hands, but when she was opposite the stranger, +somewhere a chill seemed to strike her and she shuddered and cried: + +"What a draft!" as she drew a silken shawl about her and shook hands +cordially; she forgot to ask who the stranger was. The judge strode in +unseeing, thinking of a puzzling case of theft. + +"Eh? What? Oh--er--yes,--good evening," he said, "good evening." Behind +them came a young woman in the glory of youth, and daintily silked, +beautiful in face and form, with diamonds around her fair neck. She came +in lightly, but stopped with a little gasp; then she laughed gaily and +said: + +"Why, I beg your pardon. Was it not curious? I thought I saw there +behind your man"--she hesitated, but he must be a servant, she +argued--"the shadow of great, white wings. It was but the light on the +drapery. What a turn it gave me." And she smiled again. With her came a +tall, handsome, young naval officer. Hearing his lady refer to the +servant, he hardly looked at him, but held his gilded cap carelessly +toward him, and the stranger placed it carefully on the rack. + +Last came the rector, a man of forty, and well-clothed. He started to +pass the stranger, stopped, and looked at him inquiringly. + +"I beg your pardon," he said. "I beg your pardon,--I think I have met +you?" + +The stranger made no answer, and the hostess nervously hurried the +guests on. But the rector lingered and looked perplexed. + +"Surely, I know you. I have met you somewhere," he said, putting his +hand vaguely to his head. "You--you remember me, do you not?" + +The stranger quietly swept his cloak aside, and to the hostess' +unspeakable relief passed out of the door. + +"I never knew you," he said in low tones as he went. + +The lady murmured some vain excuse about intruders, but the rector stood +with annoyance written on his face. + +"I beg a thousand pardons," he said to the hostess absently. "It is a +great pleasure to be here,--somehow I thought I knew that man. I am sure +I knew him once." + +The stranger had passed down the steps, and as he passed, the nurse, +lingering at the top of the staircase, flew down after him, caught his +cloak, trembled, hesitated, and then kneeled in the dust. + +He touched her lightly with his hand and said: "Go, and sin no more!" + +With a glad cry the maid left the house, with its open door, and turned +north, running. The stranger turned eastward into the night. As they +parted a long, low howl rose tremulously and reverberated through the +night. The colonel's wife within shuddered. + +"The bloodhounds!" she said. + +The rector answered carelessly: + +"Another one of those convicts escaped, I suppose. Really, they need +severer measures." Then he stopped. He was trying to remember that +stranger's name. + +The judge's wife looked about for the draft and arranged her shawl. The +girl glanced at the white drapery in the hall, but the young officer was +bending over her and the fires of life burned in her veins. + +Howl after howl rose in the night, swelled, and died away. The stranger +strode rapidly along the highway and out into the deep forest. There he +paused and stood waiting, tall and still. + +A mile up the road behind a man was running, tall and powerful and +black, with crime-stained face and convicts' stripes upon him, and +shackles on his legs. He ran and jumped, in little, short steps, and his +chains rang. He fell and rose again, while the howl of the hounds rang +louder behind him. + +Into the forest he leapt and crept and jumped and ran, streaming with +sweat; seeing the tall form rise before him, he stopped suddenly, +dropped his hands in sullen impotence, and sank panting to the earth. A +greyhound shot out of the woods behind him, howled, whined, and fawned +before the stranger's feet. Hound after hound bayed, leapt, and lay +there; then silently, one by one, and with bowed heads, they crept +backward toward the town. + +The stranger made a cup of his hands and gave the man water to drink, +bathed his hot head, and gently took the chains and irons from his feet. +By and by the convict stood up. Day was dawning above the treetops. He +looked into the stranger's face, and for a moment a gladness swept over +the stains of his face. + +"Why, you are a nigger, too," he said. + +Then the convict seemed anxious to justify himself. + +"I never had no chance," he said furtively. + +"Thou shalt not steal," said the stranger. + +The man bridled. + +"But how about them? Can they steal? Didn't they steal a whole year's +work, and then when I stole to keep from starving--" He glanced at the +stranger. + +"No, I didn't steal just to keep from starving. I stole to be stealing. +I can't seem to keep from stealing. Seems like when I see things, I just +must--but, yes, I'll try!" + +The convict looked down at his striped clothes, but the stranger had +taken off his long coat; he had put it around him and the stripes +disappeared. + +In the opening morning the black man started toward the low, log +farmhouse in the distance, while the stranger stood watching him. There +was a new glory in the day. The black man's face cleared up, and the +farmer was glad to get him. All day the black man worked as he had never +worked before. The farmer gave him some cold food. + +"You can sleep in the barn," he said, and turned away. + +"How much do I git a day?" asked the black man. + +The farmer scowled. + +"Now see here," said he. "If you'll sign a contract for the season, I'll +give you ten dollars a month." + +"I won't sign no contract," said the black man doggedly. + +"Yes, you will," said the farmer, threateningly, "or I'll call the +convict guard." And he grinned. + +The convict shrank and slouched to the barn. As night fell he looked out +and saw the farmer leave the place. Slowly he crept out and sneaked +toward the house. He looked through the kitchen door. No one was there, +but the supper was spread as if the mistress had laid it and gone out. +He ate ravenously. Then he looked into the front room and listened. He +could hear low voices on the porch. On the table lay a gold watch. He +gazed at it, and in a moment he was beside it,--his hands were on it! +Quickly he slipped out of the house and slouched toward the field. He +saw his employer coming along the highway. He fled back in tenor and +around to the front of the house, when suddenly he stopped. He felt the +great, dark eyes of the stranger and saw the same dark, cloak-like coat +where the stranger sat on the doorstep talking with the mistress of the +house. Slowly, guiltily, he turned back, entered the kitchen, and laid +the watch stealthily where he had found it; then he rushed wildly back +toward the stranger, with arms outstretched. + +The woman had laid supper for her husband, and going down from the house +had walked out toward a neighbor's. She was gone but a little while, and +when she came back she started to see a dark figure on the doorsteps +under the tall, red oak. She thought it was the new Negro until he said +in a soft voice: + +"Will you give me bread?" + +Reassured at the voice of a white man, she answered quickly in her soft, +Southern tones: + +"Why, certainly." + +She was a little woman, and once had been pretty; but now her face was +drawn with work and care. She was nervous and always thinking, wishing, +wanting for something. She went in and got him some cornbread and a +glass of cool, rich buttermilk; then she came out and sat down beside +him. She began, quite unconsciously, to tell him about herself,--the +things she had done and had not done and the things she had wished for. +She told him of her husband and this new farm they were trying to buy. +She said it was hard to get niggers to work. She said they ought all to +be in the chain-gang and made to work. Even then some ran away. Only +yesterday one had escaped, and another the day before. + +At last she gossiped of her neighbors, how good they were and how bad. + +"And do you like them all?" asked the stranger. + +She hesitated. + +"Most of them," she said; and then, looking up into his face and putting +her hand into his, as though he were her father, she said: + +"There are none I hate; no, none at all." + +He looked away, holding her hand in his, and said dreamily: + +"You love your neighbor as yourself?" + +She hesitated. + +"I try--" she began, and then looked the way he was looking; down under +the hill where lay a little, half-ruined cabin. + +"They are niggers," she said briefly. + +He looked at her. Suddenly a confusion came over her and she insisted, +she knew not why. + +"But they are niggers!" + +With a sudden impulse she arose and hurriedly lighted the lamp that +stood just within the door, and held it above her head. She saw his dark +face and curly hair. She shrieked in angry terror and rushed down the +path, and just as she rushed down, the black convict came running up +with hands outstretched. They met in mid-path, and before he could stop +he had run against her and she fell heavily to earth and lay white and +still. Her husband came rushing around the house with a cry and an oath. + +"I knew it," he said. "It's that runaway nigger." He held the black man +struggling to the earth and raised his voice to a yell. Down the highway +came the convict guard, with hound and mob and gun. They paused across +the fields. The farmer motioned to them. + +"He--attacked--my wife," he gasped. + +The mob snarled and worked silently. Right to the limb of the red oak +they hoisted the struggling, writhing black man, while others lifted the +dazed woman. Right and left, as she tottered to the house, she searched +for the stranger with a yearning, but the stranger was gone. And she +told none of her guests. + +"No--no, I want nothing," she insisted, until they left her, as they +thought, asleep. For a time she lay still, listening to the departure of +the mob. Then she rose. She shuddered as she heard the creaking of the +limb where the body hung. But resolutely she crawled to the window and +peered out into the moonlight; she saw the dead man writhe. He stretched +his arms out like a cross, looking upward. She gasped and clung to the +window sill. Behind the swaying body, and down where the little, +half-ruined cabin lay, a single flame flashed up amid the far-off shout +and cry of the mob. A fierce joy sobbed up through the terror in her +soul and then sank abashed as she watched the flame rise. Suddenly +whirling into one great crimson column it shot to the top of the sky and +threw great arms athwart the gloom until above the world and behind the +roped and swaying form below hung quivering and burning a great crimson +cross. + +She hid her dizzy, aching head in an agony of tears, and dared not look, +for she knew. Her dry lips moved: + +"Despised and rejected of men." + +She knew, and the very horror of it lifted her dull and shrinking +eyelids. There, heaven-tall, earth-wide, hung the stranger on the +crimson cross, riven and blood-stained, with thorn-crowned head and +pierced hands. She stretched her arms and shrieked. + +He did not hear. He did not see. His calm dark eyes, all sorrowful, were +fastened on the writhing, twisting body of the thief, and a voice came +out of the winds of the night, saying: + +"This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise!" + + + + +VI + +OF THE RULING OF MEN + + +The ruling of men is the effort to direct the individual actions of many +persons toward some end. This end theoretically should be the greatest +good of all, but no human group has ever reached this ideal because of +ignorance and selfishness. The simplest object would be rule for the +Pleasure of One, namely the Ruler; or of the Few--his favorites; or of +many--the Rich, the Privileged, the Powerful. Democratic movements +inside groups and nations are always taking place and they are the +efforts to increase the number of beneficiaries of the ruling. In 18th +century Europe, the effort became so broad and sweeping that an attempt +was made at universal expression and the philosophy of the movement said +that if All ruled they would rule for All and thus Universal Good was +sought through Universal Suffrage. + +The unrealized difficulty of this program lay in the widespread +ignorance. The mass of men, even of the more intelligent men, not only +knew little about each other but less about the action of men in groups +and the technique of industry in general. They could only apply +universal suffrage, therefore, to the things they knew or knew +partially: they knew personal and menial service, individual +craftsmanship, agriculture and barter, taxes or the taking of private +property for public ends and the rent of land. With these matters then +they attempted to deal. Under the cry of "Freedom" they greatly relaxed +the grip of selfish interests by restricting menial service, securing +the right of property in handiwork and regulating public taxes; +distributing land ownership and freeing trade and barter. + +While they were doing this against stubborn resistance, a whole new +organization of work suddenly appeared. The suddenness of this +"Industrial Revolution" of the 19th century was partly fortuitous--in +the case of Watt's teakettle--partly a natural development, as in the +matter of spinning, but largely the determination of powerful and +intelligent individuals to secure the benefits of privileged persons, as +in the case of foreign slave trade. + +The result was on the one hand a vast and unexampled development of +industry. Life and civilization in the late 19th and early 20th century +were Industry in its whole conception, language, and accomplishment: the +object of life was to make goods. Now before this giant aspect of +things, the new democracy stood aghast and impotent. It could not rule +because it did not understand: an invincible kingdom of trade, business, +and commerce ruled the world, and before its threshold stood the Freedom +of 18th century philosophy warding the way. Some of the very ones who +were freed from the tyranny of the Middle Age became the tyrants of the +industrial age. + +There came a reaction. Men sneered at "democracy" and politics, and +brought forth Fate and Philanthropy to rule the world--Fate which gave +divine right to rule to the Captains of Industry and their created +Millionaires; Philanthropy which organized vast schemes of relief to +stop at least the flow of blood in the vaster wounds which industry was +making. + +It was at this time that the lowest laborers, who worked hardest, got +least and suffered most, began to mutter and rebel, and among these were +the American Negroes. Lions have no historians, and therefore lion hunts +are thrilling and satisfactory human reading. Negroes had no bards, and +therefore it has been widely told how American philanthropy freed the +slave. In truth the Negro revolted by armed rebellion, by sullen refusal +to work, by poison and murder, by running away to the North and Canada, +by giving point and powerful example to the agitation of the +abolitionists and by furnishing 200,000 soldiers and many times as many +civilian helpers in the Civil War. This war was not a war for Negro +freedom, but a duel between two industrial systems, one of which was +bound to fail because it was an anachronism, and the other bound to +succeed because of the Industrial Revolution. + +When now the Negro was freed the Philanthropists sought to apply to his +situation the Philosophy of Democracy handed down from the 18th century. + +There was a chance here to try democratic rule in a new way, that is, +against the new industrial oppression with a mass of workers who were +not yet in its control. With plenty of land widely distributed, staple +products like cotton, rice, and sugar cane, and a thorough system of +education, there was a unique chance to realize a new modern democracy +in industry in the southern United States which would point the way to +the world. This, too, if done by black folk, would have tended to a new +unity of human beings and an obliteration of human hatreds festering +along the color line. + +Efforts were begun. The 14th and 15th amendments gave the right to vote +to white and black laborers, and they immediately established a public +school system and began to attack the land question. The United States +government was seriously considering the distribution of land and +capital--"40 acres and a mule"--and the price of cotton opened an easy +way to economic independence. Co-operative movements began on a large +scale. + +But alas! Not only were the former slave-owners solidly arrayed against +this experiment, but the owners of the industrial North saw disaster in +any such beginnings of industrial democracy. The opposition based its +objections on the color line, and Reconstruction became in history a +great movement for the self-assertion of the white race against the +impudent ambition of degraded blacks, instead of, in truth, the rise of +a mass of black and white laborers. + +The result was the disfranchisement of the blacks of the South and a +world-wide attempt to restrict democratic development to white races and +to distract them with race hatred against the darker races. This +program, however, although it undoubtedly helped raise the scale of +white labor, in much greater proportion put wealth and power in the +hands of the great European Captains of Industry and made modern +industrial imperialism possible. + +This led to renewed efforts on the part of white European workers to +understand and apply their political power to its reform through +democratic control. + +Whether known as Communism or Socialism or what not, these efforts are +neither new nor strange nor terrible, but world-old and seeking an +absolutely justifiable human ideal--the only ideal that can be sought: +the direction of individual action in industry so as to secure the +greatest good of all. Marxism was one method of accomplishing this, and +its panacea was the doing away with private property in machines and +materials. Two mighty attacks were made on this proposal. One was an +attack on the fundamental democratic foundation: modern European white +industry does not even theoretically seek the good of all, but simply of +all Europeans. This attack was virtually unanswered--indeed some +Socialists openly excluded Negroes and Asiatics from their scheme. From +this it was easy to drift into that form of syndicalism which asks +socialism for the skilled laborer only and leaves the common laborer in +his bonds. + +This throws us back on fundamentals. It compels us again to examine the +roots of democracy. + +Who may be excluded from a share in the ruling of men? Time and time +again the world has answered: + +The Ignorant +The Inexperienced +The Guarded +The Unwilling + +That is, we have assumed that only the intelligent should vote, or those +who know how to rule men, or those who are not under benevolent +guardianship, or those who ardently desire the right. + +These restrictions are not arguments for the wide distribution of the +ballot--they are rather reasons for restriction addressed to the +self-interest of the present real rulers. We say easily, for instance, +"The ignorant ought not to vote." We would say, "No civilized state +should have citizens too ignorant to participate in government," and +this statement is but a step to the fact: that no state is civilized +which has citizens too ignorant to help rule it. Or, in other words, +education is not a prerequisite to political control--political control +is the cause of popular education. + +Again, to make experience a qualification for the franchise is absurd: +it would stop the spread of democracy and make political power +hereditary, a prerequisite of a class, caste, race, or sex. It has of +course been soberly argued that only white folk or Englishmen, or men, +are really capable of exercising sovereign power in a modern state. The +statement proves too much: only yesterday it was Englishmen of high +descent, or men of "blood," or sovereigns "by divine right" who could +rule. Today the civilized world is being ruled by the descendants of +persons who a century ago were pronounced incapable of ever developing a +self-ruling people. In every modern state there must come to the polls +every generation, and indeed every year, men who are inexperienced in +the solutions of the political problems that confront them and who must +experiment in methods of ruling men. Thus and thus only will +civilization grow. + +Again, what is this theory of benevolent guardianship for women, for the +masses, for Negroes--for "lesser breeds without the law"? It is simply +the old cry of privilege, the old assumption that there are those in the +world who know better what is best for others than those others know +themselves, and who can be trusted to do this best. + +In fact no one knows himself but that self's own soul. The vast and +wonderful knowledge of this marvelous universe is locked in the bosoms +of its individual souls. To tap this mighty reservoir of experience, +knowledge, beauty, love, and deed we must appeal not to the few, not to +some souls, but to all. The narrower the appeal, the poorer the culture; +the wider the appeal the more magnificent are the possibilities. +Infinite is human nature. We make it finite by choking back the mass of +men, by attempting to speak for others, to interpret and act for them, +and we end by acting for ourselves and using the world as our private +property. If this were all, it were crime enough--but it is not all: by +our ignorance we make the creation of the greater world impossible; we +beat back a world built of the playing of dogs and laughter of children, +the song of Black Folk and worship of Yellow, the love of women and +strength of men, and try to express by a group of doddering ancients the +Will of the World. + +There are people who insist upon regarding the franchise, not as a +necessity for the many, but as a privilege for the few. They say of +persons and classes: "They do not need the ballot." This is often said +of women. It is argued that everything which women with the ballot might +do for themselves can be done for them; that they have influence and +friends "at court," and that their enfranchisement would simply double +the number of ballots. So, too, we are told that American Negroes can +have done for them by other voters all that they could possibly do for +themselves with the ballot and much more because the white voters are +more intelligent. + +Further than this, it is argued that many of the disfranchised people +recognize these facts. "Women do not want the ballot" has been a very +effective counter war-cry, so much so that many men have taken refuge in +the declaration: "When they want to vote, why, then--" So, too, we are +continually told that the "best" Negroes stay out of politics. + +Such arguments show so curious a misapprehension of the foundation of +the argument for democracy that the argument must be continually +restated and emphasized. We must remember that if the theory of +democracy is correct, the right to vote is not merely a privilege, not +simply a method of meeting the needs of a particular group, and least of +all a matter of recognized want or desire. Democracy is a method of +realizing the broadest measure of justice to all human beings. The world +has, in the past, attempted various methods of attaining this end, most +of which can be summed up in three categories: + +The method of the benevolent tyrant. +The method of the select few. +The method of the excluded groups. + +The method of intrusting the government of a people to a strong ruler +has great advantages when the ruler combines strength with ability, +unselfish devotion to the public good, and knowledge of what that good +calls for. Such a combination is, however, rare and the selection of the +right ruler is very difficult. To leave the selection to force is to put +a premium on physical strength, chance, and intrigue; to make the +selection a matter of birth simply transfers the real power from +sovereign to minister. Inevitably the choice of rulers must fall on +electors. + +Then comes the problem, who shall elect. The earlier answer was: a +select few, such as the wise, the best born, the able. Many people +assume that it was corruption that made such aristocracies fail. By no +means. The best and most effective aristocracy, like the best monarchy, +suffered from lack of knowledge. The rulers did not know or understand +the needs of the people and they could not find out, for in the last +analysis only the man himself, however humble, knows his own condition. +He may not know how to remedy it, he may not realize just what is the +matter; but he knows when something hurts and he alone knows how that +hurt feels. Or if sunk below feeling or comprehension or complaint, he +does not even know that he is hurt, God help his country, for it not +only lacks knowledge, but has destroyed the sources of knowledge. + +So soon as a nation discovers that it holds in the heads and hearts of +its individual citizens the vast mine of knowledge, out of which it may +build a just government, then more and more it calls those citizens to +select their rulers and to judge the justice of their acts. + +Even here, however, the temptation is to ask only for the wisdom of +citizens of a certain grade or those of recognized worth. Continually +some classes are tacitly or expressly excluded. Thus women have been +excluded from modern democracy because of the persistent theory of +female subjection and because it was argued that their husbands or other +male folks would look to their interests. Now, manifestly, most +husbands, fathers, and brothers will, so far as they know how or as they +realize women's needs, look after them. But remember the foundation of +the argument,--that in the last analysis only the sufferer knows his +sufferings and that no state can be strong which excludes from its +expressed wisdom the knowledge possessed by mothers, wives, and +daughters. We have but to view the unsatisfactory relations of the sexes +the world over and the problem of