One of the most interesting and valuable instances of the kind that I know of is presented in the case of Mr. George W. Carver, one of our instructors in agriculture at Tuskegee Institute. For some time it has been his custom to prepare articles containing information concerning the conditions of local crops, and warning the farmers against the ravages of certain insects and diseases. The local white papers are always glad to publish these articles, and they are read by white and colored farmers.

Some months ago a white land-holder in Montgomery County asked Mr. Carver to go through his farm with him for the purpose of inspecting it. While doing so Mr. Carver discovered traces of what he thought was a valuable mineral deposit, used in making a certain kind of paint. The interests of the land-owner and the agricultural instructor at once became mutual. Specimens of the deposits were taken to the laboratories of the Tuskegee Institute and analyzed by Mr. Carver. In due time the land-owner received a report of the analysis, together with a statement showing the commercial value and application of the mineral. I shall not go through the whole interesting story, except to say that a stock company, composed of some of the best white people in Alabama, has been organized, and is now preparing to build a factory for the purpose of putting their product on the market. I hardly need to add that Mr. Carver has been freely consulted at every step, and his services generously recognized in the organization of the concern. When the company was being formed the following testimonial, among others, was embodied in the printed copy of the circular:—

"George W. Carver, Director of the Department of Agriculture, Tuskegee, Alabama, says:—

"'The pigment is an ochreous clay. Its value as a paint is due to the presence of ferric oxide, of which it contains more than any of the French, Australian, American, Irish, or Welsh ochres. Ferric oxides have long been recognized as the essential constituents of such paints as Venetian red, Turkish red, oxide red, Indian red, and scarlet. They are most desirable, being quite permanent when exposed to light and air. As a stain they are most valuable.'"

In further proof of what I wish to emphasize, I think I am safe in saying that the work of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, under the late General S. C. Armstrong, was the first to receive any kind of recognition and hearty sympathy from the Southern white people, and General Armstrong was perhaps the first Northern educator of Negroes who won the confidence and cooperation of the white South. The effects of General Armstrong's introduction of industrial education at Hampton, and its extension to the Tuskegee Institute in the far South, are now actively and helpfully apparent in the splendid work being accomplished for the whole South by the Southern Education Board, with Mr. Robert C. Ogden at its head, and by the General Education Board, with Mr. William H. Baldwin, Jr., as its president. Without the introduction of manual training it is doubtful whether such work as is now being wrought through these two boards for both races in the South could have been possible within a quarter of a century to come. Later on in the history of our country it will be recognized and appreciated that the far-reaching and statesman-like efforts of these two boards for general education in the South, under the guidance of the two gentlemen named, and with the cooperation and assistance of such men as Mr. George Foster Peabody, Dr. Wallace Buttrick, Mr. John D. Rockefeller, of the North, and Mr. Edgar Gardner Murphy, Chancellor Hill, Dr. Alderman, Dr. McIver, Dr. Dabney, and others of the South, will have furnished the material for one of the brightest and most encouraging chapters in the history of our country. The fact that we have reached the point where men and women who were so far apart twenty years ago can meet in the South and discuss freely from the same platform questions relating to the industrial, educational, political, moral, and religious development of the two races marks a great step in advance. It is true that as yet the Negro has not been invited to share in these discussions.

Aside from the reasons I have given showing why the South favored industrial education, coupled with intellectual and moral training, many of the whites saw, for example, that the Negroes who were master carpenters and contractors, under the guidance of their owners, could become still greater factors in the development of the South if their children were not suddenly removed from the atmosphere and occupations of their fathers, and if they could be taught to use the thing in hand as a foundation for higher growth. Many of the white people were wise enough to see that such education would enable some of the Negro youths to become more skillful carpenters and contractors, and that if they laid an economic foundation in this way in their generation, they would be laying a foundation for a more abstract education of their children in the future.

Again, a large element of people at the South favored manual training for the Negro because they were wise enough to see that the South was largely free from the restrictive influences of the Northern trades unions, and that such organizations would secure little hold in the South so long as the Negro kept abreast in intelligence and skill with the same class of people elsewhere. Many realized that the South would be tying itself to a body of death if it did not help the Negro up. In this connection I want to call attention to the fact that the official records show that within one year about one million foreigners came into the United States. Notwithstanding this number, practically none went into the Southern states; to be more exact, the records show that in 1892 only 2278 all told went into the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. One ship sometimes brings as many to New York. Various reasons are given to explain why these foreigners systematically avoid the South. One is that the climate is so hot; and another is that they do not like the restrictions thrown about the ballot; and still another is the presence of the Negro is so large numbers. Whatever the true reason is, the fact remains that foreigners avoid the South, and the South is more and more realizing that it cannot keep pace with the progress being made in other parts of the country if a third of its population is ignorant and without skill.

The South must frankly face this truth, that for a long period it must depend upon the black man to do for it what the foreigner is now doing for the great West. If, by reason of his skill and knowledge, one man in Iowa learns to produce as much corn in a season as four men can produce in Alabama, it requires little reasoning to see that Alabama will buy most of her corn from Iowa.

Another interesting result of the introduction of industrial education for the Negro has been its influence upon the white people of the South, and, I believe, upon the whites of the North as well. This phase of it has proved of interest in making hand training a conciliatory element between the races.

In 1883 I was delivering an address on industrial education before the colored State Teachers' Association of one of our Southern states. When I had finished, some of the teachers began to ask the State Superintendent of Education, who was on the programme, some questions about the subject. He politely but firmly stopped the questions by stating that he knew absolutely nothing about industrial training, and had never heard it discussed before. At that time there was no such education being given at any white institution in that state. With one or two exceptions this case will illustrate what was true of all the Southern states. A careful investigation of the subject will show that it was not until after industrial education was started among the colored people, and its value proved, that it was taken up by the Southern white people.

Manual training or industrial and technical schools for the whites have, for the most part, been established under state auspices, and are at this time chiefly maintained by the states. An investigation would also show that in securing money from the state legislatures for the purpose of introducing hand work, one of the main arguments used was the existence and success of industrial training among the Negroes. It was often argued that the white boys and girls would be left behind unless they had the opportunities for securing the same kind of training that was being given the colored people. Although it is, I think, not generally known, it is a fact that since the idea of industrial or technical education for white people took root within the last few years, much more money is spent annually for such education for the whites than for the colored people. Any one who has not looked into the subject will be surprised to find how thorough and high grade the work is. Take, for example, the state of Georgia, and it will be found that several times as much is being spent at the Industrial College for white girls at Milledgeville, and at the technical school for whites at Atlanta, as is being spent in the whole state for the industrial education of Negro youths. I have met no Southern white educators who have not been generous in their praise of the Negro schools for taking the initiative in hand training. This fact has again served to create in matters relating to education a bond of sympathy between the two races in the South. Referring again to the influence of industrial training for the Negro in education, in the Northern states I find, while writing this article, the following announcement in the advertisement of what is perhaps the most high-priced and exclusive girls' seminary in Massachusetts:—

"In planning a system of education for young ladies, with the view of fitting them for the greatest usefulness in life, the idea was conceived of supplementing the purely intellectual work by a practical training in the art of home management and its related subjects.

