BLACKS AND WHITES IN AMERICA.
WE hope that Mr. Stephen Graham's Children of the Slaves, reviewed by us in this issue of the Spectator, will be read with the attention it deserves both in England and in America. No doubt the first impulse of almost all Americans in the South, and of a great many Americans in the North, will be one of anger and indignation, nay of bitter resentment. No one likes to nee the family skeleton not only taken out of the cupboard, but displayed to the world, and the annoyance is multiplied tenfold when the exposure is made by a near relation. In addition, there is always the temptation to find excuses or not tackling specially disagreeable matters by
attributing the action of one's relative to jealousy, malice, hatred, and other evil propensities.
But though the awakening of such feelings is natural, it will be a thousand pities if the book is generally received in this way in America—is dismissed as unfriendly, calumnious, or, again, as part of the malice of ignorance. We are certain that Mr. Graham's intention is not malicious or unfriendly. If it can be shown, as it very possibly may be, that he has in certain cases exaggerated or misstated his facts, or imputed motives which he ought not to have imputed, such faults are due not to animosity to the American people, or to any desire to exalt English virtue at the expense of the other half of the English-speaking race. Right or wrong, judicious or injudicious, Mr. Graham's intention is clearly good. He believes that America is faced with a very grave danger, perhaps the greatest danger she has ever encountered. Unless she meets it in the right spirit, irreparable damage will be done to the greatest State in the world, the State on whose progress in faith and righteousness the future of mankind so largely depends. Once more, whether Mr. Stephen Graham is right or wrong, to meet such a plea as this with the cry of " Mind your own business, you canting enemy of our country ! "is impassible.
It is conceivable that, even in a case so portentous as this, an Englishman awakened to the fact might consider that it was not his duty to interfere with the affairs of a foreign nation. "I am not going to give them good or even necessary advice. They must cure their own ills." But, as Englishmen, we cannot possibly take up this attitude of cynical reserve. We are too deeply concerned with America. The future of the American people is too intimately connected with our own fate to make it possible for us not to trouble about the risks and dangers of the Republic. Their fate and ours are inextricably intertwined. With them, in the years to come, we must either sink or swim. If America goes on her way, not merely great and prosperous on the material side, but sound in heart and body, we, who speak the same language, who, so far as the greatest and most vital section of the people are concerned, are of the same blood, who are governed by the same principles of law and the same moral ideas, are safe. If America were to founder, or be in peril of foundering, could we hope to outride the storm ?
Therefore, in any matter which is vital to America we must have an opinion, and we must express it. Every thinking American knows that this is so, and must tolerate the expression of English opinion as long as it is well- intentioned and neither foolishly nor vindictively expressed. Especially have we a right of audience in regard to the negro problem. lathe West Indies, in our South American colonies and islands, and still more in our African possessions, we are responsible for millions of the negro nice—millions who look to the American negroes as their spiritual leaders. The negroes in our African colonies will in the future, we may be sure, largely judge us, and be amenable to our system of government, in accordance with the manner in which the negro problem is handled in the United States. Just as the American public claims the right to express its opinion on Ireland, on the ground that they have too many citizens of Irish birth to be indifferent to our Irish policy, so we are bound to he deeply concerned about the way in which America settles the relations between her white and black citizens. To say this is not to claim to sit in judgment on America. All we desire, disagreeable as such a task always is, is to warn a friend of danger.