children to realize how desperately we +need this excluded wisdom. + +The same arguments apply to other excluded groups: if a race, like the +Negro race, is excluded, then so far as that race is a part of the +economic and social organization of the land, the feeling and the +experience of that race are absolutely necessary to the realization of +the broadest justice for all citizens. Or if the "submerged tenth" be +excluded, then again, there is lost from the world an experience of +untold value, and they must be raised rapidly to a place where they can +speak for themselves. In the same way and for the same reason children +must be educated, insanity prevented, and only those put under the +guardianship of others who can in no way be trained to speak for +themselves. + +The real argument for democracy is, then, that in the people we have +the source of that endless life and unbounded wisdom which the rulers of +men must have. A given people today may not be intelligent, but through +a democratic government that recognizes, not only the worth of the +individual to himself, but the worth of his feelings and experiences to +all, they can educate, not only the individual unit, but generation +after generation, until they accumulate vast stores of wisdom. Democracy +alone is the method of showing the whole experience of the race for the +benefit of the future and if democracy tries to exclude women or Negroes +or the poor or any class because of innate characteristics which do not +interfere with intelligence, then that democracy cripples itself and +belies its name. + +From this point of view we can easily see the weakness and strength of +current criticism of extension of the ballot. It is the business of a +modern government to see to it, first, that the number of ignorant +within its bounds is reduced to the very smallest number. Again, it is +the duty of every such government to extend as quickly as possible the +number of persons of mature age who can vote. Such possible voters must +be regarded, not as sharers of a limited treasure, but as sources of new +national wisdom and strength. + +The addition of the new wisdom, the new points of view, and the new +interests must, of course, be from time to time bewildering and +confusing. Today those who have a voice in the body politic have +expressed their wishes and sufferings. The result has been a smaller or +greater balancing of their conflicting interests. The appearance of new +interests and complaints means disarrangement and confusion to the older +equilibrium. It is, of course, the inevitable preliminary step to that +larger equilibrium in which the interests of no human soul will be +neglected. These interests will not, surely, be all fully realized, but +they will be recognized and given as full weight as the conflicting +interests will allow. The problem of government thereafter would be to +reduce the necessary conflict of human interests to the minimum. + +From such a point of view one easily sees the strength of the demand for +the ballot on the part of certain disfranchised classes. When women ask +for the ballot, they are asking, not for a privilege, but for a +necessity. You may not see the necessity, you may easily argue that +women do not need to vote. Indeed, the women themselves in considerable +numbers may agree with you. Nevertheless, women do need the ballot. They +need it to right the balance of a world sadly awry because of its brutal +neglect of the rights of women and children. With the best will and +knowledge, no man can know women's wants as well as women themselves. To +disfranchise women is deliberately to turn from knowledge and grope in +ignorance. + +So, too, with American Negroes: the South continually insists that a +benevolent guardianship of whites over blacks is the ideal thing. They +assume that white people not only know better what Negroes need than +Negroes themselves, but that they are anxious to supply these needs. As +a result they grope in ignorance and helplessness. They cannot +"understand" the Negro; they cannot protect him from cheating and +lynching; and, in general, instead of loving guardianship we see anarchy +and exploitation. If the Negro could speak for himself in the South +instead of being spoken for, if he could defend himself instead of +having to depend on the chance sympathy of white citizens, how much +healthier a growth of democracy the South would have. + +So, too, with the darker races of the world. No federation of the world, +no true inter-nation--can exclude the black and brown and yellow races +from its counsels. They must equally and according to number act and be +heard at the world's council. + +It is not, for a moment, to be assumed that enfranchising women will not +cost something. It will for many years confuse our politics. It may even +change the present status of family life. It will admit to the ballot +thousands of inexperienced persons, unable to vote intelligently. Above +all, it will interfere with some of the present prerogatives of men and +probably for some time to come annoy them considerably. + +So, too, Negro enfranchisement meant reconstruction, with its theft and +bribery and incompetency as well as its public schools and enlightened, +social legislation. It would mean today that black men in the South +would have to be treated with consideration, have their wishes respected +and their manhood rights recognized. Every white Southerner, who wants +peons beneath him, who believes in hereditary menials and a privileged +aristocracy, or who hates certain races because of their +characteristics, would resent this. + +Notwithstanding this, if America is ever to become a government built on +the broadest justice to every citizen, then every citizen must be +enfranchised. There may be temporary exclusions, until the ignorant and +their children are taught, or to avoid too sudden an influx of +inexperienced voters. But such exclusions can be but temporary if +justice is to prevail. + +The principle of basing all government on the consent of the governed is +undenied and undeniable. Moreover, the method of modern democracy has +placed within reach of the modern state larger reserves of efficiency, +ability, and even genius than the ancient or mediaeval state dreamed of. +That this great work of the past can be carried further among all races +and nations no one can reasonably doubt. + +Great as are our human differences and capabilities there is not the +slightest scientific reason for assuming that a given human being of any +race or sex cannot reach normal, human development if he is granted a +reasonable chance. This is, of course, denied. It is denied so volubly +and so frequently and with such positive conviction that the majority of +unthinking people seem to assume that most human beings are not human +and have no right to human treatment or human opportunity. All this goes +to prove that human beings are, and must be, woefully ignorant of each +other. It always startles us to find folks thinking like ourselves. We +do not really associate with each other, we associate with our ideas of +each other, and few people have either the ability or courage to +question their own ideas. None have more persistently and dogmatically +insisted upon the inherent inferiority of women than the men with whom +they come in closest contact. It is the husbands, brothers, and sons of +women whom it has been most difficult to induce to consider women +seriously or to acknowledge that women have rights which men are bound +to respect. So, too, it is those people who live in closest contact with +black folk who have most unhesitatingly asserted the utter impossibility +of living beside Negroes who are not industrial or political slaves or +social pariahs. All this proves that none are so blind as those nearest +the thing seen, while, on the other hand, the history of the world is +the history of the discovery of the common humanity of human beings +among steadily-increasing circles of men. + +If the foundations of democracy are thus seen to be sound, how are we +going to make democracy effective where it now fails to +function--particularly in industry? The Marxists assert that industrial +democracy will automatically follow public ownership of machines and +materials. Their opponents object that nationalization of machines and +materials would not suffice because the mass of people do not understand +the industrial process. They do not know: + + What to do + How to do it + Who could do it best + or + How to apportion the resulting goods. + +There can be no doubt but that monopoly of machines and materials is a +chief source of the power of industrial tyrants over the common worker +and that monopoly today is due as much to chance and cheating as to +thrift and intelligence. So far as it is due to chance and cheating, the +argument for public ownership of capital is incontrovertible even though +it involves some interference with long vested rights and inheritance. +This is being widely recognized in the whole civilized world. But how +about the accumulation of goods due to thrift and intelligence--would +democracy in industry interfere here to such an extent as to discourage +enterprise and make impossible the intelligent direction of the mighty +and intricate industrial process of modern times? + +The knowledge of what to do in industry and how to do it in order to +attain the resulting goods rests in the hands and brains of the workers +and managers, and the judges of the result are the public. Consequently +it is not so much a question as to whether the world will admit +democratic control here as how can such control be long avoided when the +people once understand the fundamentals of industry. How can +civilization persist in letting one person or a group of persons, by +secret inherent power, determine what goods shall be made--whether bread +or champagne, overcoats or silk socks? Can so vast a power be kept from +the people? + +But it may be opportunely asked: has our experience in electing public +officials led us to think that we could run railways, cotton mills, and +department stores by popular vote? The answer is clear: no, it has not, +and the reason has been lack of interest in politics and the tyranny of +the Majority. Politics have not touched the matters of daily life which +are nearest the interests of the people--namely, work and wages; or if +they have, they have touched it obscurely and indirectly. When voting +touches the vital, everyday interests of all, nominations and elections +will call for more intelligent activity. Consider too the vast unused +and misused power of public rewards to obtain ability and genius for the +service of the state. If millionaires can buy science and art, cannot +the Democratic state outbid them not only with money but with the vast +ideal of the common weal? + +There still remains, however, the problem of the Majority. + +What is the cause of the undoubted reaction and alarm that the citizens +of democracy continually feel? It is, I am sure, the failure to feel the +full significance of the change of rule from a privileged minority to +that of an omnipotent majority, and the assumption that mere majority +rule is the last word of government; that majorities have no +responsibilities, that they rule by the grace of God. Granted that +government should be based on the consent of the governed, does the +consent of a majority at any particular time adequately express the +consent of all? Has the minority, even though a small and unpopular and +unfashionable minority, no right to respectful consideration? + +I remember that excellent little high school text book, "Nordhoff's +Politics," where I first read of government, saying this sentence at the +beginning of its most important chapter: "The first duty of a minority +is to become a majority." This is a statement which has its underlying +truth, but it also has its dangerous falsehood; viz., any minority which +cannot become a majority is not worthy of any consideration. But suppose +that the out-voted minority is necessarily always a minority? Women, +for instance, can seldom expect to be a majority; artists must always be +the few; ability is always rare, and black folk in this land are but a +tenth. Yet to tyrannize over such minorities, to browbeat and insult +them, to call that government a democracy which makes majority votes an +excuse for crushing ideas and individuality and self-development, is +manifestly a peculiarly dangerous perversion of the real democratic +ideal. It is right here, in its method and not in its object, that +democracy in America and elsewhere has so often failed. We have +attempted to enthrone any chance majority and make it rule by divine +right. We have kicked and cursed minorities as upstarts and usurpers +when their sole offense lay in not having ideas or hair like ours. +Efficiency, ability, and genius found often no abiding place in such a +soil as this. Small wonder that revolt has come and high-handed methods +are rife, of pretending that policies which we favor or persons that we +like have the anointment of a purely imaginary majority vote. + +Are the methods of such a revolt wise, howsoever great the provocation +and evil may be? If the absolute monarchy of majorities is galling and +inefficient, is it any more inefficient than the absolute monarchy of +individuals or privileged classes have been found to be in the past? Is +the appeal from a numerous-minded despot to a smaller, privileged group +or to one man likely to remedy matters permanently? Shall we step +backward a thousand years because our present problem is baffling? + +Surely not and surely, too, the remedy for absolutism lies in calling +these same minorities to council. As the king-in-council succeeded the +king by the grace of God, so in future democracies the toleration and +encouragement of minorities and the willingness to consider as "men" the +crankiest, humblest and poorest and blackest peoples, must be the real +key to the consent of the governed. Peoples and governments will not in +the future assume that because they have the brute power to enforce +momentarily dominant ideas, it is best to do so without thoughtful +conference with the ideas of smaller groups and individuals. +Proportionate representation in physical and spiritual form must come. + +That this method is virtually coming in vogue we can see by the minority +groups of modern legislatures. Instead of the artificial attempts to +divide all possible ideas and plans between two great parties, modern +legislatures in advanced nations tend to develop smaller and smaller +minority groups, while government is carried on by temporary coalitions. +For a time we inveighed against this and sought to consider it a +perversion of the only possible method of practical democracy. Today we +are gradually coming to realize that government by temporary coalition +of small and diverse groups may easily become the most efficient method +of expressing the will of man and of setting the human soul free. The +only hindrance to the faster development of this government by allied +minorities is the fear of external war which is used again and again to +melt these living, human, thinking groups into inhuman, thoughtless, and +murdering machines. + +The persons, then, who come forward in the dawn of the 20th century to +help in the ruling of men must come with the firm conviction that no +nation, race, or sex, has a monopoly of ability or ideas; that no human +group is so small as to deserve to be ignored as a part, and as an +integral and respected part, of the mass of men; that, above all, no +group of twelve million black folk, even though they are at the physical +mercy of a hundred million white majority, can be deprived of a voice in +their government and of the right to self-development without a blow at +the very foundations of all democracy and all human uplift; that the +very criticism aimed today at universal suffrage is in reality a demand +for power on the part of consciously efficient minorities,--but these +minorities face a fatal blunder when they assume that less democracy +will give them and their kind greater efficiency. However desperate the +temptation, no modern nation can shut the gates of opportunity in the +face of its women, its peasants, its laborers, or its socially damned. +How astounded the future world-citizen will be to know that as late as +1918 great and civilized nations were making desperate endeavor to +confine the development of ability and individuality to one sex,--that +is, to one-half of the nation; and he will probably learn that similar +effort to confine humanity to one race lasted a hundred years longer. + +The doctrine of the divine right of majorities leads to almost humorous +insistence on a dead level of mediocrity. It demands that all people be +alike or that they be ostracized. At the same time its greatest +accusation against rebels is this same desire to be alike: the +suffragette is accused of wanting to be a man, the socialist is accused +of envy of the rich, and the black man is accused of wanting to be +white. That any one of these should simply want to be himself is to the +average worshiper of the majority inconceivable, and yet of all worlds, +may the good Lord deliver us from a world where everybody looks like his +neighbor and thinks like his neighbor and is like his neighbor. + +The world has long since awakened to a realization of the evil which a +privileged few may exercise over the majority of a nation. So vividly +has this truth been brought home to us that we have lightly assumed that +a privileged and enfranchised majority cannot equally harm a nation. +Insane, wicked, and wasteful as the tyranny of the few over the many may +be, it is not more dangerous than the tyranny of the many over the few. +Brutal physical revolution can, and usually does, end the tyranny of the +few. But the spiritual losses from suppressed minorities may be vast and +fatal and yet all unknown and unrealized because idea and dream and +ability are paralyzed by brute force. + +If, now, we have a democracy with no excluded groups, with all men and +women enfranchised, what is such a democracy to do? How will it +function? What will be its field of work? + +The paradox which faces the civilized world today is that democratic +control is everywhere limited in its control of human interests. Mankind +is engaged in planting, forestry, and mining, preparing food and +shelter, making clothes and machines, transporting goods and folk, +disseminating news, distributing products, doing public and private +personal service, teaching, advancing science, and creating art. + +In this intricate whirl of activities, the theory of government has been +hitherto to lay down only very general rules of conduct, marking the +limits of extreme anti-social acts, like fraud, theft, and murder. + +The theory was that within these bounds was Freedom--the Liberty to +think and do and move as one wished. The real realm of freedom was found +in experience to be much narrower than this in one direction and much +broader in another. In matters of Truth and Faith and Beauty, the +Ancient Law was inexcusably strait and modern law unforgivably stupid. +It is here that the future and mighty fight for Freedom must and will be +made. Here in the heavens and on the mountaintops, the air of Freedom is +wide, almost limitless, for here, in the highest stretches, individual +freedom harms no man, and, therefore, no man has the right to limit it. + +On the other hand, in the valleys of the hard, unyielding laws of matter +and the social necessities of time production, and human intercourse, +the limits on our freedom are stern and unbending if we would exist and +thrive. This does not say that everything here is governed by +incontrovertible "natural" law which needs no human decision as to raw +materials, machinery, prices, wages, news-dissemination, education of +children, etc.; but it does mean that decisions here must be limited by +brute facts and based on science and human wants. + +Today the scientific and ethical boundaries of our industrial activities +are not in the hands of scientists, teachers, and thinkers; nor is the +intervening opportunity for decision left in the control of the public +whose welfare such decisions guide. On the contrary, the control of +industry is largely in the hands of a powerful few, who decide for their +own good and regardless of the good of others. The making of the rules +of Industry, then, is not in the hands of All, but in the hands of the +Few. The Few who govern industry envisage, not the wants of mankind, but +their own wants. They work quietly, often secretly, opposing Law, on the +one hand, as interfering with the "freedom of industry"; opposing, on +the other hand, free discussion and open determination of the rules of +work and wealth and wages, on the ground that harsh natural law brooks +no interference by Democracy. + +These things today, then, are not matters of free discussion and +determination. They are strictly controlled. Who controls them? Who +makes these inner, but powerful, rules? Few people know. Others assert +and believe these rules are "natural"--a part of our inescapable +physical environment. Some of them doubtless are; but most of them are +just as clearly the dictates of self-interest laid down by the powerful +private persons who today control industry. Just here it is that modern +men demand that Democracy supplant skilfully concealed, but all too +evident, Monarchy. + +In industry, monarchy and the aristocracy rule, and there are those who, +calling themselves democratic, believe that democracy can never enter +here. Industry, they maintain, is a matter of technical knowledge and +ability, and, therefore, is the eternal heritage of the few. They point +to the failure of attempts at democratic control in industry, just as we +used to point to Spanish-American governments, and they expose, not +simply the failures of Russian Soviets,--they fly to arms to prevent +that greatest experiment in industrial democracy which the world has yet +seen. These are the ones who say: We must control labor or civilization +will fail; we must control white labor in Europe and America; above all, +we must control yellow labor in Asia and black labor in Africa and the +South, else we shall have no tea, or rubber, or cotton. And yet,--and +yet is it so easy to give up the dream of democracy? Must industry rule +men or may men rule even industry? And unless men rule industry, can +they ever hope really to make laws or educate children or create beauty? + +That the problem of the democratization of industry is tremendous, let +no man deny. We must spread that sympathy and intelligence which +tolerates the widest individual freedom despite the necessary public +control; we must learn to select for public office ability rather than +mere affability. We must stand ready to defer to knowledge and science +and judge by result rather than by method; and finally we must face the +fact that the final distribution of goods--the question of wages and +income is an ethical and not a mere mechanical problem and calls for +grave public human judgment and not secrecy and closed doors. All this +means time and development. It comes not complete by instant revolution +of a day, nor yet by the deferred evolution of a thousand years--it +comes daily, bit by bit and step by step, as men and women learn and +grow and as children are trained in Truth. + +These steps are in many cases clear: the careful, steady increase of +public democratic ownership of industry, beginning with the simplest +type of public utilities and monopolies, and extending gradually as we +learn the way; the use of taxation to limit inheritance and to take the +unearned increment for public use beginning (but not ending) with a +"single tax" on monopolized land values; the training of the public in +business technique by co-operation in buying and selling, and in +industrial technique by the shop committee and manufacturing guild. + +But beyond all this must come the Spirit--the Will to Human Brotherhood +of all Colors, Races, and Creeds; the Wanting of the Wants of All. +Perhaps the finest contribution of current Socialism to the world is +neither its light nor its dogma, but the idea back of its one mighty +word--Comrade! + + + + +The Call + + +In the Land of the Heavy Laden came once a dreary day. And the King, who +sat upon the Great White Throne, raised his eyes and saw afar off how +the hills around were hot with hostile feet and the sound of the mocking +of his enemies struck anxiously on the King's ears, for the King loved +his enemies. So the King lifted up his hand in the glittering silence +and spake softly, saying: "Call the Servants of the King." Then the +herald stepped before the armpost of the throne, and cried: "Thus saith +the High and Mighty One, who inhabiteth Eternity, whose name is +Holy,--the Servants of the King!" + +Now, of the servants of the king there were a hundred and forty-four +thousand,--tried men and brave, brawny of arm and quick of wit; aye, +too, and women of wisdom and women marvelous in beauty and grace. And +yet on this drear day when the King called, their ears were thick with +the dust of the enemy, their eyes were blinded with the flashing of his +spears, and they hid their faces in dread silence and moved not, even at +the King's behest. So the herald called again. And the servants cowered +in very shame, but none came forth. But the third blast of the herald +struck upon a woman's heart, afar. And the woman straightway left her +baking and sweeping and the rattle of pans; and the woman straightway +left her chatting and gossiping and the sewing of garments, and the +woman stood before the King, saying: "The servant of thy servants, O +Lord." + +Then the King smiled,--smiled wondrously, so that the setting sun burst +through the clouds, and the hearts of the King's men dried hard within +them. And the low-voiced King said, so low that even they that