"It was the first school of high literary grade to introduce courses in Domestic Science into the regular curriculum.

"The results were so gratifying as to lead to the equipment of Experiment Hall, a special building, fitted for the purpose of studying the principles of Applied Housekeeping. Here the girls do the actual work of cooking, marketing, arranging menus, and attend to all the affairs of a well-arranged household.

"Courses are arranged also in sewing, dressmaking, and millinery; they are conducted on a similarly practical basis, and equip the student with a thorough knowledge of the subject."

A dozen years ago I do not believe that any such announcement would have been made.

Beginning with the year 1877, the Negro in the South lost practically all political control; that is to say, as early as 1885 the Negro scarcely had any members of his race in the national Congress or state legislatures, and long before this date had ceased to hold state offices. This was true, notwithstanding the protests and fervent oratory of such strong race leaders as Frederick Douglass, B. K. Bruce, John R. Lynch, P. B. S. Pinchback, and John M. Langston, with a host of others. When Frederick Douglass, the greatest man that the race has produced, died in 1895, it is safe to say that the Negro in the Southern states, with here and there a few exceptions, had practically no political control or political influence, except in sending delegates to national conventions, or in holding a few Federal positions by appointment. It became evident to many of the wise Negroes that the race would have to depend for its success in the future less upon political agitations and the opportunity of holding office, and more upon something more tangible and substantial. It was at this period in the Negro's development, when the distance between the races was greatest, and the spirit and ambition of the colored people most depressed, that the idea of industrial or business development was introduced and began to be made prominent. It did not take the more level-headed members of the race long to see that while the Negro in the South was surrounded by many difficulties, there was practically no line drawn and little race discrimination in the world of commerce, banking, storekeeping, manufacturing, and the skilled trades, and in agriculture, and that in this lay his great opportunity. They understood that, while the whites might object to a Negro's being a postmaster, they would not object to his being the president of a bank, and in the latter occupation they would give him assistance and encouragement. The colored people were quick to see that while the negro would not be invited as a rule to attend the white man's prayer-meeting, he would be invited every time to attend the stockholders' meeting of a business concern in which he had an interest and that he could buy property in practically any portion of the South where the white man could buy it. The white citizens were all the more willing to encourage the Negro in this economic or industrial development, because they saw that the prosperity of the Negro meant also the prosperity of the white man. They saw, too, that when a Negro became the owner of a home and was a taxpayer, having a regular trade or other occupation, he at once became a conservative and safe citizen and voter; one who would consider the interests of his whole community before casting his ballot; and, further, one whose ballot could not be purchased.

One case in point is that of the twenty-eight teachers at our school in Tuskegee who applied for life-voting certificates under the new constitution of Alabama, not one was refused registration; and if I may be forgiven a personal reference, in my own case, the Board of Registers were kind enough to send me a special request to the effect that they wished me not to fail to register as a life voter. I do not wish to convey the impression that all worthy colored people have been registered in Alabama, because there have been many inexcusable and unlawful omissions; but, with few exceptions, the 2700 who have been registered represent the best Negroes in the state.

Though in some parts of the country he is now misunderstood, I believe that the time is going to come when matters can be weighed soberly, and when the whole people are going to see that president Roosevelt is, and has been from the first, in line with this policy,—that of encouraging the colored people who by industry and economy have won their way into the confidence and respect of their neighbors. Both before and since he became President I have had many conversations with him, and at all times I have found him enthusiastic over the plan that I have described.

The growth of the race in industrial and business directions within the last few years cannot perhaps be better illustrated than by the fact that what is now the largest secular national organization among the colored people is the National Negro Business League. This organization brings together annually hundreds of men and women who have worked their way up from the bottom to the point where they are now in some cases bankers, merchants, manufacturers, planters, etc. The sight of this body of men and women would surprise a large part of American citizens who do not really know the better side of the Negro's life.

It ought to be stated frankly here that at first, and for several years after the introduction of industrial training at such educational centres as Hampton and Tuskegee, there was opposition from colored people, and from portions of those Northern white people engaged in educational and missionary work among the colored people in the South. Most of those who manifested such opposition were actuated by the highest and most honest motives. From the first the rank and file of the blacks were quick to see the advantages of industrial training, as is shown by the fact that industrial schools have always been overcrowded. Opposition to industrial training was based largely on the old and narrow ground that it was something that the Southern white people favored, and therefore must be against the interests of the Negro. Again, others opposed it because they feared that it meant the abandonment of all political privileges, and the higher or classical education of the race. They feared that the final outcome would be the materialization of the Negro, and the smothering of his spiritual and aesthetic nature. Others felt that industrial education had for its object the limitation of the Negro's development, and the branding him for all time as a special hand-working class.

Now that enough time has elapsed for those who opposed it to see that it meant none of these things, opposition, except from a very few of the colored people living in Boston and Washington, has ceased, and this system has the enthusiastic support of the Negroes and of most of the whites who formerly opposed it. All are beginning to see that it was never meant that ALL Negro youths should secure industrial education, any more than it is meant that ALL white youths should pass through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or the Amherst Agricultural College, to the exclusion of such training as is given at Harvard, Yale, or Dartmouth; but that in a peculiar sense a large proportion of the Negro youths needed to have that education which would enable them to secure an economic foundation, without which no people can succeed in any of the higher walks of life.

It is because of the fact that the Tuskegee Institute began at the bottom, with work in the soil, in wood, in iron, in leather, that it has now developed to the point where it is able to furnish employment as teachers to twenty-eight Negro graduates of the best colleges in the country. This is about three times as many Negro college graduates as any other institution in the United States for the education of colored people employs, the total number of officers and instructors at Tuskegee being about one hundred and ten.

