440 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of some political party. The heart knows, however, that the incum- 

 bents are recognized with an involuntary wince. They are tolerated 

 by reason of their fewness. The mass of the blacks are held back in 

 their state of toil. It is the mandate of American instinct. 



We say American instinct which is, that America is for Ameri- 

 cans, not for German, Irish, or African, as such. The German here 

 rises and rules, not as a German ; nor the Irishman as an Irishman. 

 When the German gets out his naturalization papers, he theoretically 

 gets out of his German skin. Practically, he gets out of it in a gen- , 

 eration or two, through intermarriage and association ; mingles freely 

 and equally with the mass of population ; and, in the attainment of the 

 highest social or political privilege or distinction, is limited solely by 

 the worth of his individuality. The rise and rule of the African must 

 be, according to American spirit, after the same method. Disappear- 

 ing in the mass of population, he must lose the African cast, and trans- 

 form himself, by intermarriage and social association, into an actual 

 American ; for he could be no American, however the letter of the 

 law might read, who, after the lapse of a century, should retain the 

 exclusive hue and affinity of a stranger race. But this transformation 

 is impossible, seeing the blacks stand apart from the whites, and make 

 a distinct and alien people. Any advancement of the blacks is an ad- 

 vancement of the African, as such ; and the advancement of individ- 

 uals, here and there, above the laboring level, is the vanguard of the 

 race's advancement. 



The advancement of the blacks, therefore, becomes a menace to the 

 whites. No two free races, remaining distinctly apart, can advance 

 side by side, without a struggle for supremacy. The thing is impos- 

 sible. The world has never witnessed it, and a priori grounds are all 

 against it. Hence, the whites instinctively oppose the black invasion 

 (as it were), and seek to keep this people below the labor-line ; and a 

 large superiority, at present, in numbers, and a vastly larger superior- 

 ity in intelligence and wealth, make them easily, and perhaps without 

 conscious effort, successful. 



But a fundamental social law is thus broken a law, under whose 

 operation, in a free social state, the poor, lower, laboring class natu- 

 rally rise, while the rich upper class descend ; and no law, whatever 

 the sphere to which it belongs, can be broken with impunity. To the 

 discontent arising from this source may be traced the periodic exodus 

 movement among the negroes. Politicians, for party ends, have as- 

 signed other causes, and declared that " exodus " means bull-dozing, 

 Ku-kluxing, imposition, oppression, enforced pauperism, etc. These are 

 all wide of the mark. Since the Southern States have been under the 

 rule of its intelligent population, the blacks, as a whole, and in the 

 main, have been free in the exercise of political rights ; and, moreover, 

 they have prospered as never before. The underlying cause of the 

 exodus fever, stimulated to some extent by railroad men and other side 