listened +heard not well: "Go, smite me mine enemies, that they cease to do evil +in my sight." And the woman quailed and trembled. Three times she lifted +her eyes unto the hills and saw the heathen whirling onward in their +rage. And seeing, she shrank--three times she shrank and crept to the +King's feet. + +"O King," she cried, "I am but a woman." + +And the King answered: "Go, then, Mother of Men." + +And the woman said, "Nay, King, but I am still a maid." Whereat the King +cried: "O maid, made Man, thou shalt be Bride of God." + +And yet the third time the woman shrank at the thunder in her ears, and +whispered: "Dear God, I am black!" + +The King spake not, but swept the veiling of his face aside and lifted +up the light of his countenance upon her and lo! it was black. + +So the woman went forth on the hills of God to do battle for the King, +on that drear day in the land of the Heavy Laden, when the heathen raged +and imagined a vain thing. + + + + +VII + +THE DAMNATION OF WOMEN + + +I remember four women of my boyhood: my mother, cousin Inez, Emma, and +Ide Fuller. They represented the problem of the widow, the wife, the +maiden, and the outcast. They were, in color, brown and light-brown, +yellow with brown freckles, and white. They existed not for themselves, +but for men; they were named after the men to whom they were related and +not after the fashion of their own souls. + +They were not beings, they were relations and these relations were +enfilmed with mystery and secrecy. We did not know the truth or believe +it when we heard it. Motherhood! What was it? We did not know or greatly +care. My mother and I were good chums. I liked her. After she was dead I +loved her with a fierce sense of personal loss. + +Inez was a pretty, brown cousin who married. What was marriage? We did +not know, neither did she, poor thing! It came to mean for her a litter +of children, poverty, a drunken, cruel companion, sickness, and death. +Why? + +There was no sweeter sight than Emma,--slim, straight, and dainty, +darkly flushed with the passion of youth; but her life was a wild, awful +struggle to crush her natural, fierce joy of love. She crushed it and +became a cold, calculating mockery. + +Last there was that awful outcast of the town, the white woman, Ide +Fuller. What she was, we did not know. She stood to us as embodied filth +and wrong,--but whose filth, whose wrong? + +Grown up I see the problem of these women transfused; I hear all about +me the unanswered call of youthful love, none the less glorious because +of its clean, honest, physical passion. Why unanswered? Because the +youth are too poor to marry or if they marry, too poor to have children. +They turn aside, then, in three directions: to marry for support, to +what men call shame, or to that which is more evil than nothing. It is +an unendurable paradox; it must be changed or the bases of culture will +totter and fall. + +The world wants healthy babies and intelligent workers. Today we refuse +to allow the combination and force thousands of intelligent workers to +go childless at a horrible expenditure of moral force, or we damn them +if they break our idiotic conventions. Only at the sacrifice of +intelligence and the chance to do their best work can the majority of +modern women bear children. This is the damnation of women. + +All womanhood is hampered today because the world on which it is +emerging is a world that tries to worship both virgins and mothers and +in the end despises motherhood and despoils virgins. + +The future woman must have a life work and economic independence. She +must have knowledge. She must have the right of motherhood at her own +discretion. The present mincing horror at free womanhood must pass if we +are ever to be rid of the bestiality of free manhood; not by guarding +the weak in weakness do we gain strength, but by making weakness free +and strong. + +The world must choose the free woman or the white wraith of the +prostitute. Today it wavers between the prostitute and the nun. +Civilization must show two things: the glory and beauty of creating life +and the need and duty of power and intelligence. This and this only will +make the perfect marriage of love and work. + + God is Love, + Love is God; + There is no God but Love + And Work is His Prophet! + +All this of woman,--but what of black women? + +The world that wills to worship womankind studiously forgets its darker +sisters. They seem in a sense to typify that veiled Melancholy: + + "Whose saintly visage is too bright + To hit the sense of human sight, + And, therefore, to our weaker view + O'er-laid with black." + +Yet the world must heed these daughters of sorrow, from the primal black +All-Mother of men down through the ghostly throng of mighty womanhood, +who walked in the mysterious dawn of Asia and Africa; from Neith, the +primal mother of all, whose feet rest on hell, and whose almighty hands +uphold the heavens; all religion, from beauty to beast, lies on her +eager breasts; her body bears the stars, while her shoulders are +necklaced by the dragon; from black Neith down to + + "That starr'd Ethiop queen who strove + To set her beauty's praise above + The sea-nymphs," + +through dusky Cleopatras, dark Candaces, and darker, fiercer Zinghas, to +our own day and our own land,--in gentle Phillis; Harriet, the crude +Moses; the sybil, Sojourner Truth; and the martyr, Louise De Mortie. + +The father and his worship is Asia; Europe is the precocious, +self-centered, forward-striving child; but the land of the mother is and +was Africa. In subtle and mysterious way, despite her curious history, +her slavery, polygamy, and toil, the spell of the African mother +pervades her land. Isis, the mother, is still titular goddess, in +thought if not in name, of the dark continent. Nor does this all seem to +be solely a survival of the historic matriarchate through which all +nations pass,--it appears to be more than this,--as if the great black +race in passing up the steps of human culture gave the world, not only +the Iron Age, the cultivation of the soil, and the domestication of +animals, but also, in peculiar emphasis, the mother-idea. + +"No mother can love more tenderly and none is more tenderly loved than +the Negro mother," writes Schneider. Robin tells of the slave who bought +his mother's freedom instead of his own. Mungo Park writes: "Everywhere +in Africa, I have noticed that no greater affront can be offered a Negro +than insulting his mother. 'Strike me,' cries a Mandingo to his enemy, +'but revile not my mother!'" And the Krus and Fantis say the same. The +peoples on the Zambezi and the great lakes cry in sudden fear or joy: +"O, my mother!" And the Herero swears (endless oath) "By my mother's +tears!" "As the mist in the swamps," cries the Angola Negro, "so lives +the love of father and mother." + +A student of the present Gold Coast life describes the work of the +village headman, and adds: "It is a difficult task that he is set to, +but in this matter he has all-powerful helpers in the female members of +the family, who will be either the aunts or the sisters or the cousins +or the nieces of the headman, and as their interests are identical with +his in every particular, the good women spontaneously train up their +children to implicit obedience to the headman, whose rule in the family +thus becomes a simple and an easy matter. 'The hand that rocks the +cradle rules the world.' What a power for good in the native state +system would the mothers of the Gold Coast and Ashanti become by +judicious training upon native lines!" + +Schweinfurth declares of one tribe: "A bond between mother and child +which lasts for life is the measure of affection shown among the Dyoor" +and Ratzel adds: + +"Agreeable to the natural relation the mother stands first among the +chief influences affecting the children. From the Zulus to the Waganda, +we find the mother the most influential counsellor at the court of +ferocious sovereigns, like Chaka or Mtesa; sometimes sisters take her +place. Thus even with chiefs who possess wives by hundreds the bonds of +blood are the strongest and that the woman, though often heavily +burdened, is in herself held in no small esteem among the Negroes is +clear from the numerous Negro queens, from the medicine women, from the +participation in public meetings permitted to women by many Negro +peoples." + +As I remember through memories of others, backward among my own family, +it is the mother I ever recall,--the little, far-off mother of my +grandmothers, who sobbed her life away in song, longing for her lost +palm-trees and scented waters; the tall and bronzen grandmother, with +beaked nose and shrewish eyes, who loved and scolded her black and +laughing husband as he smoked lazily in his high oak chair; above all, +my own mother, with all her soft brownness,--the brown velvet of her +skin, the sorrowful black-brown of her eyes, and the tiny brown-capped +waves of her midnight hair as it lay new parted on her forehead. All the +way back in these dim distances it is mothers and mothers of mothers who +seem to count, while fathers are shadowy memories. + +Upon this African mother-idea, the westward slave trade and American +slavery struck like doom. In the cruel exigencies of the traffic in men +and in the sudden, unprepared emancipation the great pendulum of social +equilibrium swung from a time, in 1800,--when America had but eight or +less black women to every ten black men,--all too swiftly to a day, in +1870,--when there were nearly eleven women to ten men in our Negro +population. This was but the outward numerical fact of social +dislocation; within lay polygamy, polyandry, concubinage, and moral +degradation. They fought against all this desperately, did these black +slaves in the West Indies, especially among the half-free artisans; they +set up their ancient household gods, and when Toussaint and Cristophe +founded their kingdom in Haiti, it was based on old African tribal ties +and beneath it was the mother-idea. + +The crushing weight of slavery fell on black women. Under it there was +no legal marriage, no legal family, no legal control over children. To +be sure, custom and religion replaced here and there what the law +denied, yet one has but to read advertisements like the following to see +the hell beneath the system: + + "One hundred dollars reward will be given for my two fellows, Abram + and Frank. Abram has a wife at Colonel Stewart's, in Liberty + County, and a mother at Thunderbolt, and a sister in Savannah. + + "WILLIAM ROBERTS." + + + "Fifty dollars reward--Ran away from the subscriber a Negro girl + named Maria. She is of a copper color, between thirteen and + fourteen years of age--bareheaded and barefooted. She is small for + her age--very sprightly and very likely. She stated she was going + to see her mother at Maysville. + + + "SANFORD THOMSON." + + "Fifty dollars reward--Ran away from the subscriber his Negro man + Pauladore, commonly called Paul. I understand General R.Y. Hayne + has purchased his wife and children from H.L. Pinckney, Esq., and + has them now on his plantation at Goose Creek, where, no doubt, the + fellow is frequently lurking. + + "T. DAVIS." + + +The Presbyterian synod of Kentucky said to the churches under its care +in 1835: "Brothers and sisters, parents and children, husbands and +wives, are torn asunder and permitted to see each other no more. These +acts are daily occurring in the midst of us. The shrieks and agony often +witnessed on such occasions proclaim, with a trumpet tongue, the +iniquity of our system. There is not a neighborhood where these +heartrending scenes are not displayed. There is not a village or road +that does not behold the sad procession of manacled outcasts whose +mournful countenances tell that they are exiled by force from all that +their hearts hold dear." + +A sister of a president of the United States declared: "We Southern +ladies are complimented with the names of wives, but we are only the +mistresses of seraglios." + +Out of this, what sort of black women could be born into the world of +today? There are those who hasten to answer this query in scathing terms +and who say lightly and repeatedly that out of black slavery came +nothing decent in womanhood; that adultery and uncleanness were their +heritage and are their continued portion. + +Fortunately so exaggerated a charge is humanly impossible of truth. The +half-million women of Negro descent who lived at the beginning of the +19th century had become the mothers of two and one-fourth million +daughters at the time of the Civil War and five million grand-daughters +in 1910. Can all these women be vile and the hunted race continue to +grow in wealth and character? Impossible. Yet to save from the past the +shreds and vestiges of self-respect has been a terrible task. I most +sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its +fineness up through so devilish a fire. + +Alexander Crummell once said of his sister in the blood: "In her +girlhood all the delicate tenderness of her sex has been rudely +outraged. In the field, in the rude cabin, in the press-room, in the +factory she was thrown into the companionship of coarse and ignorant +men. No chance was given her for delicate reserve or tender modesty. +From her childhood she was the doomed victim of the grossest passion. +All the virtues of her sex were utterly ignored. If the instinct of +chastity asserted itself, then she had to fight like a tiger for the +ownership and possession of her own person and ofttimes had to suffer +pain and lacerations for her virtuous self-assertion. When she reached +maturity, all the tender instincts of her womanhood were ruthlessly +violated. At the age of marriage,--always prematurely anticipated under +slavery--she was mated as the stock of the plantation were mated, not to +be the companion of a loved and chosen husband, but to be the breeder of +human cattle for the field or the auction block." + +Down in such mire has the black motherhood of this race +struggled,--starving its own wailing offspring to nurse to the world +their swaggering masters; welding for its children chains which +affronted even the moral sense of an unmoral world. Many a man and woman +in the South have lived in wedlock as holy as Adam and Eve and brought +forth their brown and golden children, but because the darker woman was +helpless, her chivalrous and whiter mate could cast her off at his +pleasure and publicly sneer at the body he had privately blasphemed. + +I shall forgive the white South much in its final judgment day: I shall +forgive its slavery, for slavery is a world-old habit; I shall forgive +its fighting for a well-lost cause, and for remembering that struggle +with tender tears; I shall forgive its so-called "pride of race," the +passion of its hot blood, and even its dear, old, laughable strutting +and posing; but one thing I shall never forgive, neither in this world +nor the world to come: its wanton and continued and persistent insulting +of the black womanhood which it sought and seeks to prostitute to its +lust. I cannot forget that it is such Southern gentlemen into whose +hands smug Northern hypocrites of today are seeking to place our women's +eternal destiny,--men who insist upon withholding from my mother and +wife and daughter those signs and appellations of courtesy and respect +which elsewhere he withholds only from bawds and courtesans. + +The result of this history of insult and degradation has been both +fearful and glorious. It has birthed the haunting prostitute, the +brawler, and the beast of burden; but it has also given the world an +efficient womanhood, whose strength lies in its freedom and whose +chastity was won in the teeth of temptation and not in prison and +swaddling clothes. + +To no modern race does its women mean so much as to the Negro nor come +so near to the fulfilment of its meaning. As one of our women writes: +"Only the black woman can say 'when and where I enter, in the quiet, +undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing +or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with +me.'" + +They came first, in earlier days, like foam flashing on dark, silent +waters,--bits of stern, dark womanhood here and there tossed almost +carelessly aloft to the world's notice. First and naturally they assumed +the panoply of the ancient African mother of men, strong and black, +whose very nature beat back the wilderness of oppression and contempt. +Such a one was that cousin of my grandmother, whom western Massachusetts +remembers as "Mum Bett." Scarred for life by a blow received in defense +of a sister, she ran away to Great Barrington and was the first slave, +or one of the first, to be declared free under the Bill of Rights of +1780. The son of the judge who freed her, writes: + + "Even in her humble station, she had, when occasion required it, an + air of command which conferred a degree of dignity and gave her an + ascendancy over those of her rank, which is very unusual in persons + of any rank or color. Her determined and resolute character, which + enabled her to limit the ravages of Shay's mob, was manifested in + her conduct and deportment during her whole life. She claimed no + distinction, but it was yielded to her from her superior + experience, energy, skill, and sagacity. Having known this woman as + familiarly as I knew either of my parents, I cannot believe in the + moral or physical inferiority of the race to which she belonged. + The degradation of the African must have been otherwise caused than + by natural inferiority." + +It was such strong women that laid the foundations of the great Negro +church of today, with its five million members and ninety millions of +dollars in property. One of the early mothers of the church, Mary Still, +writes thus quaintly, in the forties: + + "When we were as castouts and spurned from the large churches, + driven from our knees, pointed at by the proud, neglected by the + careless, without a place of worship, Allen, faithful to the + heavenly calling, came forward and laid the foundation of this + connection. The women, like the women at the sepulcher, were early + to aid in laying the foundation of the temple and in helping to + carry up the noble structure and in the name of their God set up + their banner; most of our aged mothers are gone from this to a + better state of things. Yet some linger still on their staves, + watching with intense interest the ark as it moves over the + tempestuous waves of opposition and ignorance.... + + "But the labors of these women stopped not here, for they knew well + that they were subject to affliction and death. For the purpose of + mutual aid, they banded themselves together in society capacity, + that they might be better able to administer to each others' + sufferings and to soften their own pillows. So we find the females + in the early history of the church abounding in good works and in + acts of true benevolence." + +From such spiritual ancestry came two striking figures of +war-time,--Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. + +For eight or ten years previous to the breaking out of the Civil War, +Harriet Tubman was a constant attendant at anti-slavery conventions, +lectures, and other meetings; she was a black woman of medium size, +smiling countenance, with her upper front teeth gone, attired in coarse +but neat clothes, and carrying always an old-fashioned reticule at her +side. Usually as soon as she sat down she would drop off in sound sleep. + +She was born a slave in Maryland, in 1820, bore the marks of the lash on +her flesh; and had been made partially deaf, and perhaps to some degree +mentally unbalanced by a blow on the head in childhood. Yet she was one +of the most important agents of the Underground Railroad and a leader of +fugitive slaves. She ran away in 1849 and went to Boston in 1854, where +she was welcomed into the homes of the leading abolitionists and where +every one listened with tense interest to her strange stories. She was +absolutely illiterate, with no knowledge of geography, and yet year +after year she penetrated the slave states and personally led North over +three hundred fugitives without losing a single one. A standing reward +of $10,000 was offered for her, but as she said: "The whites cannot +catch us, for I was born with the charm, and the Lord has given me the +power." She was one of John Brown's closest advisers and only severe +sickness prevented her presence at Harper's Ferry. + +When the war cloud broke, she hastened to the front, flitting down along +her own mysterious paths, haunting the armies in the field, and serving +as guide and nurse and spy. She followed Sherman in his great march to +the sea and was with Grant at Petersburg, and always in the camps the +Union officers silently saluted her. + +The other woman belonged to a different type,--a tall, gaunt, black, +unsmiling sybil, weighted with the woe of the world. She ran away from +slavery and giving up her own name took the name of Sojourner Truth. She +says: "I can remember when I was a little, young girl, how my old mammy +would sit out of doors in the evenings and look up at the stars and +groan, and I would say, 'Mammy, what makes you groan so?' And she would +say, 'I am groaning to think of my poor children; they do not know where +I be and I don't know where they be. I look up at the stars and they +look up at the stars!'" + +Her determination was founded on unwavering faith in ultimate good. +Wendell Phillips says that he was once in Faneuil Hall, when Frederick +Douglass was one of the chief speakers. Douglass had been describing the +wrongs of the Negro race and as he proceeded he grew more and more +excited and finally ended by saying that they had no hope of justice +from the whites, no possible hope except in their own right arms. It +must come to blood! They must fight for themselves. Sojourner Truth was +sitting, tall and dark, on the very front seat facing the platform, and +in the hush of feeling when Douglass sat down she spoke out in her deep, +peculiar voice, heard all over the hall: + +"Frederick, is God dead?" + +Such strong, primitive types of Negro womanhood in America seem to some +to exhaust its capabilities. They know less of a not more worthy, but a +finer type of black woman wherein trembles all of that delicate sense of +beauty and striving for self-realization, which is as characteristic of +the Negro soul as is its quaint strength and sweet laughter. George +Washington wrote in grave and gentle courtesy to a Negro woman, in 1776, +that he would "be happy to see" at his headquarters at any time, a +person "to whom nature has been so liberal and beneficial in her +dispensations." This child, Phillis Wheatley, sang her trite and halting +strain to a world that wondered and could not produce her like. Measured +today her muse was slight and yet, feeling her striving spirit, we call +to her still in her own words: + + "Through thickest glooms look back, immortal shade." + +Perhaps even higher than strength and art loom human sympathy and +sacrifice as characteristic of Negro womanhood. Long years ago, before +the Declaration of Independence, Kate Ferguson was born in New York. +Freed, widowed, and bereaved of her children before she was twenty, she +took the children of the streets of New York, white and black, to her +empty arms, taught them, found them homes, and with Dr. Mason of Murray +Street Church established the first modern Sunday School in Manhattan. + +Sixty years later came Mary Shadd up out of Delaware. She was tall and +slim, of that ravishing dream-born beauty,--that twilight of the races +which we call mulatto. Well-educated, vivacious, with determination +shining from her sharp eyes, she threw herself singlehanded into the +great Canadian pilgrimage when thousands of hunted black men hurried +northward and crept beneath the protection of the lion's paw. She became +teacher, editor, and lecturer; tramping afoot through winter snows, +pushing without blot or blemish through crowd and turmoil to conventions +and meetings, and finally becoming recruiting agent for the United +States government in gathering Negro soldiers in the West. + +After the war the sacrifice of Negro women for freedom and uplift is one +of the finest chapters in their history. Let one life typify all: Louise +De Mortie, a free-born Virginia girl, had lived most of her life in +Boston. Her high forehead, swelling lips, and dark eyes marked her for a +woman of feeling and intellect. She began a successful career as a +public reader. Then came the War and the Call. She went to the orphaned +colored children of New Orleans,--out of freedom into insult and +oppression and into the teeth of the yellow fever. She toiled and +dreamed. In 1887 she had raised money and built an orphan home and that +same year, in the thirty-fourth year of her young life, she died, saying +simply: "I belong to God." + +As I look about me today in this veiled world of mine, despite the +noisier and more spectacular advance of my brothers, I instinctively +feel and know that it is the five million women of my race who really +count. Black women (and women whose grandmothers were black) are today +furnishing our teachers; they are the main pillars of those social +settlements which we call churches; and they have with small doubt +raised three-fourths of our church property. If we have today, as seems +likely, over a billion dollars of accumulated goods, who shall say how +much of it has been wrung from the hearts of servant girls and +washerwomen and women toilers in the fields? As makers of two million +homes these women are today seeking in marvelous ways to show forth our +strength and beauty and our conception of the truth. + +In the United States in 1910 there were 4,931,882 women of Negro +descent; over twelve hundred thousand of these were children, another +million were girls and young women under twenty, and two and a +half-million were adults. As a mass these women were unlettered,--a +fourth of those from