Those who once opposed this see now that while the Negro youth who becomes skilled in agriculture and a successful farmer may not be able himself to pass through a purely literary college, he is laying the foundation for his children and grandchildren to do it if desirable. Industrial education in this generation is contributing in the highest degree to make what is called higher education a success. It is now realized that in so far as the race has intelligent and skillful producers, the greater will be the success of the minister, lawyer, doctor, and teacher. Opposition has melted away, too, because all men now see that it will take a long time to "materialize" a race, millions of which hold neither houses nor railroads, nor bank stocks, nor factories, nor coal and gold mines.

Another reason for the growth of a better understanding of the objects and influence of industrial training is the fact, as before stated, that it has been taken up with such interest and activity by the Southern whites, and that it has been established at such universities as Cornell in the East, and in practically all of the state colleges of the great West.

It is now seen that the result of such education will be to help the black man to make for himself an independent place in our great American life. It was largely the poverty of the Negro that made him the prey of designing politicians immediately after the war; and wherever poverty and lack of industry exist to-day, one does not find in him that deep spiritual life which the race must in the future possess in a higher degree.

To those who still express the fear that perhaps too much stress is put upon industrial education for the Negro I would add that I should emphasize the same kind of training for any people, whether black or white, in the same stage of development as the masses of the colored people.

For a number of years this country has looked to Germany for much in the way of education, and a large number of our brightest men and women are sent there each year. The official reports show that in Saxony, Germany, alone, there are 287 industrial schools, or one such school to every 14,641 people. This is true of a people who have back of them centuries of wealth and culture. In the South I am safe in saying that there is not more than one effective industrial school for every 400,000 colored people.

A recent dispatch from Germany says that the German Emperor has had a kitchen fitted up in the palace for the single purpose of having his daughter taught cooking. If all classes and nationalities, who are in most cases thousands of years ahead of the Negro in the arts of civilization, continue their interest in industrial training, I cannot understand how any reasonable person can object to such education for a large part of a people who are in the poverty-stricken condition that is true of a large element of my race, especially when such hand training is combined, as it should be, with the best education of head and heart.



THE NEGRO IN THE REGULAR ARMY by Oswald Garrison Villard

When the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment stormed Fort Wagner July 18, 1863, only to be driven back with the loss of its colonel, Robert Gould Shaw, and many of its rank and file, it established for all time the fact that the colored soldier would fight and fight well. This had already been demonstrated in Louisiana by colored regiments under the command of General Godfrey Weitzel in the attack upon Port Hudson on May 27 of the same year. On that occasion regiments composed for the greater part of raw recruits, plantation hands with centuries of servitude under the lash behind them, stormed trenches and dashed upon cold steel in the hands of their former masters and oppressors. After that there was no more talk in the portion of the country of the "natural cowardice" of the negro. But the heroic qualities of Colonel Shaw, his social prominence and that of his officers, and the comparative nearness of their battlefield to the North, attracted greater and more lasting attention to the daring and bravery of their exploit, until it finally became fixed in many minds as the first real baptism of fire of colored American soldiers.

After Wagner the recruiting of colored regiments, originally opposed by both North and South, went on apace, particularly under the Federal government, which organized no less than one hundred and fifty-four, designated as "United States Colored Troops." Colonel Shaw's raising of a colored regiment aroused quite as much comment in the North because of the race prejudice it defied, as because of the novelty of the new organization. General Weitzel tendered his resignation the instant General B. F. Butler assigned black soldiers to his brigade, and was with difficulty induced to serve on. His change of mind was a wise one, and not only because these colored soldiers covered him with glory at Port Hudson. It was his good fortune to be the central figure in one of the dramatic incidents of a war that must ever rank among the most thrilling and tragic the world has seen. The black cavalrymen who rode into Richmond, the first of the Northern troops to enter the Southern capital, went in waving their sabres and crying to the negroes on the sidewalks, "We have come to set you free!" They were from the division of Godfrey Weitzel, and American history has no more stirring moment.

In the South, notwithstanding the raising in 1861 of a colored Confederate regiment by Governor Moore of Louisiana (a magnificent body of educated colored men which afterwards became the First Louisiana National Guards of General Weitzel's brigade and the first colored regiment in the Federal Army), the feeling against negro troops was insurmountable until the last days of the struggle. Then no straw could be overlooked. When, in December, 1863, Major-General Patrick R. Cleburne, who commanded a division of Hardee's Corps of the Confederate Army of the Tennessee, sent in a paper in which the employment of the slaves as soldiers of the South was vigorously advocated, Jefferson Davis indorsed it with the statement, "I deem it inexpedient at this time to give publicity to this paper, and request that it be suppressed." General Cleburne urged that "freedom within a reasonable time" be granted to every slave remaining true to the Confederacy, and was moved to this action by the valor of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, saying, "If they [the negroes] can be made to face and fight bravely against their former masters, how much more probable is it that with the allurement of a higher reward, and led by those masters, they would submit to discipline and face dangers?"

With the ending of the civil war the regular army of the United States was reorganized upon a peace footing by an act of Congress dated July 28, 1866. In just recognition of the bravery of the colored volunteers six regiments, the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry and the Thirty-eighth, Thirty-ninth, Fortieth, and Forth-first Infantry, were designated as colored regiments. When the army was again reduced in 1869, the Thirty-eighth and Forty-first became the Twenty-fourth Infantry, and the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth became the Twenty-fifth. This left four colored regiments in the regular army as it was constituted from 1870 until 1901. There has never been a colored artillery organization in the regular service.

To these new regiments came a motley mixture of veterans of volunteer organizations, newly released slaves, and some freedmen of several years' standing but without military experience. They were eager to learn, and soon showed the same traits which distinguish the black regiments to-day,—loyalty to their officers and to their colors, sobriety and courage, and a notable pride in the efficiency of their corps. But if ever officers had to "father and mother" their soldiers they were the company officers of these regiments. The captains in particular had to be bankers, secretaries, advisers, and judges for their men. As Lieutenant Grote Hutcheson has stated it, "The men knew nothing, and the non-commissioned officers but little more. From the very circumstances of their preceding life it could not be otherwise. They had no independence, no self-reliance, not a thought except for the present, and were filled with superstition." Yet the officers were determined to prove the wisdom of the experiment. To do this they were forced to give their own attention to the minutest details of military administration, and to act as non-commissioned officers. The total lack of education among the men necessitated an enormous amount of writing by the officers. In the Ninth Cavalry only one man was found able to write well enough to be sergeant-major, and not for several years was it possible to obtain troop clerks. When the Tenth Cavalry was being recruited an officer was sent to Philadelphia with the express purpose of picking up educated colored men for the non-commissioned positions. Difficult as the tasks of the officers thus were, most of them felt well repaid for their unusual labors by the affectionate regard in which they were held by their soldiers, and by the never-failing good humor with which the latter went about their duties.

