A WORLD-WIDE COLOR LINE 479 



ourselves. As a matter of fact, the race struggle covers the whole 

 world, wherever whites and blacks are brought together under common 

 political and social forms. It is the struggle of a highly differ- 

 entiated, efficient civilization with one more simple and primitive. This 

 struggle results from the differing powers of adaptation of the two races, 

 Eacial characteristics are the accompaniments rather than the cause of 

 lack of adjustment. 



Since the elements of the problem are simple and fundamental and 

 since they are everywhere essentially the same, it is to be expected that 

 the color struggle should follow similar lines in various parts of the 

 world. The antipathy between the whites and Indians in America from 

 the earliest period of colonization to the present, the very terms in which 

 this antipathy was expressed and the methods of conflict on each side, 

 have been duplicated in the struggle between the English colonists and 

 the natives of Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. And at the 

 present moment the political and social elements of the race problem in 

 the southern States of America are almost identical with those in the 

 South African colonies. 



It has been the misfortune of white civilization in its contact with 

 the colored races in America, Africa and Australasia that both its worst 

 products and its least desirable representatives were the ones first in the 

 field. This has been an important factor in shaping the early relations 

 of the races. It is the rover, the outlaw and the irresponsible trader 

 who come first, and it is too often the contraband goods of civilization 

 that they carry. It has been the rougher type of white also who has 

 intermarried with native women and become the father of a hybrid 

 progeny. Curiously enough, it is among this rougher class of whites 

 that the worst type of race animosity exists. Where the cultural rank 

 has been more nearly equal and where the contact has been of the organ- 

 ized rather than sporadic type, the mingling of the races has generally 

 been accompanied by little confusion or social disintegration. 



It goes without saying that there is a varying degree of adaptability 

 and fusing power among the different branches of the white race in their 

 relations with backward peoples. The Latin peoples in Europe have 

 shown peculiar capacity for successful inter-marriage with tropic races. 

 Spaniards have crossed with fair success with both Indians and negroes 

 in America and with Malays in the Philippines, as have the Portuguese 

 with the two former types in Brazil. Undoubtedly the Catholic Latin 

 peoples have shown peculiar capacity for merging with colored peoples 

 and manifest less color prejudice than do the Protestant Teutons. This 

 is due, no doubt, in part to physical facts, but a more important factor is 

 the insistence of the Eoman Catholic Church on the solidarity of the 

 world's peoples and its deprecation of race prejudice. In the Spanish 

 and French West Indies there is a greater proportion of mixed marriages 



