164 Musings by Camp-Fire and Wayside 



bors and their children, and for his race in this 

 country. These two, without any knowledge of 

 theoretic sociology, are getting at the kernel of it 

 as instinctively as a squirrel gets at the kernel of a 

 nut. They are solving the "negro problem" in the 

 only way it ever can be solved. By the way, this 

 problem is as much of a poor white, as it is of a rich 

 white, problem — as much of an Anglo-Saxon as an 

 African problem. 



It was imagined that the negro could be elevated 

 to intelligent citizenship by constitutional law — a 

 favorite idea in moral reform with many. But he 

 is no exception. All must 



" Wait beneath the furnace blast 

 The pangs of transformation." 



The transition period is for him what it ever has 

 been for man — a period of suffering. The downfall 

 of slavery was the downfall of feudalism — history 

 repeating itself. The dependents of the baron's 

 castle, his retainers and serfs, were turned out 

 upon the world without experience in self-help or 

 self-control, to beg, steal, or starve, the alternative 

 being between starvation and the gibbet. Thou- 

 sands died of one or the other. The unfit were 

 weeded out, and only sturdiness and character sur- 

 vived to constitute the stalwart Teutonic nations of 

 to-day. The Southern negro has no protection in 

 life or person but that which comes of public senti- 

 ment. Any white man, and especially any white 

 woman, can have a negro lynched, and as they are 