As the years passed the character of the colored soldiers naturally changed. In place of the war veterans, and of the men whose chains of servitude had just been struck off, came young men from the North and East with more education and more self-reliance. They depended less upon their officers, both in the barracks and in the field, yet they reverenced and cared for them as much as did their predecessors. Their greatest faults then as now were gambling and quarreling. On the other hand, the negro regiments speedily became favorably known because of greater sobriety and of fewer desertions than among the white soldiers. It was the Ninth Cavalry which a few years ago astonished the army by reporting not a single desertion in twelve months, an unheard-of and perhaps undreamed-of record. In all that goes to make a good soldier, in drill, fidelity, and smartness, the negro regular from the first took front rank.

Nor was there ever any lack of the fighting quality which had gratified the nation at Fort Wagner, or at Fort Blakely, Ala., where the Seventy-third Colored Infantry, under Colonel Henry C. Merriam, stormed the enemy's works, in advance of orders, in one of the last actions of the war. It soon fell to the lot of the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry to prove that the negroes could do as well under fire in the Indian wars as they had when fighting for the freedom of their race. While the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantry had merely garrison work to do, the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry scouted for years against hostile Indians in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas, always acquitting themselves honorably. In September, 1868, a little over two years after their organization, three troops of the Ninth Cavalry did well in an action against Indians at Horsehead Hills, Texas. When General George A. Forsyth and his detachment of fifty scouts were surrounded and "corralled" by seven hundred Indians on an island in the Republican River, it was the troop of Captain Louis H. Carpenter, of the Tenth Cavalry, which first came to their rescue. Similarly when Major T. T. Thornburg's command was nearly wiped out by Utes in 1879, it was Captain F. S. Dodge's Troop D of the Ninth which succeeded in reaching it in time, losing all its horses in so doing. This regiment alone took part in sixty Indian fights between 1868 and 1890, during which time it lost three officers and twenty-seven men killed, and had three officers and thirty-four men wounded. The Tenth Cavalry's casualties were also heavy during this same period, and it fought for many years over a most difficult country in New Mexico and Arizona, taking a conspicuous part in running to earth Geronimo's and Victoria's bands of Apaches.

On one of these campaigns Lieutenant Powhatan H. Clarke gave effective proof of the affection which the officers of colored regiments have for their men. In the fight in the Pineto Mountains with a portion of Geronimo's forces this young Southerner risked his life to save a colored sergeant who had fallen wounded in an open space where both he and his rescuer were easy marks for the Apaches. For this gallant act Lieutenant Clarke rightly received a medal of honor. The Twenty-fourth Infantry, on the other hand, has contributed a striking instance of the devotion of colored soldiers to their officers. When Major Joseph W. Wham, paymaster, was attacked by robbers on May 11, 1889, his colored escort fought with such gallantry that every one of the soldiers was awarded a medal of honor or a certificate of merit. Some of them stood their ground although badly wounded, notably Sergeant Benjamin Brown, who continued to fight and to encourage his men until shot through both arms. In a fight against Apaches in the Cuchilo Negro Mountains of New Mexico on August 16, 1881, Moses Williams, First Sergeant of Troop I, Ninth Cavalry, displayed such gallantry that he was given a medal of honor by common consent. When the only officer with the detachment, Lieutenant Gustavus Valois, had his horse shot under him, and was cut off from his men, Sergeant Williams promptly rallied the detachment, and conducted the right flank in a running fight for several hours with such coolness, bravery, and unflinching devotion to duty that he undoubtedly saved the lives of at least three comrades. His action in standing by and rescuing Lieutenant Valois was the more noteworthy because he and his men were subjected, in an exposed position, to a heavy fire from a large number of Indians. For splendid gallantry against Indians, while serving as sergeant of Troop K, Ninth Cavalry, on May 14, 1880, and August 12, 1881, George Jordan was also given a medal of honor. Five of the medal of honor men now in the service are colored soldiers, while fifteen others have "certificates of merit" also awarded for conspicuous deeds of bravery.

It was not until the battle of Santiago, however, that the bulk of the American people realized that the standing army comprised regiments composed wholly of black men. Up to that time only one company of colored soldiers had served at a post east of the Mississippi. Even Major, later Brigadier-General, Guy V. Henry's gallop to the rescue of the Seventh Cavalry on December 30, 1890, with four troops of the Ninth Cavalry, attracted but little attention. This feat was the more remarkable because Major Henry's command had just completed a march of more than one hundred miles in twenty-four hours. But in the battle at Santiago, the four colored regiments won praise from all sides, particularly for their advance upon Kettle Hill, in which the Rough Riders also figured. From the very beginning of the movement of the army after its landing, the negro troops were in the front of the fighting, and contributed largely to the successful result. Although they suffered heavy losses, especially in officers, the men fought with the same gallantry they had displayed on the plains, as is attested by the honors awarded. In every company there were instances of personal gallantry. The first sergeants especially lived up to the responsibilities placed upon them. The color sergeant of the Tenth Cavalry, Adam Houston, bore to the front not only his own flags, but those of the Third Cavalry when the latter's color sergeant was shot down. In several emergencies where troops or companies lost their white officers, the senior sergeants took command and handled their men in a faultless manner, notably in the Tenth Cavalry.

Indeed, the conduct of these men has done much to dispel the old belief that colored soldiers will fight only when they have efficient white officers. This may well have been true at one period of the civil war when the colored race as a whole had never even had the responsibilities attaching to free men. It is growing less and less true as time passes and better educated men enter the ranks. In recognition of their achievements at Santiago a number of these black non-commissioned officers were made commissioned officers in several of the so-called "immune" regiments of United States Volunteers raised in July, 1898. None of these organizations were in service long enough to become really efficient, and a few were never properly disciplined. Nevertheless, a majority of the officers promoted from the colored regulars bore themselves well under exceedingly trying circumstances. Some of them, and a number of regular sergeants and corporals who had succeeded to their former places, were made lieutenants and captains in the Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Volunteer Infantry, which served in the Philippines for two years, and to which we shall recur later.

At Santiago the characteristic cheerfulness of the negro soldiers was as striking as their bravery. In his little book called The Nth Foot In War, Lieutenant M. B. Stewart says of them:—

"The negro troops were in a high good humor. They had made the charge of the day; they had fought with a dash and vigor which forever established their reputation as fighters, and which would carry them down in the pages of history. To have heard them that night no one would have ever thought that they had lived for twelve mortal hours under a galling fire. They were laughing and joking over the events of the day, in the same manner they would have done had they been returning from a picnic.

