CORRESP ONDENCE. 



841 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



TIIE AFKICAN IN THE UNITED STATES. 



Messrs. Editors. 



HAVING read with much interest Pro- 

 fessor Gilliam's article on " The Af- 

 rican in the United States," and agreeing 

 with his general conclusion that " they must 

 forever remain an alien race among us," 

 it seems to me that there still remains some- 

 thing to be said, and that now is the time 

 to say it, and this must be my excuse for 

 this appeal to your courtesy. 



The obstructive Chinese legislation was 

 received at first, by most thinking men in 

 the country, not in direct contact with the 

 question, with aversion, and a regret at a 

 departure from one of the first principles 

 of our Government, viz., the equality of 

 man. But most of us are now satisfied that 

 while this American life is a furnace which 

 melts into good Americans the peculiarities 

 of all white races, the attempt to assimilate 

 a race of different color, and of a civiliza- 

 tion older than ours, and one that has re- 

 sisted conquest, oppression, and time, would 

 certainly have resulted in failure, and that 

 a majority of citizens of Chinese birth or 

 descent, on the Pacific slope, would have 

 made of that section practically a foreign 

 land. 



That the case of the negro, as stated by 

 Professor Gilliam, is hardly as bad, is evi- 

 dent. The negro is not the heir of an an- 

 cient and scientific social order. What 

 knowledge he has of social order and po- 

 litical forms is American, and, however much 

 he may develop, his development will still 

 follow these lines, and there will hardly be 

 a race war of virulence enough to attract 

 the attention of the country as a whole. 

 At the same time it is very certain that the 

 fact of color will forever keep the two races 

 separate, and that as the negroes realize the 

 voting strength of mere numbers there will 

 be a tendency among them to gather in cer- 

 tain sections of the country in overwhelm- 

 ing power, and by the perfectly legal means 

 of the jury system and the ballot drive the 

 whites, not only from office, but from among 

 them. The process will be slow and grad- 

 ual, and there will be probably neither oc- 

 casion nor opportunity for the interference 

 of the Federal power. But the concentra- 

 tion of an alien and unassimilable race in 

 any section of the country, especially in a 

 section of so much strategic importance as 

 the mouth of the great river that is the fu- 

 ture door to our house however much their 

 civilization may be an outgrowth of our 

 own is certainly a political arrangement to 

 be avoided if possible. And how is it to 



be avoided ? Professor Gilliam gives us no 

 hint except the vague regret that the San 

 Domingo purchase was lost to us. The his- 

 tory of the centuries is before us. The long 

 education of the African is complete. The 

 dark continent is opened. The slave has re- 

 ceived his freedom. The generation that 

 intervened between the slave and the con- 

 quering freeman of old has nearly passed 

 with our bondmen of to-day. All things 

 indicate that the time has come when steps 

 must be taken toward the solution of the 

 problem of the colored race among us, or 

 we must pay in the future, as in the past, 

 for our neglect or mistakes in dealing with 

 this matter, with losses and suffering, per- 

 haps again with blood. 



A bill passing Congress establishing a 

 steam mail line to Liberia from some South- 

 ern port Charleston, or preferably New Or- 

 leans with a subsidy for mail-carriage, 

 sufficient to insure its being kept up, how- 

 ever great the expense, would have reasons 

 in its favor worthy of the following consid- 

 erations : 



Our merchant marine is destroyed, and 

 must for national and economic reasons be 

 rebuilt, and, in spite of our present preju- 

 dice against subsidies, capital must at first 

 be attracted to this field by national boun- 

 ties. This is the way England's supremacy 

 was organized, and is kept up. It is the 

 way France and Germany are increasing 

 their fleets, and there is no other way. 

 Trade and travel follow regular steamship 

 lines. This needs no demonstration. Eng- 

 land's successful efforts in this direction 

 keeps her to-day the workshop of the 

 world. The wealth of Africa is at this mo- 

 ment the cynosure of industrial nations. 

 England, France, and Belgium, by arts of 

 peace or war, are pressing forward to take 

 possession of its coast. It is only a ques- 

 tion of time before, on some petty pretext, 

 Liberia will be attacked and pass into Eng- 

 land's possession, unless we cultivate closer 

 relations. It is a country capable of great 

 development. It is already progressing, 

 and its governmental forms and traditions 

 are American. The establishment of a 

 steamship line to Liberia would produce the 

 following results : The formation of a stable 

 government in Africa, sprung from and 

 modeled after our own. A nation that 

 would assimilate and develop the native 

 tribes instead of destroying them ; a na- 

 tion that would have our customs, our en- 

 ergy, and our tools, know and buy our 

 wares, would, by the railroad-building arts 

 they take from us, conquer and control the 