fifteen to twenty-five years of age were unable to +write. These women are passing through, not only a moral, but an +economic revolution. Their grandmothers married at twelve and fifteen, +but twenty-seven per cent of these women today who have passed fifteen +are still single. + +Yet these black women toil and toil hard. There were in 1910 two and a +half million Negro homes in the United States. Out of these homes walked +daily to work two million women and girls over ten years of age,--over +half of the colored female population as against a fifth in the case of +white women. These, then, are a group of workers, fighting for their +daily bread like men; independent and approaching economic freedom! They +furnished a million farm laborers, 80,000 farmers, 22,000 teachers, +600,000 servants and washerwomen, and 50,000 in trades and +merchandizing. + +The family group, however, which is the ideal of the culture with which +these folk have been born, is not based on the idea of an economically +independent working mother. Rather its ideal harks back to the sheltered +harem with the mother emerging at first as nurse and homemaker, while +the man remains the sole breadwinner. What is the inevitable result of +the clash of such ideals and such facts in the colored group? Broken +families. + +Among native white women one in ten is separated from her husband by +death, divorce, or desertion. Among Negroes the ratio is one in seven. +Is the cause racial? No, it is economic, because there is the same high +ratio among the white foreign-born. The breaking up of the present +family is the result of modern working and sex conditions and it hits +the laborers with terrible force. The Negroes are put in a peculiarly +difficult position, because the wage of the male breadwinner is below +the standard, while the openings for colored women in certain lines of +domestic work, and now in industries, are many. Thus while toil holds +the father and brother in country and town at low wages, the sisters and +mothers are called to the city. As a result the Negro women outnumber +the men nine or ten to eight in many cities, making what Charlotte +Gilman bluntly calls "cheap women." + +What shall we say to this new economic equality in a great laboring +class? Some people within and without the race deplore it. "Back to the +homes with the women," they cry, "and higher wage for the men." But how +impossible this is has been shown by war conditions. Cessation of +foreign migration has raised Negro men's wages, to be sure--but it has +not only raised Negro women's wages, it has opened to them a score of +new avenues of earning a living. Indeed, here, in microcosm and with +differences emphasizing sex equality, is the industrial history of labor +in the 19th and 20th centuries. We cannot abolish the new economic +freedom of women. We cannot imprison women again in a home or require +them all on pain of death to be nurses and housekeepers. + +What is today the message of these black women to America and to the +world? The uplift of women is, next to the problem of the color line and +the peace movement, our greatest modern cause. When, now, two of these +movements--woman and color--combine in one, the combination has deep +meaning. + +In other years women's way was clear: to be beautiful, to be petted, to +bear children. Such has been their theoretic destiny and if perchance +they have been ugly, hurt, and barren, that has been forgotten with +studied silence. In partial compensation for this narrowed destiny the +white world has lavished its politeness on its womankind,--its chivalry +and bows, its uncoverings and courtesies--all the accumulated homage +disused for courts and kings and craving exercise. The revolt of white +women against this preordained destiny has in these latter days reached +splendid proportions, but it is the revolt of an aristocracy of brains +and ability,--the middle class and rank and file still plod on in the +appointed path, paid by the homage, the almost mocking homage, of men. + +From black women of America, however, (and from some others, too, but +chiefly from black women and their daughters' daughters) this gauze has +been withheld and without semblance of such apology they have been +frankly trodden under the feet of men. They are and have been objected +to, apparently for reasons peculiarly exasperating to reasoning human +beings. When in this world a man comes forward with a thought, a deed, a +vision, we ask not, how does he look,--but what is his message? It is of +but passing interest whether or not the messenger is beautiful or +ugly,--the _message_ is the thing. This, which is axiomatic among men, +has been in past ages but partially true if the messenger was a woman. +The world still wants to ask that a woman primarily be pretty and if she +is not, the mob pouts and asks querulously, "What else are women for?" +Beauty "is its own excuse for being," but there are other excuses, as +most men know, and when the white world objects to black women because +it does not consider them beautiful, the black world of right asks two +questions: "What is beauty?" and, "Suppose you think them ugly, what +then? If ugliness and unconventionality and eccentricity of face and +deed do not hinder men from doing the world's work and reaping the +world's reward, why should it hinder women?" + +Other things being equal, all of us, black and white, would prefer to be +beautiful in face and form and suitably clothed; but most of us are not +so, and one of the mightiest revolts of the century is against the +devilish decree that no woman is a woman who is not by present standards +a beautiful woman. This decree the black women of America have in large +measure escaped from the first. Not being expected to be merely +ornamental, they have girded themselves for work, instead of adorning +their bodies only for play. Their sturdier minds have concluded that if +a woman be clean, healthy, and educated, she is as pleasing as God wills +and far more useful than most of her sisters. If in addition to this she +is pink and white and straight-haired, and some of her fellow-men prefer +this, well and good; but if she is black or brown and crowned in curled +mists (and this to us is the most beautiful thing on earth), this is +surely the flimsiest excuse for spiritual incarceration or banishment. + +The very attempt to do this in the case of Negro Americans has strangely +over-reached itself. By so much as the defective eyesight of the white +world rejects black women as beauties, by so much the more it needs them +as human beings,--an enviable alternative, as many a white woman knows. +Consequently, for black women alone, as a group, "handsome is that +handsome does" and they are asked to be no more beautiful than God made +them, but they are asked to be efficient, to be strong, fertile, +muscled, and able to work. If they marry, they must as independent +workers be able to help support their children, for their men are paid +on a scale which makes sole support of the family often impossible. + +On the whole, colored working women are paid as well as white working +women for similar work, save in some higher grades, while colored men +get from one-fourth to three-fourths less than white men. The result is +curious and three-fold: the economic independence of black women is +increased, the breaking up of Negro families must be more frequent, and +the number of illegitimate children is decreased more slowly among them +than other evidences of culture are increased, just as was once true in +Scotland and Bavaria. + +What does this mean? It forecasts a mighty dilemma which the whole world +of civilization, despite its will, must one time frankly face: the +unhusbanded mother or the childless wife. God send us a world with +woman's freedom and married motherhood inextricably wed, but until He +sends it, I see more of future promise in the betrayed girl-mothers of +the black belt than in the childless wives of the white North, and I +have more respect for the colored servant who yields to her frank +longing for motherhood than for her white sister who offers up children +for clothes. Out of a sex freedom that today makes us shudder will come +in time a day when we will no longer pay men for work they do not do, +for the sake of their harem; we will pay women what they earn and insist +on their working and earning it; we will allow those persons to vote who +know enough to vote, whether they be black or female, white or male; and +we will ward race suicide, not by further burdening the over-burdened, +but by honoring motherhood, even when the sneaking father shirks his +duty. + + * * * * * + +"Wait till the lady passes," said a Nashville white boy. + +"She's no lady; she's a nigger," answered another. + +So some few women are born free, and some amid insult and scarlet +letters achieve freedom; but our women in black had freedom thrust +contemptuously upon them. With that freedom they are buying an +untrammeled independence and dear as is the price they pay for it, it +will in the end be worth every taunt and groan. Today the dreams of the +mothers are coming true. We have still our poverty and degradation, our +lewdness and our cruel toil; but we have, too, a vast group of women of +Negro blood who for strength of character, cleanness of soul, and +unselfish devotion of purpose, is today easily the peer of any group of +women in the civilized world. And more than that, in the great rank and +file of our five million women we have the up-working of new +revolutionary ideals, which must in time have vast influence on the +thought and action of this land. + +For this, their promise, and for their hard past, I honor the women of +my race. Their beauty,--their dark and mysterious beauty of midnight +eyes, crumpled hair, and soft, full-featured faces--is perhaps more to +me than to you, because I was born to its warm and subtle spell; but +their worth is yours as well as mine. No other women on earth could +have emerged from the hell of force and temptation which once engulfed +and still surrounds black women in America with half the modesty and +womanliness that they retain. I have always felt like bowing myself +before them in all abasement, searching to bring some tribute to these +long-suffering victims, these burdened sisters of mine, whom the world, +the wise, white world, loves to affront and ridicule and wantonly to +insult. I have known the women of many lands and nations,--I have known +and seen and lived beside them, but none have I known more sweetly +feminine, more unswervingly loyal, more desperately earnest, and more +instinctively pure in body and in soul than the daughters of my black +mothers. This, then,--a little thing--to their memory and inspiration. + + + + +_Children of the Moon_ + + + I am dead; + Yet somehow, somewhere, + In Time's weird contradiction, I + May tell of that dread deed, wherewith + I brought to Children of the Moon + Freedom and vast salvation. + + I was a woman born, + And trod the streaming street, + That ebbs and flows from Harlem's hills, + Through caves and canons limned in light, + Down to the twisting sea. + + That night of nights, + I stood alone and at the End, + Until the sudden highway to the moon, + Golden in splendor, + Became too real to doubt. + + Dimly I set foot upon the air, + I fled, I flew, through the thrills of light, + With all about, above, below, the whirring + Of almighty wings. + + I found a twilight land, + Where, hardly hid, the sun + Sent softly-saddened rays of + Red and brown to burn the iron soil + And bathe the snow-white peaks + In mighty splendor. + + Black were the men, + Hard-haired and silent-slow, + Moving as shadows, + Bending with face of fear to earthward; + And women there were none. + + "Woman, woman, woman!" + I cried in mounting terror. + "Woman and Child!" + And the cry sang back + Through heaven, with the + Whirring of almighty wings. + + Wings, wings, endless wings,-- + Heaven and earth are wings; + Wings that flutter, furl, and fold, + Always folding and unfolding, + Ever folding yet again; + Wings, veiling some vast + And veiled face, + In blazing blackness, + Behind the folding and unfolding, + The rolling and unrolling of + Almighty wings! + + I saw the black men huddle, + Fumed in fear, falling face downward; + Vainly I clutched and clawed, + Dumbly they cringed and cowered, + Moaning in mournful monotone: + + O Freedom, O Freedom, + O Freedom over me; + Before I'll be a slave, + I'll be buried in my grave, + And go home to my God, + And be free. + + It was angel-music + From the dead, + And ever, as they sang, + Some winged thing of wings, filling all heaven, + Folding and unfolding, and folding yet again, + + Tore out their blood and entrails, + 'Til I screamed in utter terror; + And a silence came-- + A silence and the wailing of a babe. + + Then, at last, I saw and shamed; + I knew how these dumb, dark, and dusky things + Had given blood and life, + To fend the caves of underground, + The great black caves of utter night, + Where earth lay full of mothers + And their babes. + + Little children sobbing in darkness, + Little children crying in silent pain, + Little mothers rocking and groping and struggling, + Digging and delving and groveling, + Amid the dying-dead and dead-in-life + And drip and dripping of warm, wet blood, + Far, far beneath the wings,-- + The folding and unfolding of almighty wings. + + I bent with tears and pitying hands, + Above these dusky star-eyed children,-- + Crinkly-haired, with sweet-sad baby voices, + Pleading low for light and love and living-- + And I crooned: + + "Little children weeping there, + God shall find your faces fair; + Guerdon for your deep distress, + He shall send His tenderness; + For the tripping of your feet + Make a mystic music sweet + In the darkness of your hair; + Light and laughter in the air-- + Little children weeping there, + God shall find your faces fair!" + + I strode above the stricken, bleeding men, + The rampart 'ranged against the skies, + And shouted: + "Up, I say, build and slay; + Fight face foremost, force a way, + Unloose, unfetter, and unbind; + Be men and free!" + + Dumbly they shrank, + Muttering they pointed toward that peak, + Than vastness vaster, + Whereon a darkness brooded, + "Who shall look and live," they sighed; + And I sensed + The folding and unfolding of almighty wings. + + Yet did we build of iron, bricks, and blood; + We built a day, a year, a thousand years, + Blood was the mortar,--blood and tears, + And, ah, the Thing, the Thing of wings, + The winged, folding Wing of Things + Did furnish much mad mortar + For that tower. + + Slow and ever slower rose the towering task, + And with it rose the sun, + Until at last on one wild day, + Wind-whirled, cloud-swept and terrible + I stood beneath the burning shadow + Of the peak, + Beneath the whirring of almighty wings, + While downward from my feet + Streamed the long line of dusky faces + And the wail of little children sobbing under earth. + + Alone, aloft, + I saw through firmaments on high + The drama of Almighty God, + With all its flaming suns and stars. + "Freedom!" I cried. + "Freedom!" cried heaven, earth, and stars; + And a Voice near-far, + Amid the folding and unfolding of almighty wings, + Answered, "I am Freedom-- + Who sees my face is free-- + He and his." + + I dared not look; + Downward I glanced on deep-bowed heads and closed eyes, + Outward I gazed on flecked and flaming blue-- + But ever onward, upward flew + The sobbing of small voices,-- + Down, down, far down into the night. + + Slowly I lifted livid limbs aloft; + Upward I strove: the face! the face! + Onward I reeled: the face! the face! + To beauty wonderful as sudden death, + Or horror horrible as endless life-- + Up! Up! the blood-built way; + (Shadow grow vaster! + Terror come faster!) + Up! Up! to the blazing blackness + Of one veiled face. + + And endless folding and unfolding, + Rolling and unrolling of almighty wings. + The last step stood! + The last dim cry of pain + Fluttered across the stars, + And then-- + Wings, wings, triumphant wings, + Lifting and lowering, waxing and waning, + Swinging and swaying, twirling and whirling, + Whispering and screaming, streaming and gleaming, + Spreading and sweeping and shading and flaming-- + Wings, wings, eternal wings, + 'Til the hot, red blood, + Flood fleeing flood, + Thundered through heaven and mine ears, + While all across a purple sky, + The last vast pinion. + Trembled to unfold. + + I rose upon the Mountain of the Moon,-- + I felt the blazing glory of the Sun; + I heard the Song of Children crying, "Free!" + I saw the face of Freedom-- + And I died. + + + + + +VIII + +THE IMMORTAL CHILD + + +If a man die shall he live again? We do not know. But this we do know, +that our children's children live forever and grow and develop toward +perfection as they are trained. All human problems, then, center in the +Immortal Child and his education is the problem of problems. And first +for illustration of what I would say may I not take for example, out of +many millions, the life of one dark child. + + * * * * * + +It is now nineteen years since I first saw Coleridge-Taylor. We were in +London in some somber hall where there were many meeting, men and women +called chiefly to the beautiful World's Fair at Paris; and then a few +slipping over to London to meet Pan-Africa. We were there from Cape +Colony and Liberia, from Haiti and the States, and from the Islands of +the Sea. I remember the stiff, young officer who came with credentials +from Menelik of Abyssinia; I remember the bitter, black American who +whispered how an army of the Soudan might some day cross the Alps; I +remember Englishmen, like the Colensos, who sat and counseled with us; +but above all, I remember Coleridge-Taylor. + +He was a little man and nervous, with dark-golden face and hair that +bushed and strayed. His fingers were always nervously seeking hidden +keys and he was quick with enthusiasm,--instinct with life. His bride of +a year or more,--dark, too, in her whiter way,--was of the calm and +quiet type. Her soft contralto voice thrilled us often as she sang, +while her silences were full of understanding. + +Several times we met in public gatherings and then they bade me to their +home,--a nest of a cottage, with gate and garden, hidden in London's +endless rings of suburbs. I dimly recall through these years a room in +cozy disorder, strewn with music--music on the floor and music on the +chairs, music in the air as the master rushed to the piano now and +again to make some memory melodious--some allusion real. + +And then at last, for it was the last, I saw Coleridge-Taylor in a +mighty throng of people crowding the Crystal Palace. We came in facing +the stage and scarcely dared look around. On the stage were a full +orchestra, a chorus of eight hundred voices, and some of the world's +famous soloists. He left his wife sitting beside me, and she was very +silent as he went forward to lift the conductor's baton. It was one of +the earliest renditions of "Hiawatha's Wedding Feast." We sat at rapt +attention and when the last, weird music died, the great chorus and +orchestra rose as a man to acclaim the master; he turned toward the +audience and then we turning for the first time saw that sea of faces +behind,--the misty thousands whose voices rose to one strong shout of +joy! It was a moment such as one does not often live. It seemed, and +was, prophetic. + +This young man who stepped forth as one of the most notable of modern +English composers had a simple and uneventful career. His father was a +black surgeon of Sierra Leone who came to London for study. While there +he met an English girl and this son was born, in London, in 1875. + +Then came a series of chances. His father failed to succeed and +disappeared back to Africa leaving the support of the child to the poor +working mother. The child showed evidences of musical talent and a +friendly workingman gave him a little violin. A musician glancing from +his window saw a little dark boy playing marbles on the street with a +tiny violin in one hand; he gave him lessons. He happened to gain +entrance into a charity school with a master of understanding mind who +recognized genius when he saw it; and finally his beautiful child's +treble brought him to the notice of the choirmaster of St. George's, +Croyden. + +So by happy accident his way was clear. Within his soul was no +hesitation. He was one of those fortunate beings who are not called to +_Wander-Jahre_, but are born with sails set and seas charted. Already +the baby of four little years was a musician, and as choir-boy and +violinist he walked unhesitatingly and surely to his life work. He was +graduated with honors from the Royal Academy of Music in 1894, and +married soon after the daughter of one of his professors. Then his life +began, and whatever it lacked of physical adventure in the conventional +round of a modern world-city, it more than gained in the almost +tempestuous outpouring of his spiritual nature. Life to him was neither +meat nor drink,--it was creative flame; ideas, plans, melodies glowed +within him. To create, to do, to accomplish; to know the white glory of +mighty midnights and the pale Amen of dawns was his day of days. Songs, +pianoforte and violin pieces, trios and quintets for strings, incidental +music, symphony, orchestral, and choral works rushed from his fingers. +Nor were they laboriously contrived or light, thin things made to meet +sudden popularity. Rather they were the flaming bits that must be said +and sung,--that could not wait the slower birth of years, so hurried to +the world as though their young creator knew that God gave him but a +day. His whole active life was scarcely more than a decade and a half, +and yet in that time, without wealth, friends, or influence, in the face +of perhaps the most critical and skeptical and least imaginative +civilization of the modern world, he wrote his name so high as a +creative artist that it cannot soon be forgotten. + +And this was but one side of the man. On the other was the +sweet-tempered, sympathetic comrade, always willing to help, never +knowing how to refuse, generous with every nerve and fiber of his being. +Think of a young musician, father of a family, who at the time of his +death held positions as Associate of the Royal College of Music, +Professor in Trinity College and Crystal Palace, Conductor of the Handel +Choral Society and the Rochester Choral Society, Principal of the +Guildhall School of Music, where he had charge of the choral choir, the +orchestra, and the opera. He was repeatedly the leader of music +festivals all over Great Britain and a judge of contests. And with all +this his house was open in cheering hospitality to friends and his hand +ever ready with sympathy and help. + +When such a man dies, it must bring pause to a reasoning world. We may +call his death-sickness pneumonia, but we all know that it was sheer +overwork,--the using of a delicately-tuned instrument too commonly and +continuously and carelessly to let it last its normal life. We may well +talk of the waste of wood and water, of food and fire, but the real and +unforgivable waste of modern civilization is the waste of ability and +genius,--the killing of useful, indispensable men who have no right to +die; who deserve, not for themselves, but for the world, leisure, +freedom from distraction, expert medical advice, and intelligent +sympathy. + +Coleridge-Taylor's life work was not finished,--it was but well begun. +He lived only his first period of creative genius, when melody and +harmony flashed and fluttered in subtle, compelling, and more than +promising profusion. He did not live to do the organized, constructive +work in the full, calm power of noonday,--the reflective finishing of +evening. In the annals of the future his name must always stand high, +but with the priceless gift of years, who can say where it might not +have stood. + +Why should he have worked so breathlessly, almost furiously? It was, we +may be sure, because with unflinching determination and with no thought +of surrender he faced the great alternative,--the choice which the +cynical, thoughtless, busy, modern world spreads grimly before its +greater souls--food or beauty, bread and butter, or ideals. And +continually we see worthier men turning to the pettier, cheaper +thing--the popular portrait, the sensational novel, the jingling song. +The choice is not always between the least and the greatest, the high +and the empty, but only too often it is between starvation and +something. When, therefore, we see a man, working desperately to earn a +living and still stooping to no paltry dickering and to no unworthy +work, handing away a "Hiawatha" for less than a song, pausing for +glimpses of the stars when a world full of charcoal glowed far more +warmly and comfortably, we know that such a man is a hero in a sense +never approached by the swashbuckling soldier or the lying patriot. + +Deep as was the primal tragedy in the life of Coleridge-Taylor, there +lay another still deeper. He smiled at it lightly, as we all do,--we who +live within the veil,--to hide the deeper hurt. He had, with us, that +divine and African gift of laughter, that echo of a thousand centuries +of suns. I mind me how once he told of the bishop, the well-groomed +English bishop, who eyed the artist gravely, with his eye-glass--hair +and color and figure,--and said quite audibly to his friends, "Quite +interesting--looks intelligent,--yes--yes!" + +Fortunate was Coleridge-Taylor to be born in Europe and to speak a +universal tongue. In America he could hardly have had his career. His +genius was, to be sure, recognized (with some palpitation and +consternation) when it came full-grown across the seas with an English +imprint; but born here, it might never have been permitted to grow. We +know in America how to discourage, choke, and murder ability when it so +far forgets itself as to choose a dark skin. England, thank God, is +slightly