SOUTHERN RACE PROBLEMS 369 



how to live better, and thus increase their efficiency and insure their 

 status as self-supporting, independent members of society. The Negroes 

 themselves are working to accomplish this end in practically every insti- 

 tution maintained by them throughout the south. This view of the 

 Negro problem, practical in the extreme, is the one generally held at 

 present in the south. The ideal seems to be to force the Negro to earn 

 a better place in society and political life by the sweat of his brow and 

 the toil of his hands ; which toil, it is confidently hoped, will be guided 

 by a constantly increasing intelligence, itself the indirect fruit of his 

 labor. 



On the other hand, outside the south the Negro problem is generally 

 viewed as not primarily an economic, but as a political and "social 

 rights" problem. The aim of many, if not most, of those living outside 

 the south who take an active interest in the Negro is to secure for him 

 fuller political rights and wider social opportunities, believing that as 

 restrictions are removed, the Negro's position will improve in every 

 respect, and he will ultimately take his place side by side with the whites, 

 on an equal footing and possessing an identical cultural equipment. 



Whatever be the theoretical merit of these views, whatever be the 

 results of their trial, whatever be the advantage of one over the other 

 ethically, it can easily be seen that although they advocate almost exactly 

 opposite methods, those who advocate them are striving to reach the same 

 goal. Each group is attempting to help the Negro to attain a more com- 

 plete civilLzation; and each is attempting to do this by trying to make the 

 Negro absorb the white man's civilization and come into complete accord 

 with the profound moving-springs of the white man's social sanctions. 



Many writers have contributed to the elaboration of these prevailing 

 views of the problem. Admittedly, all of them have as their ideal the 

 creation through evolutionary processes of a state in which the whites 

 and the Negroes live side by side, each group partaking of the same 

 civilization on a basis of ethical equality, and each plaj-ing its part in 

 government and society according to its ability. This bi-racial state, 

 theoretically, should have a single civilization, common to and under- 

 stood similarly by both peoples; this civilization — and here is the vital 

 point — will be the civilization of the whites, which, it is assumed, will be 

 inculcated into the Negroes and which the Negroes will absorb without 

 sufficiently modifying it to impair its usefulness as a foundation for a 

 complex, though organically homogeneous, society. 



Underlying the conception of a state such as has just been described 

 lies a more fundamental conception which is seldom formulated, but 

 upon which the whole structure of theory about southern race problems 

 is based. This conception may be stated in various ways; its boldest, 

 most general, and most erroneous form is the hypothesis that " all men 

 are equal " ; a more moderate form is " equal opportunity for all, special 

 privilege for none"; but the most comprehensive form, which contains 



