this race problem is to be solved.

Looked at in the abstract this seems to be very plausible. The assumption that if we improve ourselves; if we show ourselves worthy of being treated properly, that we would be, is what would naturally be expected. Unfortunately, however, the facts are all against it. Things have not panned out as might have been expected, 14under this theory of race adjustment. The race problem, as we understand it, may mean one of two things. It may mean the problem of the race's development, which would include all the agencies to be employed in securing this result; or it may mean the problem of getting the white man to behave himself—getting him to treat the colored man properly, as a man, as a brother, as a citizen, having common and equal rights with himself. That the race's development may go on without at all affecting favorably the white man's attitude towards it, is clearly evident from what is going on about us, and from the experience of the last forty or fifty years. During these years the colored people have steadily improved along all lines; and yet the same feeling of antipathy, of hostility to them exists. There is no indication of a desire to treat them any better. The progress that they have made has counted for nothing in their favor; has not lessened, in the least, the opposition to them.

14

A short while ago a Congressman from Louisiana, J. B. Aswell, introduced a bill in the House of Representatives to segregate colored employees of the Government. Among other things in presenting his bill, he said:

"Every informed and right-thinking white man, while sympathizing with and anxious to help the Negro in his place, recognizes the necessity of preserving the integrity and supremacy of the white race. The purpose of this bill is to check a bad tendency in this country, before it is too late, and cause thinking people everywhere to find themselves in relation to the race problem and thus deal fairly and give justice to both races. The bill seeks to help the Negro by making him proficient in his own sphere and by correcting a false idea of his proper circumscribed position in the republic, and, at the same time, relieve the white man in the public service from the intolerable humiliation of being compelled, in order to earn his daily bread, to work side by side with an objectionable people, the continuation of which practice must result in irreparable injury to both races, and ultimately destroy the efficiency of the public service. Such practices will drive the self-respecting proficient white man and woman from the civil service of the Government."

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