more civilized than her colonies; but even there the path of +this young man was no way of roses and just a shade thornier than that +of whiter men. He did not complain at it,--he did not + + "Wince and cry aloud." + +Rather the hint here and there of color discrimination in England +aroused in him deeper and more poignant sympathy with his people +throughout the world. He was one with that great company of +mixed-blooded men: Pushkin and Dumas, Hamilton and Douglass, Browning +and many others; but he more than most of these men knew the call of the +blood when it came and listened and answered. He came to America with +strange enthusiasm. He took with quite simple and unconscious grace the +conventional congratulations of the musical world. He was used to that. +But to his own people--to the sad sweetness of their voices, their +inborn sense of music, their broken, half-articulate voices,--he leapt +with new enthusiasm. From the fainter shadowings of his own life, he +sensed instinctively the vaster tragedy of theirs. His soul yearned to +give voice and being to this human thing. He early turned to the sorrow +songs. He sat at the faltering feet of Paul Laurence Dunbar and he asked +(as we sadly shook our heads) for some masterpiece of this world-tragedy +that his soul could set to music. And then, so characteristically, he +rushed back to England, composed a half-dozen exquisite harmonies +haunted by slave-songs, led the Welsh in their singing, listened to the +Scotch, ordered great music festivals in all England, wrote for Beerbohm +Tree, took on another music professorship, promised a trip to Germany, +and at last, staggering home one night, on his way to his wife and +little boy and girl, fell in his tracks and in four days was dead, at +the age of thirty-seven. They say that in his death-throe he arose and +facing some great, ghostly choir raised his last baton, while all around +the massive silence rang with the last mist-music of his dying ears. + +He was buried from St. Michael's on September 5, 1912, with the acclaim +of kings and music masters and little children and to the majestic +melody of his own music. The tributes that followed him to his grave +were unusually hearty and sincere. The head of the Royal College calls +the first production of "Hiawatha" one of the most remarkable events in +modern English musical history and the trilogy one of the most +universally-beloved works of modern English music. One critic calls +Taylor's a name "which with that of Elgar represented the nation's most +individual output" and calls his "Atonement" "perhaps the finest passion +music of modern times." Another critic speaks of his originality: +"Though surrounded by the influences that are at work in Europe today, +he retained his individuality to the end, developing his style, however, +and evincing new ideas in each succeeding work. His untimely death at +the age of thirty-seven, a short life--like those of Schubert, +Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Hugo Wolf--has robbed the world of one of its +noblest singers, one of those few men of modern times who found +expression in the language of musical song, a lyricist of power and +worth." + +But the tributes did not rest with the artist; with peculiar unanimity +they sought his "sterling character," "the good husband and father," the +"staunch and loyal friend." And perhaps I cannot better end these +hesitating words than with that tribute from one who called this master, +friend, and whose lament cried in the night with more of depth and +passion than Alfred Noyes is wont in his self-repression to voice: + + "Through him, his race, a moment, lifted up + Forests of hands to beauty, as in prayer, + Touched through his lips the sacramental cup + And then sank back, benumbed in our bleak air." + +Yet, consider: to many millions of people this man was all wrong. +_First_, he ought never to have been born, for he was the mulatto son of +a white woman. _Secondly_, he should never have been educated as a +musician,--he should have been trained, for his "place" in the world and +to make him satisfied therewith. _Thirdly_, he should not have married +the woman he loved and who loved him, for she was white and the niece of +an Oxford professor. _Fourthly_, the children of such a union--but why +proceed? You know it all by heart. + +If he had been black, like Paul Laurence Dunbar, would the argument have +been different? No. He should never have been born, for he is a +"problem." He should never be educated, for he cannot be educated. He +should never marry, for that means children and there is no place for +black children in this world. + + * * * * * + +In the treatment of the child the world foreshadows its own future and +faith. All words and all thinking lead to the child,--to that vast +immortality and the wide sweep of infinite possibility which the child +represents. Such thought as this it was that made the Master say of old +as He saw baby faces: + +"And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones, it is better for +him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into +the sea." + +And yet the mothers and fathers and the men and women of my race must +often pause and ask: Is it worth while? Ought children be born to us? +Have we any right to make human souls face what we face today? The +answer is clear: If the great battle of human right against poverty, +against disease, against color prejudice is to be won, it must be won, +not in our day, but in the day of our children's children. Ours is the +blood and dust of battle; theirs the rewards of victory. If, then, they +are not there because we have not brought them into the world, we have +been the guiltiest factor in conquering ourselves. It is our duty, then, +to accomplish the immortality of black blood, in order that the day may +come in this dark world when poverty shall be abolished, privilege be +based on individual desert, and the color of a man's skin be no bar to +the outlook of his soul. + +If it is our duty as honest colored men and women, battling for a great +principle, to bring not aimless rafts of children to the world, but as +many as, with reasonable sacrifice, we can train to largest manhood, +what in its inner essence shall that training be, particularly in its +beginning? + +The first temptation is to shield the child,--to hedge it about that it +may not know and will not dream of the color line. Then when we can no +longer wholly shield, to indulge and pamper and coddle, as though in +this dumb way to compensate. From this attitude comes the multitude of +our spoiled, wayward, disappointed children. And must we not blame +ourselves? For while the motive was pure and the outer menace undoubted, +is shielding and indulgence the way to meet it? + +Some Negro parents, realizing this, leave their children to sink or swim +in this sea of race prejudice. They neither shield nor explain, but +thrust them forth grimly into school or street and let them learn as +they may from brutal fact. Out of this may come strength, poise, +self-dependence, and out of it, too, may come bewilderment, cringing +deception, and self-distrust. It is, all said, a brutal, unfair method, +and in its way it is as bad as shielding and indulgence. Why not, +rather, face the facts and tell the truth? Your child is wiser than you +think. + +The truth lies ever between extremes. It is wrong to introduce the child +to race consciousness prematurely; it is dangerous to let that +consciousness grow spontaneously without intelligent guidance. With +every step of dawning intelligence, explanation--frank, free, guiding +explanation--must come. The day will dawn when mother must explain +gently but clearly why the little girls next door do not want to play +with "niggers"; what the real cause is of the teacher's unsympathetic +attitude; and how people may ride in the backs of street cars and the +smoker end of trains and still be people, honest high-minded souls. + +Remember, too, that in such frank explanation you are speaking in nine +cases out of ten to a good deal clearer understanding than you think and +that the child-mind has what your tired soul may have lost faith +in,--the Power and the Glory. + +Out of little, unspoiled souls rise up wonderful resources and healing +balm. Once the colored child understands the white world's attitude and +the shameful wrong of it, you have furnished it with a great life +motive,--a power and impulse toward good which is the mightiest thing +man has. How many white folk would give their own souls if they might +graft into their children's souls a great, moving, guiding ideal! + +With this Power there comes, in the transfiguring soul of childhood, the +Glory: the vision of accomplishment, the lofty ideal. Once let the +strength of the motive work, and it becomes the life task of the parent +to guide and to shape the ideal; to raise it from resentment and revenge +to dignity and self-respect, to breadth and accomplishment, to human +service; to beat back every thought of cringing and surrender. + +Here, at last, we can speak with no hesitation, with no lack of faith. +For we know that as the world grows better there will be realized in our +children's lives that for which we fight unfalteringly, but vainly now. + +So much for the problem of the home and our own dark children. Now let +us look beyond the pale upon the children of the wide world. What is the +real lesson of the life of Coleridge-Taylor? It is this: humanly +speaking it was sheer accident that this boy developed his genius. We +have a right to assume that hundreds and thousands of boys and girls +today are missing the chance of developing unusual talents because the +chances have been against them; and that indeed the majority of the +children of the world are not being systematically fitted for their life +work and for life itself. Why? + +Many seek the reason in the content of the school program. They +feverishly argue the relative values of Greek, mathematics, and manual +training, but fail with singular unanimity in pointing out the +fundamental cause of our failure in human education: That failure is due +to the fact that we aim not at the full development of the child, but +that the world regards and always has regarded education first as a +means of buttressing the established order of things rather than +improving it. And this is the real reason why strife, war, and +revolution have marked the onward march of humanity instead of reason +and sound reform. Instead of seeking to push the coming generation ahead +of our pitiful accomplishment, we insist that it march behind. We say, +morally, that high character is conformity to present public opinion; we +say industrially that the present order is best and that children must +be trained to perpetuate it. + +But, it is objected, what else can we do? Can we teach Revolution to the +inexperienced in hope that they may discern progress? No, but we may +teach frankly that this world is not perfection, but development: that +the object of education is manhood and womanhood, clear reason, +individual talent and genius and the spirit of service and sacrifice, +and not simply a frantic effort to avoid change in present institutions; +that industry is for man and not man for industry and that while we must +have workers to work, the prime object of our training is not the work +but the worker--not the maintenance of present industrial caste but the +development of human intelligence by which drudgery may be lessened and +beauty widened. + +Back of our present educational system is the philosophy that sneers at +the foolish Fathers who believed it self-evident, "that all men were +created free and equal." Surely the overwhelming evidence is today that +men are slaves and unequal. But is it not education that is the creator +of this freedom and equality? Most men today cannot conceive of a +freedom that does not involve somebody's slavery. They do not want +equality because the thrill of their happiness comes from having things +that others have not. But may not human education fix the fine ideal of +an equal maximum of freedom for every human soul combined with that +minimum of slavery for each soul which the inexorable physical facts of +the world impose--rather than complete freedom for some and complete +slavery for others; and, again, is not the equality toward which the +world moves an equality of honor in the assigned human task itself +rather than equal facility in doing different tasks? Human equality is +not lack of difference, nor do the infinite human differences argue +relative superiority and inferiority. And, again, how new an aspect +human differences may assume when all men are educated. Today we think +of apes, semi-apes, and human beings; tomorrow we may think of Keir +Hardies, Roosevelts, and Beethovens--not equals but men. Today we are +forcing men into educational slavery in order that others may enjoy +life, and excuse ourselves by saying that the world's work must be done. +We are degrading some sorts of work by honoring others, and then +expressing surprise that most people object to having their children +trained solely to take up their father's tasks. + +Given as the ideal the utmost possible freedom for every human soul, +with slavery for none, and equal honor for all necessary human tasks, +then our problem of education is greatly simplified: we aim to develop +human souls; to make all intelligent; to discover special talents and +genius. With this course of training beginning in early childhood and +never ceasing must go the technical training for the present world's +work according to carefully studied individual gifts and wishes. + +On the other hand, if we arrange our system of education to develop +workmen who will not strike and Negroes satisfied with their present +place in the world, we have set ourselves a baffling task. We find +ourselves compelled to keep the masses ignorant and to curb our own +thought and expression so as not to inflame the ignorant. We force +moderate reformers and men with new and valuable ideas to become red +radicals and revolutionists, since that happens to be the only way to +make the world listen to reason. Consider our race problem in the South: +the South has invested in Negro ignorance; some Northerners proposed +limited education, not, they explained, to better the Negro, but merely +to make the investment more profitable to the present beneficiaries. +They thus gained wide Southern support for schools like Hampton and +Tuskegee. But could this program be expected long to satisfy colored +folk? And was this shifty dodging of the real issue the wisest +statesmanship? No! The real question in the South is the question of the +permanency of present color caste. The problem, then, of the formal +training of our colored children has been strangely complicated by the +strong feeling of certain persons as to their future in America and the +world. And the reaction toward this caste education has strengthened the +idea of caste education throughout the world. + +Let us then return to fundamental ideals. Children must be trained in a +knowledge of what the world is and what it knows and how it does its +daily work. These things cannot be separated: we cannot teach pure +knowledge apart from actual facts, or separate truth from the human +mind. Above all we must not forget that the object of all education is +the child itself and not what it does or makes. + +It is here that a great movement in America has grievously sinned +against the light. There has arisen among us a movement to make the +Public School primarily the hand-maiden of production. America is +conceived of as existing for the sake of its mines, fields and +factories, and not those factories, fields and mines as existing for +America. Consequently, the public schools are for training the mass of +men as servants and laborers and mechanics to increase the land's +industrial efficiency. + +Those who oppose this program, especially if they are black, are accused +of despising common toil and humble service. In fact, we Negroes are but +facing in our own children a world problem: how can we, while +maintaining a proper output of goods and furnishing needed services, +increase the knowledge of experience of common men and conserve genius +for the common weal? Without wider, deeper intelligence among the masses +Democracy cannot accomplish its greater ends. Without a more careful +conservation of human ability and talent the world cannot secure the +services which its greater needs call for. Yet today who goes to +college, the Talented or the Rich? Who goes to high school, the Bright +or the Well-to-Do? Who does the physical work of the world, those whose +muscles need the exercise or those whose souls and minds are stupefied +with manual toil? How is the drudgery of the world distributed, by +thoughtful justice or the lash of Slavery? + +We cannot base the education of future citizens on the present +inexcusable inequality of wealth nor on physical differences of race. We +must seek not to make men carpenters but to make carpenters men. + +Colored Americans must then with deep determination educate their +children in the broadest, highest way. They must fill the colleges with +the talented and fill the fields and shops with the intelligent. Wisdom +is the principal thing. Therefore, get wisdom. + +But why am I talking simply of "colored" children? Is not the problem of +their education simply an intensification of the problem of educating +all children? Look at our plight in the United States, nearly 150 years +after the establishment of a government based on human intelligence. + +If we take the figures of the Thirteenth Census, we find that there were +five and one-half million illiterate Americans of whom 3,184,633 were +white. Remembering that illiteracy is a crude and extreme test of +ignorance, we may assume that there are in the United States ten million +people over ten years of age who are too ignorant either to perform +their civic duties or to teach industrial efficiency. Moreover, it does +not seem that this illiteracy is disappearing rapidly. + +For instance, nine percent of American children between ten and +nineteen years of age cannot read and write. Moreover, there are +millions of children who, judging by the figures for the school year +1909-10, are not going to learn to read and write, for of the Americans +six to fourteen years of age there were 3,125,392 who were not in school +a single day during that year. If we take the eleven million youths +fifteen to twenty years of age for whom vocational training is +particularly adapted, we find that nearly five per cent of these, or +448,414, are absolutely illiterate; it is not too much to assume that a +million of them have not acquired enough of the ordinary tools of +intelligence to make the most of efficient vocational training. + +Confining ourselves to the white people, over fifteen per cent of the +white children six to fourteen years of age, or 2,253,198, did not +attend school during the school year 1909-10. Of the native white +children of native parents ten to fourteen years of age nearly a tenth +were not in school during that year; 121,878 native white children of +native parents, fifteen to nineteen years of age, were illiterate. + +If we continue our attention to the colored children, the case is, of +course, much worse. + +We cannot hope to make intelligent workmen and intelligent citizens of a +group of people, over forty per cent of whose children six to fourteen +years of age were not in school a single day during 1909-10; for the +other sixty per cent the school term in the majority of cases was +probably less than five months. Of the Negro children ten to fourteen +years of age 18.9 per cent were illiterate; of those fifteen to nineteen +years of age 20.3 per cent were illiterate; of those ten to fourteen +years of age 31.4 per cent did not go to school a single day in 1909-10. + +What is the trouble? It is simple. We are spending one dollar for +education where we should spend ten dollars. If tomorrow we multiplied +our effort to educate the next generation ten-fold, we should but begin +our bounden duty. The heaven that lies about our infancy is but the +ideals come true which every generation of children is capable of +bringing; but we, selfish in our own ignorance and incapacity, are +making of education a series of miserable compromises: How ignorant can +we let a child grow to be in order to make him the best cotton mill +operative? What is the least sum that will keep the average youth out of +jail? How many months saved on a high school course will make the +largest export of wheat? + +If we realized that children are the future, that immortality is the +present child, that no education which educates can possibly be too +costly, then we know that the menace of Kaiserism which called for the +expenditure of more than 332 thousand millions of dollars was not a whit +more pressing than the menace of ignorance, and that no nation tomorrow +will call itself civilized which does not give every single human being +college and vocational training free and under the best teaching force +procurable for love or money. + +This world has never taken the education of children seriously. Misled +by selfish dreamings of personal life forever, we have neglected the +true and practical immortality through the endless life of children's +children. Seeking counsels of our own souls' perfection, we have +despised and rejected the possible increasing perfection of unending +generations. Or if we are thrown back in pessimistic despair from making +living folk decent, we leap to idle speculations of a thousand years +hereafter instead of working steadily and persistently for the next +generation. + +All our problems center in the child. All our hopes, our dreams are for +our children. Has our own life failed? Let its lesson save the +children's lives from similar failure. Is democracy a failure? Train up +citizens that will make it succeed. Is wealth too crude, too foolish in +form, and too easily stolen? Train up workers with honor and consciences +and brains. Have we degraded service with menials? Abolish the mean +spirit and implant sacrifice. Do we despise women? Train them as workers +and thinkers and not as playthings, lest future generations ape our +worst mistake. Do we despise darker races? Teach the children its fatal +cost in spiritual degradation and murder, teach them that to hate +"niggers" or "chinks" is to crucify souls like their own. Is there +anything we would accomplish with human beings? Do it with the immortal +child, with a stretch of endless time for doing it and with infinite +possibilities to work on. + +Is this our attitude toward education? It is not--neither in England nor +America--in France nor Germany--with black nor white nor yellow folk. +Education to the modern world is a burden which we are driven to carry. +We shirk and complain. We do just as little as possible and only threat +or catastrophe induces us to do more than a minimum. If the ignorant +mass, panting to know, revolts, we dole them gingerly enough knowledge +to pacify them temporarily. If, as in the Great War, we discover +soldiers too ignorant to use our machines of murder and destruction, we +train them--to use machines of murder and destruction. If mounting +wealth calls for intelligent workmen, we rush tumultuously to train +workers--in order to increase our wealth. But of great, broad plans to +train all men for all things--to make a universe intelligent, busy, +good, creative and beautiful--where in this wide world is such an +educational program? To announce it is to invite gasps or Brobdingnagian +laughter. It cannot be done. It will cost too much. + +What has been done with man can be done with men, if the world tries +long enough and hard enough. And as to the cost--all the wealth of the +world, save that necessary for sheer decent existence and for the +maintenance of past civilization, is, and of right ought to be, the +property of the children for their education. + +I mean it. In one year, 1917, we spent $96,700,000,000 for war. We blew +it away to murder, maim, and destroy! Why? Because the blind, brutal +crime of powerful and selfish interests made this path through hell the +only visible way to heaven. We did it. We had to do it, and we are glad +the putrid horror is over. But, now, are we prepared to spend less to +make a world in which the resurgence of such devilish power will be +impossible? + +Do we really want war to cease? + +Then educate the children of this generation at a cost no whit less and +if necessary a hundred times as great as the cost of the Great War. + +Last year, 1917, education cost us $915,000,000. + +Next year it ought to cost us at least two thousand million dollars. We +should spend enough money to hire the best teaching force possible--the +best organizing and directing ability in the land, even if we have to +strip the railroads and meat trust. We should dot city and country with +the most efficient, sanitary, and beautiful school-houses the world +knows and we should give every American child common school, high +school, and college training and then vocational guidance in earning a +living. + +Is this a dream? + +Can we afford less? + +Consider our so-called educational "problems"; "How may we keep pupils +in the high school?" Feed and clothe them. "Shall we teach Latin, Greek, +and mathematics to the 'masses'?" If they are worth teaching to anybody, +the masses need them most. "Who shall go to college?" Everybody. "When +shall culture training give place to technical education for work?" +Never. + +These questions are not "problems." They are simply "excuses" for +spending less time and money on the next generation. Given ten millions +of dollars a year, what can we best do with the education of a million +children? The real answer is--kill nine hundred and ninety thousand of +them quickly and not gradually, and make thoroughly-trained men and +women of the other ten