At the risk, then, of being misunderstood and denounced as the enemy of those whom we regard with only less devotion than we regard our own countrymen, those responsible for the Spectator feel that they cannot pass over the publication of Mr. Stephen Graham's book in silence. But here let us be perfectly plain. Though we feel a vast pity for the negro, and for the sufferings that he has had to endure, and still is enduring, at the hands of white men of our own kin, what we are chiefly concerned with in this matter is not the injury, terrible as it is done to the blacks, but that to the whites. The system of regulating and controlling the relations between the black and white populations adopted in America is it hideous failure. It is not merely demoralizing a portion
of the white population, i.e., the population of the Southern and border States, but has actually brought about a situation which may at any moment become one of the most terrible gravity—one out of which there may be no way except a further demoralization of the whites so terrible as permanently to ruin the Anglo-Saxon race. How could this possibly be ? it will be asked. In this way : There are twelve million negroes in the United States, located chiefly in the south-east corner of the Republic, but forming a considerable proportion of the population throughout a great many of the great cities and large centres of population in the middle-west. This negro population is, in spite of a good deal of legislative and social opposition, progressing in wealth and education, and, to a certain extent, in power. As a result, not only is racial consciousness rising but, if Mr. Stephen Graham's direct testimony is to be credited, also a sense of deep resentment and of bitter hatred towards the whites. The restlessness and the desire for change, almost at any price and in any direction, which has affected such large portions of Europe and Asia has greatly affected the negro. In his case there are extra stimulants of great potency. The part that negroes took in the war, and, curiously enough, the sympathetic spirit in which the negro soldiers were received in France—a spirit in which there was no trace of racial stand-offishness—has made not only the enlisted negroes, but all those who have heard the news, full of a strange excitement. There is a fresh and more intense dislike of such Southern institutions as the Jim Crow Bar, the negro church and chapel, and the virtual expulsion of the negro from the polling booth. We are ourselves by no means inclined to think the French attitude the right one. On the contrary, we regard segregation, not amalgamation, as the solution ; but that is not the point with which we are now dealing. That point is the rising tide of negro resentment. Even this might not matter politically if white America were a homogeneous population without any portion of it filled with a sense of social wrongs or grievances. Unfortunately, however, America has, especially in her great cities, a very large, and in some cases dangerous, population intoxicated with revolutionary and communistic ideas. It would, of course, be going much too far to say that the Bolsheviks and other revolutionaries in America might join the negroes in giving trouble, but it is not too much to say that it is quite possible that the Bolsheviks may endeavour to stir up trouble amongst the negroes in order to press on the Proletarian revolution which, strange as it may seem to us, they actually think can be carried out in America. The cynical candour of the Bolshevik leaders in Russia has made us aware that they believe one of the best ways of producing Revolution is to start "a heavy civil wan.' That heavy civil war can be produced by vigorous secret propaganda among the masses. Such propaganda is largely a question of money. But how could the gold of which Russia has still a considerable amount be better employed than in stirring up the negroes and so producing that sense of chaotic unrest in which Soviet ideas are best propagated?
It will of course be said, and we devoutly hope truly, that this is all much too alarmist. "What," we shall be asked, "can 12 million people do against 112 million ? America could crush a negro revolt with the utmost ease." No doubt she could ; but remember, that to put down a revolt of the kind which we are envisaging might have appalling consequences. It might mean, first, a huge massacre of whites, and then a huger massacre of negroes, and it might have an effect not only upon the
white population of the South, but on a great part of the tforthern population which would do infinite harm.
Even if it were not the signal for trouble in the North, it would certainly lead to the utmost unrest amongst the negro race not only in Africa, but in the West Indies, in Cuba, and in Central and Spanish South America, and in Brazil.
These are, shortly, the reasons why we ask for close attention to Mr. Stephen Graham's book. In our review we get closer to the facts, and ask what, in the last resort,
is the cause of the specially bitter resentment which is now getting hold of the negroes, and also what is the remedy for evils which seem so great at the present time, but will be much more menacing in the future. Once more, let no man suppose that we are suggesting for a moment that Mr. Stephen Graham's book contains any great discoveries, or is per se an epoch-making work. He is an observer and recorder, rather than a statesman, and we are quite prepared to be told that his view of the situation is superficial and biased. We certainly do not ask people to accept blindly his statements or his judgments. We do not say more than that his intention is honest, friendly, and helpful. That in the course of his walking tour along Sherman's path from Atalanta to the sea he could possibly have got to the bottom of the negro problem in America no sane person would possibly suggest. All the same, if his book is read in connexion with other indications, many and important, of negro unrest, a corre- sponding want of sanity would be shown in not considering whether his warning is worthy of investigation. Assuredly it is.
If we ourselves were asked to try to give in a sentence a piece of short practical advice to America in dealing with the negroes, we should say : "Don't ask them to dinner, but stop burning them at the stake." The remedy is justice and mercy, not false professions of equality and affection. If it is thought necessary, in order to protect white women, punish sexual offences with the severest legal penalties ; but never deal with crime except by due process of law. Let the substitution of mob-murder for legal punishment be regarded as the worst of crimes. But remember here, that unless the Government do their duty and make the proper and legal reprisals, they tempt men to make them on their own. It is owing to the supine- ness of the Government in Ireland in the matter of hitting back that illegal reprisals have taken place.
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