[Pg viii]

[Pg viii]

It is not claimed that the author is absolutely correct in all of his propositions. Sometimes the information on which they are based is, possibly, incorrect; the classification of facts incomplete or inexact; and, no doubt, his deductions are occasionally erroneous; but no proposition has been advanced for which he does not believe he has sound authority; no fact has been stated without what appears to him convincing proof, and whatever error his deductions contain may readily be detected, as they are plainly stated.

Although it has appeared at one time or another that the race question was in process of settlement, yet always, just when that hope seemed brightest, it has been dashed to the ground, and the Question has reappeared in some new form as menacing as ever. In fact, it is much too weighty and far-reaching to be disposed of in a short time. Where ten millions of one race, which increases at a rate that doubles its numbers every forty years, confront within the borders of one country another race, the most opposite to it on earth, there must exist a question grave enough in the present and likely to become stupendous in the future. Next to Representative Government, this is to-day the[Pg ix] most tremendous question which faces directly one-third of the people of the United States, and only less immediately all of them. It includes the labor question of the South, and must, in time, affect that of the whole country. It does more; it affects all those conditions which make life endurable and, perhaps, even possible in a dozen States of the Union. Wherever it exists, it is so vital that it absorbs for the time being all the energies of the people, and excludes due consideration of every other question whatsoever.

[Pg ix]

In dealing with this Question in the past, nearly every mistake that could possibly be made has been made, and to-day, after more than thirty-five years of peace and of material prosperity, the Question is apparently as live as it was over a generation ago, when national passion was allowed to usurp the province of deliberation, and the Negro was taught two fundamental errors: first, that the Southern white was inherently his enemy, and, secondly, that his race could be legislated into equality with the white.

One unfortunate fact is that that portion of the white race living at a distance from the region where the Problem is most vital have been[Pg x] trained to hold almost universally one theory as to the Question, while the 

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