582 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the United States and Jamaica with reference to its negro population, 

 however, shows us floundering far in the distance. How can English 

 colonial conditions be paralleled without violence to our constitution? 

 By a simple method, apparent to all, the adoption of which would work 

 incalculable benefit to our nation. The canker of our present political 

 condition as it affects the negro is the moral sore of a stultified con- 

 science. Very naturally when the negro realizes that the constitution 

 makes him politically the equal of any white man, while he knows he 

 is an inferior individual, if indeed only in the sense that a child is 

 inferior to an adult, he detects a first inconsistency. This he accepts; 

 and views equal suffrage as a gift. But when he further realizes that 

 equality of suffrage is a theory, which is disregarded in practise, he sees 

 an inconsistency which he resents, and which moves him to loss of 

 respect. This is the root of distrust and dissimulation and antag- 

 onism, which is at the source of the troubles which constitute our 

 " negro problem." Skin color among mulattoes is no scientific index 

 of potential civic worth. 



In brief, a state's right of suffrage should be based upon reasonable 

 and uniform qualifications applied actually, as verbally, to all alike 

 of whatever color (and finally sex). No ballot is free from the poten- 

 tiality of great ill, unless it be cast by an honest, thrifty and intelligent 

 hand. Appropriate educational and property qualifications uniform 

 for all members of a state, and probably as between states, is a reason- 

 able, just and right requirement. This is a first step, for which we 

 already have the light of reason. Further steps must be taken more 

 or less cautiously coincidently with accumulating scientific data. The 

 " problem " is bright with hope ; but it must be approached with charity 

 and consistency and with scientific skill and courage. 