"'Golly,' laughed a six-foot sergeant, 'dere was music in de air sho' nuff. Dat lead was flying around in sheets, I tell you. I seen a buzzard flying around in front of our line, and I says to myself, "Buzzard, you is in a mighty dangerous position. You better git out uf dat, 'cause dey ain't room out dar for a muskeeter."' Another remarked, 'Say, did you see dat man Brown; pity dat man been killed. He'd a been a corporal, sho.'

"In the utter exhaustion of the moment all race and social distinctions were forgotten. Officers lay down among their men and slept like logs. The negro troops sought out soft places along the sides of the road and lay down with their white comrades. There was a little commotion among the latter, and an officer was heard to yell: 'Here, you man, take your feet off my stomach. Well, I'll be damned if it ain't a nigger. Get out, you black rascal.' As the commotion subsided, the negro was heard to remark, 'Well, if dat ain't de mos' particler man I ever see.'"

Characteristic also is a story of the negro cavalryman who, returning to the rear, said to some troops anxious to get to the front: "Dat's all right, gemmen; don't git in a sweat; dere's lots of it lef' for you. You wants to look out for dese yere sharpshooters, for dey is mighty careless with dere weapons, and dey is specially careless when dey is officers aroun'."

As soon as the army settled down in the trenches before Santiago, smuggled musical instruments—guitars, banjos, mouth organs, and what not—appeared among the negro troops as if by magic, and they were ever in use. It was at once a scene of cheerfulness and gayety, and the officers had their usual trouble in making the men go to sleep instead of spending the night in talking, singing, and gaming. In the peaceful camp of the Third Alabama, in that state, the scenes were similar. There was always "a steady hum of laughter and talk, dance, song, shout, and the twang of musical instruments." It was "a scene full of life and fun, of jostling, scuffling, and racing, of clown performances and cake-walks, of impromptu minstrelsy, speech-making, and preaching, of deviling, guying, and fighting, both real and mimic." The colonel found great difficulty in getting men to work alone. Two would volunteer for any service. "Colonel," said a visitor to the camp, "your sentinels are sociable fellows. I saw No. 5 over at the end of his beat entertaining No. 6 with some fancy manual of arms. Afterwards, with equal amiability, No. 6 executed a most artistic cake-walk for his friend." It must be remembered here that this colonel's men were typical Southern negroes, literate and illiterate, and all new to military life.

In addition to the Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Volunteers, the four regular colored regiments have served in the Philippines. Here the work was particularly trying and the temptations to misconduct many. The Filipino women were especially attractive to the men because of their color, and it is on record that several soldiers were tempted from their allegiance to the United States. Two of these, whose sympathy and liking for the Filipinos overcame their judgment, paid the full penalty of desertion, being hanged by their former comrades. Both belonged to the Ninth Cavalry. On the other hand, in a remarkable order issued by General A. S. Burt in relinquishing command of the Twenty-fifth Infantry, on April 17, 1902, on his promotion to brigadier-general, he was able to quote the Inspector-General of the army as saying: "The Twenty-fifth Infantry is the best regiment I have seen in the Philippines." General Burt praised highly the excellent conduct of the enlisted men while in the Archipelago, which proved to his mind that the American negroes are "as law-abiding as any race in the world."

Three of General Burt's sergeants, Russell, McBryar, and Hoffman, were promoted to the Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Volunteers, and served, as lieutenants, for several months with their old regiment, the Twenty-fifth, until the arrival of their new regiments in Manila. During this time they were frequently under fire. General Burt bore high testimony to their soldierly bearing, their capacity and ability, and expressed great regret when he was forced to let them go. McBryar had won a medal of honor for gallantry against Indians in Arizona in 1890. In the Forty-ninth Volunteers, Company L, composed wholly of colored men, and commanded by Captain Edward L. Baker, a colored veteran of Santiago, who had served for seventeen years in the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry and in the Tenth "Immunes," made a wonderful record. According to a statement which was widely published at the time and never denied, this company had on its rolls during a period of twelve months one hundred and six men who were fit for duty at all times and never lost a day on account of sickness. No white company remotely approached this record. More extraordinary still is the fact that during this same period not one of these men ever went before a court-martial. This is surely a striking illustration of what can be done by colored officers. It is noticeable, too, that neither the officers nor the men of any colored regiment have figured in the charges and counter-charges arising out of the use of the water-torture, except one man who at the time of his offense was not with his regiment. The Forty-ninth Volunteers was a very unhappy regiment during its brief life, but its troubles were largely due to its white officers. One of these, a major, was dismissed for misconduct, and his place was filled by the senior captain, a colored man. Several other white officers and one colored captain got into serious trouble, the last being dismissed. The Forty-eighth was, on the contrary, a contented organization in which the colored officers were treated in a kindly and courteous manner by their white associates and superiors. The two regiments afford a striking illustration of Napoleon's saying, "There are no such things as poor regiments,—only poor colonels."

The negro regiment unquestionably calls for different treatment from that which would be accorded to white troops, just as the Indian troops of King Edward's army require different handling from that called for in the case of the King's Royal Rifles. Yet as fighting machines, the Indian soldiers may be the equals if not the superiors of the Englishmen. Major Robert L. Bullard, Twenty-eighth United States Infantry who commanded the colored Third Alabama Volunteers, already referred to, during the war with Spain, discusses in a remarkable paper published in the United Service Magazine for July, 1901, the differences between negro and white soldiers. They are so great, he says, as to require the military commander to treat the negro as a different species. He must fit his methods of instruction and discipline to the characteristics of the race. Major Bullard adds that "mistakes, injustices, and failures would result from his making the same rules and methods apply to the two races without regard to how far apart set by nature or separated by evolution." But Major Bullard would unquestionably concede that these differences in no way require a treatment of the negro soldier which implies that he is an inferior being and which ever impresses upon him his inferiority. Yet this seems to have been the case in the Forty-ninth United States Volunteers.

In the regular army, as well as in the volunteers, officers have frequently appealed with success to the negroes' pride of race, and have urged them on to greater efficiency and better behavior by reminding them that they have the honor of their people in their hands. To such appeals there is ever a prompt response. One of the most effective ways of disciplining an offender is by holding him up to the ridicule of his fellows. The desire of the colored soldiers to amuse and to be amused gives the officers an easy way of obtaining a hold upon them and their affections. The regimental rifle team, the baseball nine, the minstrel troupe, and the regimental band offer positions of importance for which the competition is much keener than in the white regiments. There is also a friendly rivalry between companies, which is much missed elsewhere in the service. The negroes are natural horsemen and riders. It is a pleasure to them to take care of their mounts, and a matter of pride to keep their animals in good condition. Personally they are clean and neat, and they take the greatest possible pride in their uniforms. In no white regiment is there a similar feeling. With the negroes the canteen question is of comparatively slight importance, not only because the men can be more easily amused within their barracks, but because their appetite for drink is by no means as strong as that of the white men. Their sociability is astonishing. They would rather sit up and tell stories and crack jokes than go to bed, no matter how hard the day has been.