thousand. But who set the limit of ten million +dollars? Who says it shall not be ten thousand millions, as it ought to +be? You and I say it, and in saying it we sin against the Holy Ghost. + +We sin because in our befuddled brains we have linked money and +education inextricably. We assume that only the wealthy have a real +right to education when, in fact, being born is being given a right to +college training. Our wealth today is, we all know, distributed mainly +by chance inheritance and personal favor and yet we attempt to base the +right to education on this foundation. The result is grotesque! We bury +genius; we send it to jail; we ridicule and mock it, while we send +mediocrity and idiocy to college, gilded and crowned. For three hundred +years we have denied black Americans an education and now we exploit +them before a gaping world: See how ignorant and degraded they are! All +they are fit for is education for cotton-picking and dish-washing. When +Dunbar and Taylor happen along, we are torn between something like +shamefaced anger or impatient amazement. + +A world guilty of this last and mightiest war has no right to enjoy or +create until it has made the future safe from another Arkansas or +Rheims. To this there is but one patent way, proved and inescapable, +Education, and that not for me or for you but for the Immortal Child. +And that child is of all races and all colors. All children are the +children of all and not of individuals and families and races. The whole +generation must be trained and guided and out of it as out of a huge +reservoir must be lifted all genius, talent, and intelligence to serve +all the world. + + + + +Almighty Death[1] + + + Softly, quite softly-- + For I hear, above the murmur of the sea, + Faint and far-fallen footsteps, as of One + Who comes from out beyond the endless ends of Time, + With voice that downward looms thro' singing stars; + Its subtle sound I see thro' these long-darkened eyes, + I hear the Light He bringeth on His hands-- + Almighty Death! + Softly, oh, softly, lest He pass me by, + And that unquivering Light toward which my longing soul + And tortured body through these years have writhed, + Fade to the dun darkness of my days. + + Softly, full softly, let me rise and greet + The strong, low luting of that long-awaited call; + Swiftly be all my good and going gone, + And this vast veiled and vanquished vigor of my soul + Seek somehow otherwhere its rest and goal, + Where endless spaces stretch, + Where endless time doth moan, + Where endless light doth pour + Thro' the black kingdoms of eternal death. + + Then haply I may see what things I have not seen, + Then I may know what things I have not known; + Then may I do my dreams. + + Farewell! No sound of idle mourning let there be + To shudder this full silence--save the voice + Of children--little children, white and black, + Whispering the deeds I tried to do for them; + While I at last unguided and alone + Pass softly, full softly. + +[Footnote 1: For Joseph Pulitzer, October 29, 1911.] + + + + + +IX + +OF BEAUTY AND DEATH + + +For long years we of the world gone wild have looked into the face of +death and smiled. Through all our bitter tears we knew how beautiful it +was to die for that which our souls called sufficient. Like all true +beauty this thing of dying was so simple, so matter-of-fact. The boy +clothed in his splendid youth stood before us and laughed in his own +jolly way,--went and was gone. Suddenly the world was full of the +fragrance of sacrifice. We left our digging and burden-bearing; we +turned from our scraping and twisting of things and words; we paused +from our hurrying hither and thither and walking up and down, and asked +in half-whisper: this Death--is this Life? And is its beauty real or +false? And of this heart-questioning I am writing. + + * * * * * + +My friend, who is pale and positive, said to me yesterday, as the tired +sun was nodding: + +"You are too sensitive." + +I admit, I am--sensitive. I am artificial. I cringe or am bumptious or +immobile. I am intellectually dishonest, art-blind, and I lack humor. + +"Why don't you stop all this?" she retorts triumphantly. + +You will not let us. + +"There you go, again. You know that I--" + +Wait! I answer. Wait! + +I arise at seven. The milkman has neglected me. He pays little attention +to colored districts. My white neighbor glares elaborately. I walk +softly, lest I disturb him. The children jeer as I pass to work. The +women in the street car withdraw their skirts or prefer to stand. The +policeman is truculent. The elevator man hates to serve Negroes. My job +is insecure because the white union wants it and does not want me. I try +to lunch, but no place near will serve me. I go forty blocks to +Marshall's, but the Committee of Fourteen closes Marshall's; they say +white women frequent it. + +"Do all eating places discriminate?" + +No, but how shall I know which do not--except-- + +I hurry home through crowds. They mutter or get angry. I go to a +mass-meeting. They stare. I go to a church. "We don't admit niggers!" + +Or perhaps I leave the beaten track. I seek new work. "Our employees +would not work with you; our customers would object." + +I ask to help in social uplift. + +"Why--er--we will write you." + +I enter the free field of science. Every laboratory door is closed and +no endowments are available. + +I seek the universal mistress, Art; the studio door is locked. + +I write literature. "We cannot publish stories of colored folks of that +type." It's the only type I know. + +This is my life. It makes me idiotic. It gives me artificial problems. I +hesitate, I rush, I waver. In fine,--I am sensitive! + +My pale friend looks at me with disbelief and curling tongue. + +"Do you mean to sit there and tell me that this is what happens to you +each day?" + +Certainly not, I answer low. + +"Then you only fear it will happen?" + +I fear! + +"Well, haven't you the courage to rise above a--almost a craven fear?" + +Quite--quite craven is my fear, I admit; but the terrible thing +is--these things do happen! + +"But you just said--" + +They do happen. Not all each day,--surely not. But now and then--now +seldom, now, sudden; now after a week, now in a chain of awful minutes; +not everywhere, but anywhere--in Boston, in Atlanta. That's the hell of +it. Imagine spending your life looking for insults or for hiding places +from them--shrinking (instinctively and despite desperate bolsterings of +courage) from blows that are not always but ever; not each day, but each +week, each month, each year. Just, perhaps, as you have choked back the +craven fear and cried, "I am and will be the master of my--" + +"No more tickets downstairs; here's one to the smoking gallery." + +You hesitate. You beat back your suspicions. After all, a cigarette with +Charlie Chaplin--then a white man pushes by-- + +"Three in the orchestra." + +"Yes, sir." And in he goes. + +Suddenly your heart chills. You turn yourself away toward the golden +twinkle of the purple night and hesitate again. What's the use? Why not +always yield--always take what's offered,--always bow to force, whether +of cannon or dislike? Then the great fear surges in your soul, the real +fear--the fear beside which other fears are vain imaginings; the fear +lest right there and then you are losing your own soul; that you are +losing your own soul and the soul of a people; that millions of unborn +children, black and gold and mauve, are being there and then despoiled +by you because you are a coward and dare not fight! + +Suddenly that silly orchestra seat and the cavorting of a comedian with +funny feet become matters of life, death, and immortality; you grasp the +pillars of the universe and strain as you sway back to that befrilled +ticket girl. You grip your soul for riot and murder. You choke and +sputter, and she seeing that you are about to make a "fuss" obeys her +orders and throws the tickets at you in contempt. Then you slink to your +seat and crouch in the darkness before the film, with every tissue +burning! The miserable wave of reaction engulfs you. To think of +compelling puppies to take your hard-earned money; fattening hogs to +hate you and yours; forcing your way among cheap and tawdry idiots--God! +What a night of pleasure! + + * * * * * + +Here, then, is beauty and ugliness, a wide vision of world-sacrifice, a +fierce gleam of world-hate. Which is life and what is death and how +shall we face so tantalizing a contradiction? Any explanation must +necessarily be subtle and involved. No pert and easy word of +encouragement, no merely dark despair, can lay hold of the roots of +these things. And first and before all, we cannot forget that this world +is beautiful. Grant all its ugliness and sin--the petty, horrible snarl +of its putrid threads, which few have seen more near or more often than +I--notwithstanding all this, the beauty of this world is not to be +denied. + +Casting my eyes about I dare not let them rest on the beauty of Love and +Friend, for even if my tongue were cunning enough to sing this, the +revelation of reality here is too sacred and the fancy too untrue. Of +one world-beauty alone may we at once be brutally frank and that is the +glory of physical nature; this, though the last of beauties, is divine! + +And so, too, there are depths of human degradation which it is not fair +for us to probe. With all their horrible prevalence, we cannot call them +natural. But may we not compare the least of the world's beauty with the +least of its ugliness--not murder, starvation, and rapine, with love and +friendship and creation--but the glory of sea and sky and city, with the +little hatefulnesses and thoughtfulnesses of race prejudice, that out +of such juxtaposition we may, perhaps, deduce some rule of beauty and +life--or death? + + * * * * * + +There mountains hurl themselves against the stars and at their feet lie +black and leaden seas. Above float clouds--white, gray, and inken, while +the clear, impalpable air springs and sparkles like new wine. Last night +we floated on the calm bosom of the sea in the southernmost haven of +Mount Desert. The water flamed and sparkled. The sun had gone, but above +the crooked back of cumulus clouds, dark and pink with radiance, and on +the other sky aloft to the eastward piled the gorgeous-curtained mists +of evening. The radiance faded and a shadowy velvet veiled the +mountains, a humid depth of gloom behind which lurked all the mysteries +of life and death, while above, the clouds hung ashen and dull; lights +twinkled and flashed along the shore, boats glided in the twilight, and +the little puffing of motors droned away. Then was the hour to talk of +life and the meaning of life, while above gleamed silently, suddenly, +star on star. + +Bar Harbor lies beneath a mighty mountain, a great, bare, black mountain +that sleeps above the town; but as you leave, it rises suddenly, +threateningly, until far away on Frenchman's Bay it looms above the town +in withering vastness, as if to call all that little world petty save +itself. Beneath the cool, wide stare of that great mountain, men cannot +live as giddily as in some lesser summer's playground. Before the +unveiled face of nature, as it lies naked on the Maine coast, rises a +certain human awe. + +God molded his world largely and mightily off this marvelous coast and +meant that in the tired days of life men should come and worship here +and renew their spirit. This I have done and turning I go to work again. +As we go, ever the mountains of Mount Desert rise and greet us on our +going--somber, rock-ribbed and silent, looking unmoved on the moving +world, yet conscious of their everlasting strength. + +About us beats the sea--the sail-flecked, restless sea, humming its tune +about our flying keel, unmindful of the voices of men. The land sinks to +meadows, black pine forests, with here and there a blue and wistful +mountain. Then there are islands--bold rocks above the sea, curled +meadows; through and about them roll ships, weather-beaten and patched +of sail, strong-hulled and smoking, light gray and shining. All the +colors of the sea lie about us--gray and yellowing greens and doubtful +blues, blacks not quite black, tinted silvers and golds and dreaming +whites. Long tongues of dark and golden land lick far out into the +tossing waters, and the white gulls sail and scream above them. It is a +mighty coast--ground out and pounded, scarred, crushed, and carven in +massive, frightful lineaments. Everywhere stand the pines--the little +dark and steadfast pines that smile not, neither weep, but wait and +wait. Near us lie isles of flesh and blood, white cottages, tiled and +meadowed. Afar lie shadow-lands, high mist-hidden hills, mountains +boldly limned, yet shading to the sky, faint and unreal. + +We skirt the pine-clad shores, chary of men, and know how bitterly +winter kisses these lonely shores to fill yon row of beaked ice houses +that creep up the hills. We are sailing due westward and the sun, yet +two hours high, is blazoning a fiery glory on the sea that spreads and +gleams like some broad, jeweled trail, to where the blue and distant +shadow-land lifts its carven front aloft, leaving, as it gropes, shades +of shadows beyond. + + * * * * * + +Why do not those who are scarred in the world's battle and hurt by its +hardness travel to these places of beauty and drown themselves in the +utter joy of life? I asked this once sitting in a Southern home. Outside +the spring of a Georgia February was luring gold to the bushes and +languor to the soft air. Around me sat color in human flesh--brown that +crimsoned readily; dim soft-yellow that escaped description; cream-like +duskiness that shadowed to rich tints of autumn leaves. And yet a +suggested journey in the world brought no response. + +"I should think you would like to travel," said the white one. + +But no, the thought of a journey seemed to depress them. + +Did you ever see a "Jim-Crow" waiting-room? There are always exceptions, +as at Greensboro--but usually there is no heat in winter and no air in +summer; with undisturbed loafers and train hands and broken, +disreputable settees; to buy a ticket is torture; you stand and stand +and wait and wait until every white person at the "other window" is +waited on. Then the tired agent yells across, because all the tickets +and money are over there-- + +"What d'ye want? What? Where?" + +The agent browbeats and contradicts you, hurries and confuses the +ignorant, gives many persons the wrong change, compels some to purchase +their tickets on the train at a higher price, and sends you and me out +on the platform, burning with indignation and hatred! + +The "Jim-Crow" car is up next the baggage car and engine. It stops out +beyond the covering in the rain or sun or dust. Usually there is no step +to help you climb on and often the car is a smoker cut in two and you +must pass through the white smokers or else they pass through your part, +with swagger and noise and stares. Your compartment is a half or a +quarter or an eighth of the oldest car in service on the road. Unless it +happens to be a thorough express, the plush is caked with dirt, the +floor is grimy, and the windows dirty. An impertinent white newsboy +occupies two seats at the end of the car and importunes you to the point +of rage to buy cheap candy, Coco-Cola, and worthless, if not vulgar, +books. He yells and swaggers, while a continued stream of white men +saunters back and forth from the smoker to buy and hear. The white train +crew from the baggage car uses the "Jim-Crow" to lounge in and perform +their toilet. The conductor appropriates two seats for himself and his +papers and yells gruffly for your tickets before the train has scarcely +started. It is best not to ask him for information even in the gentlest +tones. His information is for white persons chiefly. It is difficult to +get lunch or clean water. Lunch rooms either don't serve niggers or +serve them at some dirty and ill-attended hole in the wall. As for +toilet rooms,--don't! If you have to change cars, be wary of junctions +which are usually without accommodation and filled with quarrelsome +white persons who hate a "darky dressed up." You are apt to have the +company of a sheriff and a couple of meek or sullen black prisoners on +part of your way and dirty colored section hands will pour in toward +night and drive you to the smallest corner. + +"No," said the little lady in the corner (she looked like an ivory cameo +and her dress flowed on her like a caress), "we don't travel much." + + * * * * * + +Pessimism is cowardice. The man who cannot frankly acknowledge the +"Jim-Crow" car as a fact and yet live and hope is simply afraid either +of himself or of the world. There is not in the world a more disgraceful +denial of human brotherhood than the "Jim-Crow" car of the southern +United States; but, too, just as true, there is nothing more beautiful +in the universe than sunset and moonlight on Montego Bay in far Jamaica. +And both things are true and both belong to this our world, and neither +can be denied. + + * * * * * + +The sun, prepared to cross that awful border which men call Night and +Death, marshals his hosts. I seem to see the spears of mighty horsemen +flash golden in the light; empurpled banners flame afar, and the low +thunder of marching hosts thrills with the thunder of the sea. Athwart +his own path, screening a face of fire, he throws cloud masses, masking +his trained guns. And then the miracle is done. The host passes with +roar too vast for human ear and the sun is set, leaving the frightened +moon and blinded stars. + +In the dusk the green-gold palms turn their star-like faces and stretch +their fan-like fingers, lifting themselves proudly, lest any lordly leaf +should know the taint of earth. + +Out from the isle the serpent hill thrusts its great length around the +bay, shouldering back the waters and the shadows. Ghost rains sweep +down, smearing his rugged sides, yet on he writhes, undulant with pine +and palm, gleaming until his low, sharp head and lambent tongue, grown +gray and pale and silver in the dying day, kisses the molten gold of the +golden sea. + +Then comes the moon. Like fireflies nesting in the hand of God gleams +the city, dim-swathed by fairy palms. A long, thin thumb, mist-mighty, +points shadowy to the Spanish Main, while through the fingers foam the +Seven Seas. Above the calm and gold-green moon, beneath the wind-wet +earth; and here, alone, my soul enchained, enchanted! + + * * * * * + +From such heights of holiness men turn to master the world. All the +pettiness of life drops away and it becomes a great battle before the +Lord. His trumpet,--where does it sound and whither? I go. I saw Montego +Bay at the beginning of the World War. The cry for service as high as +heaven, as wide as human feeling, seemed filling the earth. What were +petty slights, silly insults, paltry problems, beside this call to do +and dare and die? We black folk offered our services to fight. What +happened? Most Americans have forgotten the extraordinary series of +events which worked the feelings of black America to fever heat. + +First was the refusal to accept Negro volunteers for the army, except in +the four black regiments already established. While the nation was +combing the country for volunteers for the regular army, it would not +let the American Negro furnish even his proportionate quota of regular +soldiers. This led to some grim bantering among Negroes: + +"Why do you want to volunteer?" asked many. "Why should you fight for +this country?" + +Before we had chance to reply to this, there came the army draft bill +and the proposal by Vardaman and his ilk to except Negroes. We protested +to Washington in various ways, and while we were insisting that colored +men should be drafted just as other citizens, the bill went through with +two little "jokers." + +First, it provided that Negroes should be drafted, but trained in +"separate" units; and, secondly, it somewhat ambiguously permitted men +to be drafted for "labor." + +A wave of fear and unrest spread among Negroes and while we were looking +at both these provisions askance, suddenly we received the draft +registration blank. It directed persons "of African descent" to "tear +off the corner!" Probably never before in the history of the United +States has a portion of the citizens been so openly and crassly +discriminated against by action of the general government. It was +disheartening, and on top of it came the celebrated "German plots." It +was alleged in various parts of the country with singular unanimity that +Germans were working among the Negroes, and it was further intimated +that this would make the Negroes too dangerous an element to trust with +guns. To us, of course, it looked as though the discovery and the +proposition came from the same thinly-veiled sources. + +Considering carefully this series of happenings the American Negro +sensed an approaching crisis and faced a puzzling dilemma. Here was +evidently preparing fertile ground for the spread of disloyalty and +resentment among the black masses, as they were forced to choose +apparently between forced labor or a "Jim-Crow" draft. Manifestly when a +minority group is thus segregated and forced out of the nation, they can +in reason do but one thing--take advantage of the disadvantage. In this +case we demanded colored officers for the colored troops. + +General Wood was early approached and asked to admit suitable candidates +to Plattsburg. He refused. We thereupon pressed the government for a +"separate" camp for the training of Negro officers. Not only did the War +Department hesitate at this request, but strong opposition arose among +colored people themselves. They said we were going too far. "We will +obey the law, but to ask for voluntary segregation is to insult +ourselves." But strong, sober second thought came to our rescue. We said +to our protesting brothers: "We face a condition, not a theory. There is +not the slightest chance of our being admitted to white camps; +therefore, it is either a case of a 'Jim-Crow' officers' training camp +or no colored officers. Of the two things no colored officers would be +the greater calamity." + +Thus we gradually made up our minds. But the War Department still +hesitated. It was besieged, and when it presented its final argument, +"We have no place for such a camp," the trustees of Howard University +said: "Take our campus." Eventually twelve hundred colored cadets were +assembled at Fort Des Moines for officers' training. + +The city of Des Moines promptly protested, but it finally changed its +mind. Des Moines never before had seen such a class of colored men. They +rapidly became popular with all classes and many encomiums were passed +upon their conduct. Their commanding colonel pronounced their work first +class and declared that they presented excellent material for officers. + +Meantime, with one accord, the thought of the colored people turned +toward Colonel Young, their highest officer in the regular army. Charles +Young is a heroic figure. He is the typical soldier,--silent, +uncomplaining, brave, and efficient! From his days at West Point +throughout his thirty years of service he has taken whatever task was +assigned him and performed it efficiently; and there is no doubt but +that the army has been almost merciless in the requirements which it has +put upon this splendid officer. He came through all with flying colors. +In Haiti, in Liberia, in western camps, in the Sequoia Forests of +California, and finally with Pershing in Mexico,--in every case he +triumphed. Just at the time we were looking to the United States +government to call him to head the colored officers' training at Des +Moines, he was retired from the army, because of "high blood pressure!" +There is no disputing army surgeons and their judgment in this case may +be justified, but coming at the time it did, nearly every Negro in the +United States believed that the "high blood pressure" that retired +Colonel Young was in the prejudiced heads of the Southern oligarchy who +were determined that no American Negro should ever wear the stars of a +General. + +To say that Negroes of the United States were disheartened at the +retirement of Colonel Young is to put it mildly,--but there was more +trouble. The provision that Negroes must be trained separately looked +simple and was simple in places where there were large Negro +contingents, but in the North with solitary Negroes drafted here and +there we had some extraordinary developments. Regiments appeared with +one Negro where the Negro had to be separated like a pest and put into a +house or even a village by himself while the commander frantically +telegraphed to Washington. Small wonder that one poor fellow in Ohio +solved the problem by cutting his throat. The whole process of drafting +Negroes had to be held up until the government could find methods and +places for assembling them. + +Then came Houston. In a moment the nation forgot the whole record of one +of the most celebrated regiments in the United States Army and its +splendid service in the Indian Wars and in the Philippines. It was the +first regiment mobilized in the Spanish-American War and it was the +regiment that volunteered to a man to clean up the yellow fever camps +when others hesitated. It was one of the regiments to which Pershing +said in December: + +"Men, I am authorized by Congress to tell you all that our people back +in the States are mightily glad and proud at the way the soldiers have +conducted themselves while in Mexico, and I, General Pershing, can say +with pride that a finer body of men never stood under the flag of our +nation than we find here tonight." + +The nation, also, forgot the deep resentment mixed with the pale ghost +of fear which Negro soldiers call up in the breasts of the white South. +It is not so much that they fear that the Negro will strike if he gets a +chance, but rather that they assume with curious unanimity that he has +_reason_ to