The dark sides are, that the negro soldiers easily turn merited punishment into martyrdom, that their gambling propensities are almost beyond control, that their habit of carrying concealed weapons is incurable, and that there is danger of serious fighting when they fall out with one another. Frequent failure to act honorably toward a comrade in some trifling matter is apt to cause scuffling and fighting until the men are well disciplined. Women are another cause of quarrels, and are at all times a potent temptation to misconduct and neglect of duty. It is very difficult to impress upon the men the value of government property, and duty which requires memorizing of orders is always the most difficult to teach. For the study of guard duty manuals or of tactics they have no natural aptitude. The non-commissioned officers are of very great importance, and in the regulars they are looked up to and obeyed implicitly, much more so than is the case with white troops. It is necessary, however, for the officers to back up the sergeants and corporals very vigorously, even when they are slightly in the wrong. Then colored men are more easily "rattled" by poor officers than are their white comrades. There was a striking instance of this two or three years ago when a newly appointed and wholly untrained white officer lost his head at a post in Texas. His black subordinates, largely recruits, followed suit, and in carrying out his hysterical orders imperiled many lives in the neighboring town. Selections for service with colored troops should therefore be most carefully made. Major Bullard declares that the officer of negro troops "must not only be an officer and a gentleman, but he must be considerate, patient, laborious, self-sacrificing, a man of affairs, and he must have knowledge and wisdom in a great lot of things not really military."

If the position of a white officer is a difficult one, that of the colored officer is still more so. He has not the self-assumed superiority of the white man, naturally feels that he is on trial, and must worry himself incessantly about his relations to his white comrades of the shoulder straps. While the United States Navy has hitherto been closed to negroes who aspire to be officers, the army has pursued a wiser and more just policy. The contrast between the two services is really remarkable. On almost every war vessel white and black sailors sleep and live together in crowded quarters without protest or friction. But the negro naval officer is kept out of the service by hook or by crook for the avowed reason that the cramped quarters of the wardroom would make association with him intolerable. In the army, on the other hand, the experiment of mixed regiments has never been tried. A good colored soldier can nevertheless obtain a commission by going through West Point, or by rising from the ranks, or by being appointed directly from civil life.

Since the foundation of the Military Academy there have been eighteen colored boys appointed to West Point, of whom fifteen failed in their preliminary examinations, or were discharged after entering because of deficiency in studies. Three were graduated and commissioned as second lieutenants of cavalry, Henry Ossian Flipper, John Hanks Alexander, and Charles Young. Of these, Lieutenant Flipper was dismissed June 30, 1882, for "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman." The other two proved themselves excellent officers, notably Young, who is at this writing a captain, and a most efficient one, in the Ninth Cavalry, with which he recently served in the Philippines. Lieutenant Alexander died suddenly in 1894. In announcing his death in a regimental order his colonel spoke of him in terms of high praise, and did not use the customary stereotyped phrases of regret. His fellow white officers all had good words for him. There never was more striking testimony to the discipline and spirit of fairness at West Point than was afforded by the sight of Cadet Charles Young, who is of very dark complexion, commanding white cadets. Nothing else has impressed foreign visitors at West Point half so much.

An equally remarkable happening, and one which speaks even more for the democratic spirit in the army, was the commissioning in 1901 of Sergeant-Major Benjamin O. Davis, Ninth Cavalry, and of Corporal John E. Green, Twenty-fourth Infantry. Both these men were examined by boards of white officers, who might easily have excluded them because of color prejudice, in which case there would have been no appeal from their findings. Lieutenant Davis's former troop commander, a West Pointer, openly rejoiced at his success, and predicted that he would make an excellent officer. These are the first two colored men to rise from the ranks, but there will be many more if the same admirable spirit of fair play continues to rule in the army and is not altered by outside prejudice. It was thought that there would be a severe strain upon discipline when a colored officer rose to the rank of captain and to the command of white officers. But in Captain Young's case his white subordinates seem to have realized that it is the position and rank that they are compelled to salute and obey, and not the individual. This principle is at the bottom of all discipline. Only too frequently do subordinates throughout the army have to remind themselves of this when obeying men for whose social qualities and character they have neither regard nor respect. During the war with Spain Captain Young commanded a negro battalion from Ohio, which was pronounced the best drilled organization in the large army assembled at Camp Alger near Washington. In addition to these officers, Captain John R. Lynch, formerly a Congressman from Mississippi, and four colored chaplains represent their race on the commissioned rolls of the army. All of these men are doing well. One colored chaplain was dismissed for drunkenness in 1894. Beyond this their record is unblemished.

Despite the fairness shown in these appointments, there has been considerable very just criticism of the War Department for its failure to appoint to the regulars any of the colored officers who did well in the Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Volunteers. Every colonel of volunteers was allowed to designate for examination for appointment to the regular army the best officers in his regiment. Hundreds of white officers were selected in this way, but not a single colored officer was given an examination,—not even Lieutenant McBryar, with his medal of honor, or Captain Baker. Similarly fault has been found with Secretary Root because no new colored regiments were established under the law of February 2, 1901, increasing the army by five regiments of infantry, five of cavalry, and a large number of companies of artillery. The excuse most often heard is that the negroes already have sufficient representation in comparison with the percentage of negroes to white persons within the borders of the United States. But the sterling characteristics of the colored soldiers, their loyalty to the service as shown by the statistics of desertion, and, above all, their splendid service in Cuba, should have entitled them to additional organizations. To say the least, the decision of the War Department smacks considerably of ingratitude. Nevertheless, the negro regiments have come to stay, both in the regulars and in the volunteers. The hostilities of the last five years have dispelled any doubt which may have existed upon this point.



BAXTER'S PROCRUSTES by Charles W. Chesnutt

Baxter's Procrustes is one of the publications of the Bodleian Club. The Bodleian Club is composed of gentlemen of culture, who are interested in books and book-collecting. It was named, very obviously, after the famous library of the same name, and not only became in our city a sort of shrine for local worshipers of fine bindings and rare editions, but was visited occasionally by pilgrims from afar. The Bodleian has entertained Mark Twain, Joseph Jefferson, and other literary and histrionic celebrities. It possesses quite a collection of personal mementos of distinguished authors, among them a paperweight which once belonged to Goethe, a lead pencil used by Emerson, an autograph letter of Matthew Arnold, and a chip from a tree felled by Mr. Gladstone. Its library contains a number of rare books, including a fine collection on chess, of which game several of the members are enthusiastic devotees.

The activities of the club are not, however, confined entirely to books. We have a very handsome clubhouse, and much taste and discrimination have been exercised in its adornment. There are many good paintings, including portraits of the various presidents of the club, which adorn the entrance hall. After books, perhaps the most distinctive feature of the club is our collection of pipes. In a large rack in the smoking-room—really a superfluity, since smoking is permitted all over the house—is as complete an assortment of pipes as perhaps exists in the civilized world. Indeed, it is an unwritten rule of the club that no one is eligible for membership who cannot produce a new variety of pipe, which is filed with his application for membership, and, if he passes, deposited with the club collection, he, however, retaining the title in himself. Once a year, upon the anniversary of the death of Sir Walter Raleigh, who it will be remembered, first introduced tobacco into England, the full membership of the club, as a rule, turns out. A large supply of the very best smoking mixture is laid in. At nine o'clock sharp each member takes his pipe from the rack, fills it with tobacco, and then the whole club, with the president at the head, all smoking furiously, march in solemn procession from room to room, upstairs and downstairs, making the tour of the clubhouse and returning to the smoking-room. The president then delivers an address, and each member is called upon to say something, either by way of a quotation or an original sentiment, in praise of the virtues of nicotine. This ceremony—facetiously known as "hitting the pipe"—being thus concluded, the membership pipes are carefully cleaned out and replaced in the club rack.

As I have said, however, the raison d'etre of the club, and the feature upon which its fame chiefly rests, is its collection of rare books, and of these by far the most interesting are its own publications. Even its catalogues are works of art, published in numbered editions, and sought by libraries and book-collectors. Early in its history it began the occasional publication of books which should meet the club standard,—books in which emphasis should be laid upon the qualities that make a book valuable in the eyes of collectors. Of these, age could not, of course, be imparted, but in the matter of fine and curious bindings, of hand-made linen papers, of uncut or deckle edges, of wide margins and limited editions, the club could control its own publications. The matter of contents was, it must be confessed, a less important consideration. At first it was felt by the publishing committee that nothing but the finest products of the human mind should be selected for enshrinement in the beautiful volumes which the club should issue. The length of the work was an important consideration,—long things were not compatible with wide margins and graceful slenderness. For instance, we brought out Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, an essay by Emerson, and another by Thoreau. Our Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was Heron-Allen's translation of the original MS in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, which, though less poetical than FitzGerald's, was not so common. Several years ago we began to publish the works of our own members. Bascom's Essay on Pipes was a very creditable performance. It was published in a limited edition of one hundred copies, and since it had not previously appeared elsewhere and was copyrighted by the club, it was sufficiently rare to be valuable for that reason. The second publication of local origin was Baxter's Procrustes.

I have omitted to say that once or twice a year, at a meeting of which notice has been given, an auction is held at the Bodleian. The members of the club send in their duplicate copies, or books they for any reason wish to dispose of, which are auctioned off to the highest bidder. At these sales, which are well attended, the club's publications have of recent years formed the leading feature. Three years ago, number three of Bascom's Essay on Pipes sold for fifteen dollars;—the original cost of publication was one dollar and seventy-five cents. Later in the evening an uncut copy of the same brought thirty dollars. At the next auction the price of the cut copy was run up to twenty-five dollars, while the uncut copy was knocked down at seventy-five dollars. The club had always appreciated the value of uncut copies, but this financial indorsement enhanced their desirability immensely. This rise in the Essay on Pipes was not without a sympathetic effect upon all the club publications. The Emerson essay rose from three dollars to seventeen, and the Thoreau, being by an author less widely read, and, by his own confession commercially unsuccessful, brought a somewhat higher figure. The prices, thus inflated, were not permitted to come down appreciably. Since every member of the club possessed one or more of these valuable editions, they were all manifestly interested in keeping up the price. The publication, however, which brought the highest prices, and, but for the sober second thought, might have wrecked the whole system, was Baxter's Procrustes.

Baxter was, perhaps, the most scholarly member of the club. A graduate of Harvard, he had traveled extensively, had read widely, and while not so enthusiastic a collector as some of us, possessed as fine a private library as any man of his age in the city. He was about thirty-five when he joined the club, and apparently some bitter experience—some disappointment in love or ambition—had left its mark upon his character. With light, curly hair, fair complexion, and gray eyes, one would have expected Baxter to be genial of temper, with a tendency toward wordiness of speech. But though he had occasional flashes of humor, his ordinary demeanor was characterized by a mild cynicism, which, with his gloomy pessimistic philosophy, so foreign to the temperament that should accompany his physical type, could only be accounted for upon the hypothesis of some secret sorrow such as I have suggested. What it might be no one knew. He had means and social position, and was an uncommonly handsome man. The fact that he remained unmarried at thirty-five furnished some support for the theory of a disappointment in love, though this the several intimates of Baxter who belonged to the club were not able to verify.

It had occurred to me, in a vague way, that perhaps Baxter might be an unsuccessful author. That he was a poet we knew very well, and typewritten copies of his verses had occasionally circulated among us. But Baxter had always expressed such a profound contempt for modern literature, had always spoken in terms of such unmeasured pity for the slaves of the pen, who were dependent upon the whim of an undiscriminating public for recognition and a livelihood, that no one of us had ever suspected him of aspirations toward publication, until, as I have said, it occurred to me one day that Baxter's attitude with regard to publication might be viewed in the light of effect as well as of cause—that his scorn of publicity might as easily arise from failure to achieve it, as his never having published might be due to his preconceived disdain of the vulgar popularity which one must share with the pugilist or balloonist of the hour.

The notion of publishing Baxter's Procrustes did not emanate from Baxter,—I must do him the justice to say this. But he had spoken to several of the fellows about the theme of his poem, until the notion that Baxter was at work upon something fine had become pretty well disseminated throughout our membership. He would occasionally read brief passages to a small coterie of friends in the sitting-room or library,—never more than ten lines at once, or to more than five people at a time,—and these excerpts gave at least a few of us a pretty fair idea of the motive and scope of the poem. As I, for one, gathered, it was quite along the line of Baxter's philosophy. Society was the Procrustes which, like the Greek bandit of old, caught every man born into the world, and endeavored to fit him to some preconceived standard, generally to the one for which he was least adapted. The world was full of men and women who were merely square pegs in round holes, and vice versa. Most marriages were unhappy because the contracting parties were not properly mated. Religion was mostly superstition, science for the most part sciolism, popular education merely a means of forcing the stupid and repressing the bright, so that all the youth of the rising generation might conform to the same dull, dead level of democratic mediocrity. Life would soon become so monotonously uniform and so uniformly monotonous as to be scarce worth the living.