strike, that any other persons in his circumstances or +treated as he is would rebel. Instead of seeking to relieve the cause of +such a possible feeling, most of them strain every effort to bottle up +the black man's resentment. Is it inconceivable that now and then it +bursts all bounds, as at Brownsville and Houston? + +So in the midst of this mental turmoil came Houston and East St. Louis. +At Houston black soldiers, goaded and insulted, suddenly went wild and +"shot up" the town. At East St. Louis white strikers on war work killed +and mobbed Negro workingmen, and as a result 19 colored soldiers were +hanged and 51 imprisoned for life for killing 17 whites at Houston, +while for killing 125 Negroes in East St. Louis, 20 white men were +imprisoned, none for more than 15 years, and 10 colored men with them. + + * * * * * + +Once upon a time I took a great journey in this land to three of the +ends of our world and over seven thousand mighty miles. I saw the grim +desert and the high ramparts of the Rocky Mountains. Three days I flew +from the silver beauty of Seattle to the somber whirl of Kansas City. +Three days I flew from the brute might of Chicago to the air of the +Angels in California, scented with golden flowers, where the homes of +men crouch low and loving on the good, broad earth, as though they were +kissing her blossoms. Three days I flew through the empire of Texas, but +all these shall be tales untold, for in all this journey I saw but one +thing that lived and will live eternal in my soul,--the Grand Canon. + +It is a sudden void in the bosom of the earth, down to its entrails--a +wound where the dull titanic knife has turned and twisted in the hole, +leaving its edges livid, scarred, jagged, and pulsing over the white, +and red, and purple of its mighty flesh, while down below--down, down +below, in black and severed vein, boils the dull and sullen flood of the +Colorado. + +It is awful. There can be nothing like it. It is the earth and sky gone +stark and raving mad. The mountains up-twirled, disbodied and inverted, +stand on their peaks and throw their bowels to the sky. Their earth is +air; their ether blood-red rock engreened. You stand upon their roots +and fall into their pinnacles, a mighty mile. + +Behold this mauve and purple mocking of time and space! See yonder peak! +No human foot has trod it. Into that blue shadow only the eye of God has +looked. Listen to the accents of that gorge which mutters: "Before +Abraham was, I am." Is yonder wall a hedge of black or is it the rampart +between heaven and hell? I see greens,--is it moss or giant pines? I see +specks that may be boulders. Ever the winds sigh and drop into those +sun-swept silences. Ever the gorge lies motionless, unmoved, until I +fear. It is a grim thing, unholy, terrible! It is human--some mighty +drama unseen, unheard, is playing there its tragedies or mocking comedy, +and the laugh of endless years is shrieking onward from peak to peak, +unheard, unechoed, and unknown. + +One throws a rock into the abyss. It gives back no sound. It falls on +silence--the voice of its thunders cannot reach so far. It is not--it +cannot be a mere, inert, unfeeling, brute fact--its grandeur is too +serene--its beauty too divine! It is not red, and blue, and green, but, +ah! the shadows and the shades of all the world, glad colorings touched +with a hesitant spiritual delicacy. What does it mean--what does it +mean? Tell me, black and boiling water! + +It is not real. It is but shadows. The shading of eternity. Last night +yonder tesselated palace was gloom--dark, brooding thought and sin, +while hither rose the mountains of the sun, golden, blazing, +ensanguined. It was a dream. This blue and brilliant morning shows all +those burning peaks alight, while here, shapeless, mistful, brood the +shadowed towers. + +I have been down into the entrails of earth--down, down by straight and +staring cliffs--down by sounding waters and sun-strewn meadows; down by +green pastures and still waters, by great, steep chasms--down by the +gnarled and twisted fists of God to the deep, sad moan of the yellow +river that did this thing of wonder,--a little winding river with death +in its depth and a crown of glory in its flying hair. + +I have seen what eye of man was never meant to see. I have profaned the +sanctuary. I have looked upon the dread disrobing of the Night, and yet +I live. Ere I hid my head she was standing in her cavern halls, glowing +coldly westward--her feet were blackness: her robes, empurpled, flowed +mistily from shoulder down in formless folds of folds; her head, +pine-crowned, was set with jeweled stars. I turned away and dreamed--the +canon,--the awful, its depths called; its heights shuddered. Then +suddenly I arose and looked. Her robes were falling. At dim-dawn they +hung purplish-green and black. Slowly she stripped them from her gaunt +and shapely limbs--her cold, gray garments shot with shadows stood +revealed. Down dropped the black-blue robes, gray-pearled and slipped, +leaving a filmy, silken, misty thing, and underneath I glimpsed her +limbs of utter light. + + * * * * * + +My God! For what am I thankful this night? For nothing. For nothing but +the most commonplace of commonplaces; a table of gentlewomen and +gentlemen--soft-spoken, sweet-tempered, full of human sympathy, who made +me, a stranger, one of them. Ours was a fellowship of common books, +common knowledge, mighty aims. We could laugh and joke and think as +friends--and the Thing--the hateful, murderous, dirty Thing which in +American we call "Nigger-hatred" was not only not there--it could not +even be understood. It was a curious monstrosity at which civilized folk +laughed or looked puzzled. There was no elegant and elaborate +condescension of--"We once had a colored servant"--"My father was an +Abolitionist"--"I've always been interested in _your people_"--there was +only the community of kindred souls, the delicate reverence for the +Thought that led, the quick deference to the guest. You left in quiet +regret, knowing that they were not discussing you behind your back with +lies and license. God! It was simply human decency and I had to be +thankful for it because I am an American Negro, and white America, with +saving exceptions, is cruel to everything that has black blood--and +this was Paris, in the years of salvation, 1919. Fellow blacks, we must +join the democracy of Europe. + + * * * * * + +Toul! Dim through the deepening dark of early afternoon, I saw its +towers gloom dusky toward the murk of heaven. We wound in misty roads +and dropped upon the city through the great throats of its walled +bastions. There lay France--a strange, unknown, unfamiliar France. The +city was dispossessed. Through its streets--its narrow, winding streets, +old and low and dark, carven and quaint,--poured thousands upon +thousands of strange feet of khaki-clad foreigners, and the echoes threw +back awkward syllables that were never French. Here was France beaten to +her knees yet fighting as never nation fought before, calling in her +death agony across the seas till her help came and with all its strut +and careless braggadocio saved the worthiest nation of the world from +the wickedest fate ever plotted by Fools. + + * * * * * + +Tim Brimm was playing by the town-pump. Tim Brimm and the bugles of +Harlem blared in the little streets of Maron in far Lorraine. The tiny +streets were seas of mud. Dank mist and rain sifted through the cold air +above the blue Moselle. Soldiers--soldiers everywhere--black soldiers, +boys of Washington, Alabama, Philadelphia, Mississippi. Wild and sweet +and wooing leapt the strains upon the air. French children gazed in +wonder--women left their washing. Up in the window stood a black Major, +a Captain, a Teacher, and I--with tears behind our smiling eyes. Tim +Brimm was playing by the town-pump. + +The audience was framed in smoke. It rose ghost-like out of +memories--bitter memories of the officer near dead of pneumonia whose +pain was lighted up by the nurses waiting to know whether he must be +"Jim-Crowed" with privates or not. Memories of that great last morning +when the thunders of hell called the Ninety-second to its last drive. +Memories of bitter humiliations, determined triumphs, great victories, +and bugle-calls that sounded from earth to heaven. Like memories framed +in the breath of God, my audience peered in upon me--good, brown faces +with great, kind, beautiful eyes--black soldiers of America rescuing +beloved France--and the words came in praise and benediction there in +the "Y," with its little stock of cigarettes and candies and its rusty +wood stove. + +"_Alors_," said Madame, "_quatre sont morts_"--four dead--four tall, +strong sons dead for France--sons like the sweet and blue-eyed daughter +who was hiding her brave smile in the dusk. It was a tiny stone house +whose front window lipped the passing sidewalk where ever tramped the +feet of black soldiers marching home. There was a cavernous wardrobe, a +great fireplace invaded by a new and jaunty iron stove. Vast, thick +piles of bedding rose in yonder corner. Without was the crowded kitchen +and up a half-stair was our bedroom that gave upon a tiny court with +arched stone staircase and one green tree. We were a touching family +party held together by a great sorrow and a great joy. How we laughed +over the salad that got brandy instead of vinegar--how we ate the golden +pile of fried potatoes and how we pored over the post-card from the +Lieutenant of the Senegalese--dear little vale of crushed and risen +France, in the day when Negroes went "over the top" at Pont-a-Mousson. + + * * * * * + +Paris, Paris by purple facade of the opera, the crowd on the Boulevard +des Italiens and the great swing of the Champs Elysees. But not the +Paris the world knows. Paris with its soul cut to the core--feverish, +crowded, nervous, hurried; full of uniforms and mourning bands, with +cafes closed at 9:30--no sugar, scarce bread, and tears so interwined +with joy that there is scant difference. Paris has been dreaming a +nightmare, and though she awakes, the grim terror is upon her--it lies +on the sand-closed art treasures of the Louvre. Only the flowers are +there, always the flowers, the Roses of England and the Lilies of +France. + + * * * * * + +New York! Behind the Liberty that faces free France rise the white +cliffs of Manhattan, tier on tier, with a curving pinnacle, towers +square and twin, a giant inkwell daintily stoppered, an ancient pyramid +enthroned; beneath, low ramparts wide and mighty; while above, +faint-limned against the turbulent sky, looms the vast grace of that +Cathedral of the Purchased and Purchasing Poor, topping the world and +pointing higher. + +Yonder the gray cobwebs of the Brooklyn bridges leap the sea, and here +creep the argosies from all earth's ends. We move to this swift home on +dun and swelling waters and hear as we come the heartbeats of the new +world. + + * * * * * + +New York and night from the Brooklyn Bridge: The bees and fireflies flit +and twinkle in their vast hives; curved clouds like the breath of gods +hover between the towers and the moon. One hears the hiss of lightnings, +the deep thunder of human things, and a fevered breathing as of some +attendant and invincible Powers. The glow of burning millions melts +outward into dim and fairy outlines until afar the liquid music born of +rushing crowds drips like a benediction on the sea. + + * * * * * + +New York and morning: the sun is kissing the timid dew in Central Park, +and from the Fountain of Plenty one looks along that world street, Fifth +Avenue, and walks toward town. The earth life and curves graciously down +from the older mansions of princes to the newer shops of luxury. Egypt +and Abyssinia, Paris and Damascus, London and India caress you by the +way; churches stand aloof while the shops swell to emporiums. But all +this is nothing. Everything is mankind. Humanity stands and flies and +walks and rolls about--the poor, the priceless, the world-known and the +forgotten; child and grandfather, king and leman--the pageant of the +world goes by, set in a frame of stone and jewels, clothed in scarlet +and rags. Princes Street and the Elysian Fields, the Strand and the +Ringstrasse--these are the Ways of the World today. + + * * * * * + +New York and twilight, there where the Sixth Avenue "L" rises and leaps +above the tenements into the free air at 110th Street. It circles like a +bird with heaven and St. John's above and earth and the sweet green and +gold of the Park beneath. Beyond lie all the blue mists and mysteries of +distance; beneath, the city rushes and crawls. Behind echo all the roar +and war and care and maze of the wide city set in its sullen darkening +walls, flashing weird and crimson farewells. Out at the sides the stars +twinkle. + + * * * * * + +Again New York and Night and Harlem. A dark city of fifty thousand rises +like magic from the earth. Gone is the white world, the pale lips, the +lank hair; gone is the West and North--the East and South is here +triumphant. The street is crowd and leisure and laughter. Everywhere +black eyes, black and brown, and frizzled hair curled and sleek, and +skins that riot with luscious color and deep, burning blood. Humanity is +packed dense in high piles of close-knit homes that lie in layers above +gray shops of food and clothes and drink, with here and there a +moving-picture show. Orators declaim on the corners, lovers lark in the +streets, gamblers glide by the saloons, workers lounge wearily home. +Children scream and run and frolic, and all is good and human and +beautiful and ugly and evil, even as Life is elsewhere. + + * * * * * + +And then--the Veil. It drops as drops the night on southern seas--vast, +sudden, unanswering. There is Hate behind it, and Cruelty and Tears. As +one peers through its intricate, unfathomable pattern of ancient, old, +old design, one sees blood and guilt and misunderstanding. And yet it +hangs there, this Veil, between Then and Now, between Pale and Colored +and Black and White--between You and Me. Surely it is a thought-thing, +tenuous, intangible; yet just as surely is it true and terrible and not +in our little day may you and I lift it. We may feverishly unravel its +edges and even climb slow with giant shears to where its ringed and +gilded top nestles close to the throne of God. But as we work and climb +we shall see through streaming eyes and hear with aching ears, lynching +and murder, cheating and despising, degrading and lying, so flashed and +fleshed through this vast hanging darkness that the Doer never sees the +Deed and the Victim knows not the Victor and Each hates All in wild and +bitter ignorance. Listen, O Isles, to these Voices from within the Veil, +for they portray the most human hurt of the Twentieth Cycle of that poor +Jesus who was called the Christ! + + * * * * * + +There is something in the nature of Beauty that demands an end. Ugliness +may be indefinite. It may trail off into gray endlessness. But Beauty +must be complete--whether it be a field of poppies or a great life,--it +must end, and the End is part and triumph of the Beauty. I know there +are those who envisage a beauty eternal. But I cannot. I can dream of +great and never-ending processions of beautiful things and visions and +acts. But each must be complete or it cannot for me exist. + +On the other hand, Ugliness to me is eternal, not in the essence but in +its incompleteness; but its eternity does not daunt me, for its eternal +unfulfilment is a cause of joy. There is in it nothing new or +unexpected; it is the old evil stretching out and ever seeking the end +it cannot find; it may coil and writhe and recur in endless battle to +days without end, but it is the same human ill and bitter hurt. But +Beauty is fulfilment. It satisfies. It is always new and strange. It is +the reasonable thing. Its end is Death--the sweet silence of perfection, +the calm and balance of utter music. Therein is the triumph of Beauty. + +So strong is the spell of beauty that there are those who, contradicting +their own knowledge and experience, try to say that all is beauty. They +are called optimists, and they lie. All is not beauty. Ugliness and hate +and ill are here with all their contradiction and illogic; they will +always be here--perhaps, God send, with lessened volume and force, but +here and eternal, while beauty triumphs in its great completion--Death. +We cannot conjure the end of all ugliness in eternal beauty, for beauty +by its very being and definition has in each definition its ends and +limits; but while beauty lies implicit and revealed in its end, ugliness +writhes on in darkness forever. So the ugliness of continual birth +fulfils itself and conquers gloriously only in the beautiful end, Death. + + * * * * * + +At last to us all comes happiness, there in the Court of Peace, where +the dead lie so still and calm and good. If we were not dead we would +lie and listen to the flowers grow. We would hear the birds sing and see +how the rain rises and blushes and burns and pales and dies in beauty. +We would see spring, summer, and the red riot of autumn, and then in +winter, beneath the soft white snow, sleep and dream of dreams. But we +know that being dead, our Happiness is a fine and finished thing and +that ten, a hundred, and a thousand years, we shall lie at rest, unhurt +in the Court of Peace. + + + + +_The Prayers of God_ + + + Name of God's Name! + Red murder reigns; + All hell is loose; + On gold autumnal air + Walk grinning devils, barbed and hoofed; + While high on hills of hate, + Black-blossomed, crimson-sky'd, + Thou sittest, dumb. + + Father Almighty! + This earth is mad! + Palsied, our cunning hands; + Rotten, our gold; + Our argosies reel and stagger + Over empty seas; + All the long aisles + Of Thy Great Temples, God, + Stink with the entrails + Of our souls. + And Thou art dumb. + + Above the thunder of Thy Thunders, Lord, + Lightening Thy Lightnings, + Rings and roars + The dark damnation + Of this hell of war. + Red piles the pulp of hearts and heads + And little children's hands. + + Allah! + Elohim! + Very God of God! + + Death is here! + Dead are the living; deep--dead the dead. + Dying are earth's unborn-- + The babes' wide eyes of genius and of joy, + Poems and prayers, sun-glows and earth-songs, + Great-pictured dreams, + Enmarbled phantasies, + High hymning heavens--all + In this dread night + Writhe and shriek and choke and die + This long ghost-night-- + While Thou art dumb. + + Have mercy! + Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners! + Stand forth, unveil Thy Face, + Pour down the light + That seethes above Thy Throne, + And blaze this devil's dance to darkness! + Hear! + Speak! + In Christ's Great Name-- + + I hear! + Forgive me, God! + Above the thunder I hearkened; + Beneath the silence, now,-- + I hear! + + (Wait, God, a little space. + It is so strange to talk with Thee-- + Alone!) + + This gold? + I took it. + Is it Thine? + Forgive; I did not know. + + Blood? Is it wet with blood? + 'Tis from my brother's hands. + (I know; his hands are mine.) + It flowed for Thee, O Lord. + + War? Not so; not war-- + Dominion, Lord, and over black, not white; + Black, brown, and fawn, + And not Thy Chosen Brood, O God, + We murdered. + To build Thy Kingdom, + To drape our wives and little ones, + And set their souls a-glitter-- + For this we killed these lesser breeds + And civilized their dead, + Raping red rubber, diamonds, cocoa, gold! + + For this, too, once, and in Thy Name, + I lynched a Nigger-- + + (He raved and writhed, + I heard him cry, + I felt the life-light leap and lie, + I saw him crackle there, on high, + I watched him wither!) + + _Thou?_ + _Thee?_ + _I lynched Thee?_ + + Awake me, God! I sleep! + What was that awful word Thou saidst? + That black and riven thing--was it Thee? + That gasp--was it Thine? + This pain--is it Thine? + Are, then, these bullets piercing Thee? + Have all the wars of all the world, + Down all dim time, drawn blood from Thee? + Have all the lies and thefts and hates-- + Is this Thy Crucifixion, God, + And not that funny, little cross, + With vinegar and thorns? + Is this Thy kingdom here, not there, + This stone and stucco drift of dreams? + + Help! + I sense that low and awful cry-- + + Who cries? + Who weeps? + With silent sob that rends and tears-- + Can God sob? + + Who prays? + I hear strong prayers throng by, + Like mighty winds on dusky moors-- + Can God pray? + + Prayest Thou, Lord, and to me? + _Thou_ needest me? + Thou _needest_ me? + Thou needest _me_? + Poor, wounded soul! + Of this I never dreamed. I thought-- + + _Courage, God, + I come!_ + + + + + +X + +THE COMET + + +He stood a moment on the steps of the bank, watching the human river +that swirled down Broadway. Few noticed him. Few ever noticed him save +in a way that stung. He was outside the world--"nothing!" as he said +bitterly. Bits of the words of the walkers came to him. + +"The comet?" + +"The comet----" + +Everybody was talking of it. Even the president, as he entered, smiled +patronizingly at him, and asked: + +"Well, Jim, are you scared?" + +"No," said the messenger shortly. + +"I thought we'd journeyed through the comet's tail once," broke in the +junior clerk affably. + +"Oh, that was Halley's," said the president; "this is a new comet, quite +a stranger, they say--wonderful, wonderful! I saw it last night. Oh, by +the way, Jim," turning again to the messenger, "I want you to go down +into the lower vaults today." + +The messenger followed the president silently. Of course, they wanted +_him_ to go down to the lower vaults. It was too dangerous for more +valuable men. He smiled grimly and listened. + +"Everything of value has been moved out since the water began to seep +in," said the president; "but we miss two volumes of old records. +Suppose you nose around down there,--it isn't very pleasant, I suppose." + +"Not very," said the messenger, as he walked out. + +"Well, Jim, the tail of the new comet hits us at noon this time," said +the vault clerk, as he passed over the keys; but the messenger passed +silently down the stairs. Down he went beneath Broadway, where the dim +light filtered through the feet of hurrying men; down to the dark +basement beneath; down into the blackness and silence beneath that +lowest cavern. Here with his dark lantern he groped in the bowels of the +earth, under the world. + +He drew a long breath as he threw back the last great iron door and +stepped into the fetid slime within. Here at last was peace, and he +groped moodily forward. A great rat leaped past him and cobwebs crept +across his face. He felt carefully around the room, shelf by shelf, on +the muddied floor, and in crevice and corner. Nothing. Then he went back +to the far end, where somehow the wall felt different. He sounded and +pushed and pried. Nothing. He started away. Then something brought him +back. He was sounding and working again when suddenly the whole black +wall swung as on mighty hinges, and blackness yawned beyond. He peered +in; it was evidently a secret vault--some hiding place of the old bank +unknown in newer times. He entered hesitatingly. It was a long, narrow +room with shelves, and at the far end, an old iron chest. On a high +shelf lay the two missing volumes of records, and others. He put them +carefully aside and stepped to the chest. It was old, strong, and rusty. +He looked at the vast and old-fashioned lock and flashed his light on +the hinges. They were deeply incrusted with rust. Looking about, he +found a bit of iron and began to pry. The rust had eaten a hundred +years, and it had gone deep. Slowly, wearily, the old lid lifted, and +with a last, low groan lay bare its treasure--and he saw the dull sheen +of gold! + +"Boom!" + +A low, grinding, reverberating crash struck upon his ear. He started up +and looked about. All was black and still. He groped for his light and +swung it about him. Then he knew! The great stone door had swung to. He +forgot the gold and looked death squarely in the face. Then with a sigh +he went methodically to work. The cold sweat stood on his forehead; but +he searched, pounded, pushed, and worked until after what seemed endless +hours his hand struck a cold bit of metal and the great door swung again +harshly on its hinges, and then, striking against something soft and +heavy, stopped. He had just room to squeeze through. There lay the body +of the vault clerk, cold and stiff. He stared at it, and then felt sick +and nauseated. The air seemed unaccountably foul, with a strong, +peculiar odor. He stepped forward, clutched at the air, and fell +fainting across the corpse. + +He awoke with a sense of horror, leaped from the body, and groped up the +stairs, calling to the guard. The watchman sat as if asleep, with the +gate swinging free. With one glance at him the messenger hurried up to +the sub-vault. In vain he called to the guards. His voice echoed and +re-echoed weirdly. Up into the great basement he rushed. Here another +guard lay prostrate on his face, cold and still. A fear arose in the +messenger's heart. He dashed up to the cellar floor, up into the bank. +The stillness of death lay everywhere and everywhere bowed, bent, and +stretched the silent forms of men. The messenger paused and glanced +about. He was not a man easily moved; but the sight was appalling! +"Robbery and murder," he whispered slowly to himself as he saw the +twisted, oozing mouth of the president where he lay half-buried on his +desk. Then a new thought seized him: If they found him here alone--with +all this money and all these dead men--what would his life be worth? He +glanced about, tiptoed cautiously to a side door, and again looked +behind. Quietly he turned the latch and stepped out into Wall Street. + +How silent the street was! Not a soul was stirring, and yet it was +high-noon--Wall Street? Broadway? He glanced almost wildly up and down, +then across the street, and as he looked, a sickening horror froze in +his limbs. With a choking cry of utter fright he lunged, leaned giddily +against the cold building, and stared helplessly at the sight. + +In the great stone doorway a hundred men and women and children lay +crushed and twisted and jammed, forced into that great, gaping doorway +like refuse in a can--as if in one wild, frantic rush to safety, they +had rushed and ground themselves to death. Slowly the messenger crept +along the walls, wetting his parched mouth and trying to comprehend, +stilling the tremor in his limbs and the rising terror in his heart. He +met a business man, silk-hatted and frock-coated, who had crept, too, +along that smooth wall and stood now stone dead with wonder written on +his lips. The messenger turned his eyes hastily away and sought the +curb. A woman leaned wearily against the signpost, her head bowed +motionless on her lace and silken bosom. Before her stood a street car, +silent, and within--but the messenger but glanced and hurried on. A +grimy newsboy sat in the gutter with the "last edition" in his uplifted +hand: "Danger!" screamed its black headlines. "Warnings wired around the +world. The Comet's tail sweeps past us at noon. Deadly gases expected. +Close doors and windows. Seek the cellar." The messenger read and +staggered on. Far out from a window above, a girl lay with gasping face +and sleevelets on her arms. On a store step sat a little, sweet-faced +girl looking upward toward the skies, and in the carriage by her +lay--but the messenger looked no longer. The cords gave way--the terror +burst in his veins, and with one great, gasping cry he sprang +desperately forward and ran,--ran as only the frightened run, shrieking +and fighting the air until with one last wail of pain he sank on the +grass of Madison Square and lay prone and still. + +When he rose, he gave no glance at the still and silent forms on the +benches, but, going to a fountain, bathed his face; then hiding himself +in a corner away from the drama of death, he quietly gripped himself and +thought the thing through: The comet had swept the earth and this was +the end. Was everybody dead? He must search and see. + +He knew that he must steady himself and keep calm, or he would go +insane. First he must go to a restaurant. He walked up Fifth Avenue to a +famous hostelry and entered its gorgeous, ghost-haunted halls. He beat +back the nausea, and, seizing a tray from dead hands, hurried into the +street and ate ravenously, hiding to keep out the sights. + +"Yesterday, they would not have served me," he whispered, as he forced +the food down. + +Then he started up the street,--looking, peering, telephoning, ringing +alarms; silent, silent all. Was nobody--nobody--he dared not think the +thought and hurried on. + +Suddenly he stopped still. He had forgotten. My God! How could he have +forgotten? He must rush to the subway--then he almost laughed. No--a +car; if he could find a Ford. He saw one. Gently he lifted off its +burden, and took his place on the seat. He tested the throttle. There +was gas. He glided off, shivering, and drove up the street. Everywhere +stood, leaned, lounged, and lay the dead, in grim and awful silence. On +he ran past an automobile, wrecked and overturned; past another, filled +with a gay party whose smiles yet lingered on their death-struck lips; +on past crowds and groups of cars, pausing by dead policemen; at 42nd +Street he had to detour to Park Avenue to avoid the dead congestion. He +came back on Fifth Avenue at 57th and flew past the Plaza and by the +park with its hushed babies and silent throng, until as he was rushing +past 72nd Street he heard a sharp cry, and saw a living form leaning +wildly out an upper window. He gasped. The human voice sounded in his +ears like the voice of God. + +"Hello--hello--help, in God's name!" wailed the woman. "There's a dead +girl in here and a man and--and see yonder dead men lying in the street +and dead horses--for the love of God go and bring the officers----" And +the words trailed off into hysterical tears. + +He wheeled the car in a sudden circle, running over the still body of a +child and leaping on the curb. Then he rushed up the steps and tried the +door and rang violently. There was a long pause, but at last the heavy +door swung back. They stared a moment in silence. She had not noticed +before that he was a Negro. He had not thought of her as white. She was +a woman of perhaps twenty-five--rarely beautiful and richly gowned, with +darkly-golden hair, and jewels. Yesterday, he thought with bitterness, +she would scarcely have looked at him twice. He would have been dirt +beneath her silken feet. She stared at him. Of all the sorts of men she +had pictured as coming to her rescue she had not dreamed of one like +him. Not that he was not human, but he dwelt in a world so far from +hers, so infinitely far, that he seldom even entered her thought. Yet as +she looked at him curiously he seemed quite commonplace and usual. He +was a tall, dark workingman of the better class, with a sensitive face +trained to stolidity and a poor man's clothes and hands. His face was +soft and slow and his manner at once cold and nervous, like fires long +banked, but not out. + +So a moment each paused and gauged the other; then the thought of the +dead world without rushed in and they started toward each other. + +"What has happened?" she cried. "Tell me! Nothing stirs. All is silence! +I see the dead strewn before my window as winnowed by the breath of +God,--and see----" She dragged him through great, silken hangings to +where, beneath the sheen of mahogany and silver, a little French maid +lay stretched in quiet, everlasting sleep, and near her a butler lay +prone in his livery. + +The tears streamed down the woman's cheeks and she clung to his arm +until the perfume of her breath swept his face and he felt the tremors +racing through her body. + +"I had been shut up in my dark room developing pictures of the comet +which I took last night; when I came out--I saw the dead! + +"What has happened?" she cried again. + +He answered slowly: + +"Something--comet or devil--swept across the earth this morning +and--many are dead!" + +"Many? Very many?" + +"I have searched and I have seen no other living soul but you." + +She gasped and they stared at each other. + +"My--father!" she whispered. + +"Where is he?" + +"He started for the office." + +"Where is it?" + +"In the Metropolitan Tower." + +"Leave a note for him here and come." + +Then he stopped. + +"No," he said firmly--"first, we must go--to Harlem." + +"Harlem!" she cried. Then she understood. She tapped her foot at first +impatiently. She looked back and shuddered. Then she came resolutely +down the steps. + +"There's a swifter car in the garage in the court," she said. + +"I don't know how to drive it," he said. + +"I do," she answered. + +In ten minutes they were flying to Harlem on the wind. The Stutz rose +and raced like an airplane. They took the turn at 110th Street on two +wheels and slipped with a shriek into 135th. + +He was gone but a moment. Then he returned, and his face was gray. She +did not look, but said: + +"You have lost--somebody?" + +"I have lost--everybody," he said, simply--"unless----" + +He ran back and was gone several minutes--hours they seemed to her. + +"Everybody," he said, and he walked slowly back with something film-like +in his hand which he stuffed into his pocket. + +"I'm afraid I was selfish," he said. But already the car was moving +toward the park among the dark and lined dead of Harlem--the brown, +still faces, the knotted hands, the homely garments, and the +silence--the wild and haunting silence. Out of the park, and down Fifth +Avenue they whirled. In and out among the dead they slipped and +quivered, needing no sound of bell or horn, until the great, square +Metropolitan Tower hove in sight. Gently he laid the dead elevator boy +aside; the car shot upward. The door of the office stood open. On the +threshold lay the stenographer, and, staring at her, sat the dead clerk. +The inner office was empty, but a note lay on the desk, folded and +addressed but unsent: + + Dear Daughter: + + I've gone for a hundred mile spin in Fred's new Mercedes. Shall not + be back before dinner. I'll bring Fred with me. + + J.B.H. + +"Come," she cried nervously. "We must search the city." + +Up and down, over and across, back again--on went that ghostly search. +Everywhere was silence and death--death and silence! They hunted from +Madison Square to Spuyten Duyvel; they rushed across the Williamsburg +Bridge; they swept over Brooklyn; from the Battery and Morningside +Heights they scanned the river. Silence, silence everywhere, and no +human sign. Haggard and bedraggled they puffed a third time slowly down +Broadway, under the broiling sun, and at last stopped. He sniffed the +air. An odor--a smell--and with the shifting breeze a sickening stench +filled their nostrils and brought its awful warning. The girl settled +back helplessly in her seat. + +"What can we do?" she cried. + +It was his turn now to take the lead, and he did it quickly. + +"The long distance telephone--the telegraph and the cable--night rockets +and then--flight!" + +She looked at him now with strength and confidence. He did not look like +men, as she had always pictured men; but he acted like one and she was +content. In fifteen minutes they were at the central telephone exchange. +As they came to the door he stepped quickly before her and pressed her +gently back as he closed it. She heard him moving to and fro, and knew +his burdens--the poor, little burdens he bore. When she entered, he was +alone in the room. The grim switchboard flashed its metallic face in +cryptic, sphinx-like immobility. She seated herself on a stool and +donned the bright earpiece. She looked at the mouthpiece. She had never +looked at one so closely before. It was wide and black, pimpled with +usage; inert; dead; almost sarcastic in its unfeeling curves. It +looked--she beat back the thought--but it looked,--it persisted in +looking like--she turned her head and found herself alone. One moment +she was terrified; then she thanked him silently for his delicacy and +turned resolutely, with a quick intaking of breath. + +"Hello!" she called in low tones. She was calling to the world. The +world _must_ answer. Would the world _answer_? Was the world---- + +Silence! + +She had spoken too low. + +"Hello!" she cried, full-voiced. + +She listened. Silence! Her heart beat quickly. She cried in clear, +distinct, loud tones: "Hello--hello--hello!" + +What was that whirring? Surely--no--was it the click of a receiver? + +She bent close, she moved the pegs in the holes, and called and called, +until her voice rose almost to a shriek, and her heart hammered. It was +as if she had heard the last flicker of creation, and the evil was +silence. Her voice dropped to a sob. She sat stupidly staring into the +black and sarcastic mouthpiece, and the thought came again. Hope lay +dead within her. Yes, the cable and the rockets remained; but the +world--she could not frame the thought or say the word. It was too +mighty--too terrible! She turned toward the door with a new fear in her +heart. For the first time she seemed to realize that she was alone in +the world with a stranger, with something more than a stranger,--with a +man alien in blood and culture--unknown, perhaps unknowable. It was +awful! She must escape--she must fly; he must not see her again. Who +knew what awful thoughts-- + +She gathered her silken skirts deftly about her young, smooth +limbs--listened, and glided into a sidehall. A moment she shrank back: +the hall lay filled with dead women; then she leaped to the door and +tore at it, with bleeding fingers, until it swung wide. She looked out. +He was standing at the top of the alley,--silhouetted, tall and black, +motionless. Was he looking at her or away? She did not know--she did not +care. She simply leaped and ran--ran until she found herself alone amid +the dead and the tall ramparts of towering buildings. + +She stopped. She was alone. Alone! Alone on the streets--alone in the +city--perhaps alone in the world! There crept in upon her the sense of +deception--of creeping hands behind her back--of silent, moving things +she could not see,--of voices hushed in fearsome conspiracy. She looked +behind and sideways, started at strange sounds and heard still stranger, +until every nerve within her stood sharp and quivering, stretched to +scream at the barest touch. She whirled and flew back, whimpering like a +child, until she found that narrow alley again and the dark, silent +figure silhouetted at the top. She stopped and rested; then she walked +silently toward him, looked at him timidly; but he said nothing as he +handed her into the car. Her voice caught as she whispered: + +"Not--that." + +And he answered slowly: "No--not that!" + +They climbed into the car. She bent forward on the wheel and sobbed, +with great, dry, quivering sobs, as they flew toward the cable office on +the east side, leaving the world of wealth and prosperity for the world +of poverty and work. In the world behind them were death and silence, +grave and grim, almost cynical, but always decent; here it was hideous. +It clothed itself in every ghastly form of terror, struggle, hate, and +suffering. It lay wreathed in crime and squalor, greed and lust. Only in +its dread and awful silence was it like to death everywhere. + +Yet as the two, flying and alone, looked upon the horror of the world, +slowly, gradually, the sense of all-enveloping death deserted them. They +seemed to move in a world silent and asleep,--not dead. They moved in +quiet reverence, lest somehow they wake these sleeping forms who had, at +last, found peace. They moved in some solemn, world-wide _Friedhof_, +above which some mighty arm had waved its magic wand. All nature slept +until--until, and quick with the same startling thought, they looked +into each other's eyes--he, ashen, and she, crimson, with unspoken +thought. To both, the vision of a mighty beauty--of vast, unspoken +things, swelled in their souls; but they put it away. + +Great, dark coils of wire came up from the earth and down from the sun +and entered this low lair of witchery. The gathered lightnings of the +world centered here, binding with beams of light the ends of the earth. +The doors gaped on the gloom within. He paused on the threshold. + +"Do you know the code?" she asked. + +"I know the call for help--we used it formerly at the bank." + +She hardly heard. She heard the lapping of the waters far below,--the +dark and restless waters--the cold and luring waters, as they called. He +stepped within. Slowly she walked to the wall, where the water called +below, and stood and waited. Long she waited, and he did not come. Then +with a start she saw him, too, standing beside the black waters. Slowly +he removed his coat and stood there silently. She walked quickly to him +and laid her hand on his arm. He did not start or look. The waters +lapped on in luring, deadly rhythm. He pointed down to the waters, and +said quietly: + +"The world lies beneath the waters now--may I go?" + +She looked into his stricken, tired face, and a great pity surged within +her heart. She answered in a voice clear and calm, "No." + +Upward they turned toward life again, and he seized the wheel. The +world was darkening to twilight, and a great, gray pall was falling +mercifully and gently on the sleeping dead. The ghastly glare of reality +seemed replaced with the dream of some vast romance. The girl lay +silently back, as the motor whizzed along, and looked half-consciously +for the elf-queen to wave life into this dead world again. She forgot to +wonder at the quickness with which he had learned to drive her car. It +seemed natural. And then as they whirled and swung into Madison Square +and at the door of the Metropolitan Tower she gave a low cry, and her +eyes were great! Perhaps she had seen the elf-queen? + +The man led her to the elevator of the tower and deftly they ascended. +In her father's office they gathered rugs and chairs, and he wrote a +note and laid it on the desk; then they ascended to the roof and he made +her comfortable. For a while she rested and sank to dreamy somnolence, +watching the worlds above and wondering. Below lay the dark shadows of +the city and afar was the shining of the sea. She glanced at him timidly +as he set food before her and took a shawl and wound her in it, touching +her reverently, yet tenderly. She looked up at him with thankfulness in +her eyes, eating what he served. He watched the city. She watched him. +He seemed very human,--very near now. + +"Have you had to work hard?" she asked softly. + +"Always," he said. + +"I have always been idle," she said. "I was rich." + +"I was poor," he almost echoed. + +"The rich and the poor are met together," she began, and he finished: + +"The Lord is the Maker of them all." + +"Yes," she said slowly; "and how foolish our human distinctions +seem--now," looking down to the great dead city stretched below, +swimming in unlightened shadows. + +"Yes--I was not--human, yesterday," he said. + +She looked at him. "And your people were not my people," she said; "but +today----" She paused. He was a man,--no more; but he was in some larger +sense a gentleman,--sensitive, kindly, chivalrous, everything save his +hands and--his face. Yet yesterday---- + +"Death, the leveler!" he muttered. + +"And the revealer," she whispered gently, rising to her feet with great +eyes. He turned away, and after fumbling a moment sent a rocket into the +darkening air. It arose, shrieked, and flew up, a slim path of light, +and scattering its stars abroad, dropped on the city below. She scarcely +noticed it. A vision of the world had risen before her. Slowly the +mighty prophecy of her destiny overwhelmed her. Above the dead past +hovered the Angel of Annunciation. She was no mere woman. She was +neither high nor low, white nor black, rich nor poor. She was primal +woman; mighty mother of all men to come and Bride of Life. She looked +upon the man beside her and forgot all else but his manhood, his strong, +vigorous manhood--his sorrow and sacrifice. She saw him glorified. He +was no longer a thing apart, a creature below, a strange outcast of +another clime and blood, but her Brother Humanity incarnate, Son of God +and great All-Father of the race to be. + +He did not glimpse the glory in her eyes, but stood looking outward +toward the sea and sending rocket after rocket into the unanswering +darkness. Dark-purple clouds lay banked and billowed in the west. Behind +them and all around, the heavens glowed in dim, weird radiance that +suffused the darkening world and made almost a minor music. Suddenly, as +though gathered back in some vast hand, the great cloud-curtain fell +away. Low on the horizon lay a long, white star--mystic, wonderful! And +from it fled upward to the pole, like some wan bridal veil, a pale, wide +sheet of flame that lighted all the world and dimmed the stars. + +In fascinated silence the man gazed at the heavens and dropped his +rockets to the floor. Memories of memories stirred to life in the dead +recesses of his mind. The shackles seemed to rattle and fall from his +soul. Up from the crass and crushing and cringing of his caste leaped +the lone majesty of kings long dead. He arose within the shadows, tall, +straight, and stern, with power in his eyes and ghostly scepters +hovering to his grasp. It was as though some mighty Pharaoh lived again, +or curled Assyrian lord. He turned and looked upon the lady, and found +her gazing straight at him. + +Silently, immovably, they saw each other face to face--eye to eye. Their +souls lay naked to the night. It was not lust; it was not love--it was +some vaster, mightier thing that needed neither touch of body nor thrill +of soul. It was a thought divine, splendid. + +Slowly, noiselessly, they moved toward each other--the heavens above, +the seas around, the city grim and dead below. He loomed from out the +velvet shadows vast and dark. Pearl-white and slender, she shone beneath +the stars. She stretched her jeweled hands abroad. He lifted up his +mighty arms, and they cried each to the other, almost with one voice, +"The world is dead." + +"Long live the----" + +"Honk! Honk!" Hoarse and sharp the cry of a motor drifted clearly up +from the silence below. They started backward with a cry and gazed upon +each other with eyes that faltered and fell, with blood that boiled. + +"Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk!" came the mad cry again, and almost from their +feet a rocket blazed into the air and scattered its stars upon them. She +covered her eyes with her hands, and her shoulders heaved. He dropped +and bowed, groped blindly on his knees about the floor. A blue flame +spluttered lazily after an age, and she heard the scream of an answering +rocket as it flew. + +Then they stood still as death, looking to opposite ends of the earth. + +"Clang--crash--clang!" + +The roar and ring of swift elevators shooting upward from below made the +great tower tremble. A murmur and babel of voices swept in upon the +night. All over the once dead city the lights blinked, flickered, and +flamed; and then with a sudden clanging of doors the entrance to the +platform was filled with men, and one with white and flying hair rushed +to the girl and lifted her to his breast. "My daughter!" he sobbed. + +Behind him hurried a younger, comelier man, carefully clad in motor +costume, who bent above the girl with passionate solicitude and gazed +into her staring eyes until they narrowed and dropped and her face +flushed deeper and deeper crimson. + +"Julia," he whispered; "my darling, I thought you were gone forever." + +She looked up at him with strange, searching eyes. + +"Fred," she murmured, almost vaguely, "is the world--gone?" + +"Only New York," he answered; "it is terrible--awful! You know,--but +you, how did you escape--how have you endured this horror? Are you well? +Unharmed?" + +"Unharmed!" she said. + +"And this man here?" he asked, encircling her drooping form with one arm +and turning toward the Negro. Suddenly he stiffened and his hand flew to +his hip. "Why!" he snarled. "It's--a--nigger--Julia! Has he--has he +dared----" + +She lifted her head and looked at her late companion curiously and then +dropped her eyes with a sigh. + +"He has dared--all, to rescue me," she said quietly, "and I--thank +him--much." But she did not look at him again. As the couple turned +away, the father drew a roll of bills from his pockets. + +"Here, my good fellow," he said, thrusting the money into the man's +hands, "take that,--what's your name?" + +"Jim Davis," came the answer, hollow-voiced. + +"Well, Jim, I thank you. I've always liked your people. If you ever want +a job, call on me." And they were gone. + +The crowd poured up and out of the elevators, talking and whispering. + +"Who was it?" + +"Are they alive?" + +"How many?" + +"Two!" + +"Who was saved?" + +"A white girl and a nigger--there she goes." + +"A nigger? Where is he? Let's lynch the damned----" + +"Shut up--he's all right-he saved her." + +"Saved hell! He had no business----" + +"Here he comes." + +Into the glare of the electric lights the colored man moved slowly, with +the eyes of those that walk and sleep. + +"Well, what do you think of that?" cried a bystander; "of all New York, +just a white girl and a nigger!" + +The colored man heard nothing. He stood silently beneath the glare of +the light, gazing at the money in his hand and shrinking as he gazed; +slowly he put his other hand into his pocket and brought out a baby's +filmy cap, and gazed again. A woman mounted to the platform and looked +about, shading her eyes. She was brown, small, and toil-worn, and in one +arm lay the corpse of a dark baby. The crowd parted and her eyes fell on +the colored man; with a cry she tottered toward him. + +"Jim!" + +He whirled and, with a sob of joy, caught her in his arms. + + + + +_A Hymn to the Peoples_ + + + O Truce of God! + And primal meeting of the Sons of Man, + Foreshadowing the union of the World! + From all the ends of earth we come! + Old Night, the elder sister of the Day, + Mother of Dawn in the golden East, + Meets in the misty twilight with her brood, + Pale and black, tawny, red and brown, + The mighty human rainbow of the world, + Spanning its wilderness of storm. + + Softly in sympathy the sunlight falls, + Rare is the radiance of the moon; + And on the darkest midnight blaze the stars-- + The far-flown shadows of whose brilliance + Drop like a dream on the dim shores of Time, + Forecasting Days that are to these + As day to night. + + So sit we all as one. + So, gloomed in tall and stone-swathed groves, + The Buddha walks with Christ! + And Al-Koran and Bible both be holy! + + Almighty Word! + In this Thine awful sanctuary, + First and flame-haunted City of the Widened World, + Assoil us, Lord of Lands and Seas! + + We are but weak and wayward men, + Distraught alike with hatred and vainglory; + Prone to despise the Soul that breathes within-- + High visioned hordes that lie and steal and kill, + Sinning the sin each separate heart disclaims, + Clambering upon our riven, writhing selves, + Besieging Heaven by trampling men to Hell! + We be blood-guilty! Lo, our hands be red! + Not one may blame the other in this sin! + But here--here in the white Silence of the Dawn, + Before the Womb of Time, + With bowed hearts all flame and shame, + We face the birth-pangs of a world: + We hear the stifled cry of Nations all but born-- + The wail of women ravished of their stunted brood! + We see the nakedness of Toil, the poverty of Wealth, + We know the Anarchy of Empire, and doleful Death of Life! + And hearing, seeing, knowing all, we cry: + + Save us, World-Spirit, from our lesser selves! + Grant us that war and hatred cease, + Reveal our souls in every race and hue! + Help us, O Human God, in this Thy Truce, + To make Humanity divine! + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Darkwater, by W. E. B. 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