It was Smith, I think, who first proposed that the club publish Baxter's Procrustes. The poet himself did not seem enthusiastic when the subject was broached; he demurred for some little time, protesting that the poem was not worthy of publication. But when it was proposed that the edition be limited to fifty copies he agreed to consider the proposition. When I suggested, having in mind my secret theory of Baxter's failure in authorship, that the edition would at least be in the hands of friends, that it would be difficult for a hostile critic to secure a copy, and that if it should not achieve success from a literary point of view, the extent of the failure would be limited to the size of the edition, Baxter was visibly impressed. When the literary committee at length decided to request formally of Baxter the privilege of publishing his Procrustes, he consented, with evident reluctance, upon condition that he should supervise the printing, binding, and delivery of the books, merely submitting to the committee, in advance, the manuscript, and taking their views in regard to the bookmaking.

The manuscript was duly presented to the literary committee. Baxter having expressed the desire that the poem be not read aloud at a meeting of the club, as was the custom, since he wished it to be given to the world clad in suitable garb, the committee went even farther. Having entire confidence in Baxter's taste and scholarship, they, with great delicacy, refrained from even reading the manuscript, contenting themselves with Baxter's statement of the general theme and the topics grouped under it. The details of the bookmaking, however, were gone into thoroughly. The paper was to be of hand-made linen, from the Kelmscott Mills; the type black-letter, with rubricated initials. The cover, which was Baxter's own selection, was to be of dark green morocco, with a cap-and-bells border in red inlays, and doublures of maroon morocco with a blind-tooled design. Baxter was authorized to contract with the printer and superintend the publication. The whole edition of fifty numbered copies was to be disposed of at auction, in advance, to the highest bidder, only one copy to each, the proceeds to be devoted to paying for the printing and binding, the remainder, if any, to go into the club treasury, and Baxter himself to receive one copy by way of remuneration. Baxter was inclined to protest at this, on the ground that his copy would probably be worth more than the royalties on the edition, at the usual ten per cent, would amount to, but was finally prevailed upon to accept an author's copy.

While the Procrustes was under consideration, some one read, at one of our meetings, a note from some magazine, which stated that a sealed copy of a new translation of Campanella's Sonnets, published by the Grolier Club, had been sold for three hundred dollars. This impressed the members greatly. It was a novel idea. A new work might thus be enshrined in a sort of holy of holies, which, if the collector so desired, could be forever sacred from the profanation of any vulgar or unappreciative eye. The possessor of such a treasure could enjoy it by the eye of imagination, having at the same time the exaltation of grasping what was for others the unattainable. The literary committee were so impressed with this idea that they presented it to Baxter in regard to the Procrustes. Baxter making no objection, the subscribers who might wish their copies delivered sealed were directed to notify the author. I sent in my name. A fine book, after all, was an investment, and if there was any way of enhancing its rarity, and therefore its value, I was quite willing to enjoy such an advantage.

When the Procrustes was ready for distribution, each subscriber received his copy by mail, in a neat pasteboard box. Each number was wrapped in a thin and transparent but very strong paper through which the cover design and tooling were clearly visible. The number of the copy was indorsed upon the wrapper, the folds of which were securely fastened at each end with sealing-wax, upon which was impressed, as a guaranty of its inviolateness, the monogram of the club.

At the next meeting of the Bodleian, a great deal was said about the Procrustes, and it was unanimously agreed that no finer specimen of bookmaking had ever been published by the club. By a curious coincidence, no one had brought his copy with him, and the two club copies had not yet been received from the binder, who, Baxter had reported was retaining them for some extra fine work. Upon resolution, offered by a member who had not subscribed for the volume, a committee of three was appointed to review the Procrustes at the next literary meeting of the club. Of this committee it was my doubtful fortune to constitute one.

In pursuance of my duty in the premises, it of course became necessary for me to read the Procrustes. In all probability I should have cut my own copy for this purpose, had not one of the club auctions intervened between my appointment and the date set for the discussion of the Procrustes. At this meeting a copy of the book, still sealed, was offered for sale, and bought by a non-subscriber for the unprecedented price of one hundred and fifty dollars. After this a proper regard for my own interests would not permit me to spoil my copy by opening it, and I was therefore compelled to procure my information concerning the poem from some other source. As I had no desire to appear mercenary, I said nothing about my own copy, and made no attempt to borrow. I did, however, casually remark to Baxter that I should like to look at his copy of the proof sheets, since I wished to make some extended quotations for my review, and would rather not trust my copy to a typist for that purpose. Baxter assured me, with every evidence of regret, that he had considered them of so little importance that he had thrown them into the fire. This indifference of Baxter to literary values struck me as just a little overdone. The proof sheets of Hamlet, corrected in Shakespeare's own hand, would be well-nigh priceless.

At the next meeting of the club I observed that Thompson and Davis, who were with me on the reviewing committee, very soon brought up the question of the Procrustes in conversation in the smoking-room, and seemed anxious to get from the members their views concerning Baxter's production, I supposed upon the theory that the appreciation of any book review would depend more or less upon the degree to which it reflected the opinion of those to whom the review should be presented. I presumed, of course, that Thompson and Davis had each read the book,—they were among the subscribers,—and I was desirous of getting their point of view.

"What do you think," I inquired, "of the passage on Social Systems?" I have forgotten to say that the poem was in blank verse, and divided into parts, each with an appropriate title.

"Well," replied Davis, it seemed to me a little cautiously, "it is not exactly Spencerian, although it squints at the Spencerian view, with a slight deflection toward Hegelianism. I should consider it an harmonious fusion of the best views of all the modern philosophers, with a strong Baxterian flavor."

"Yes," said Thompson, "the charm of the chapter lies in this very quality. The style is an emanation from Baxter's own intellect,—he has written himself into the poem. By knowing Baxter we are able to appreciate the book, and after having read the book we feel that we are so much the more intimately acquainted with Baxter,—the real Baxter."

Baxter had come in during this colloquy, and was standing by the fireplace smoking a pipe. I was not exactly sure whether the faint smile which marked his face was a token of pleasure or cynicism; it was Baxterian, however, and I had already learned that Baxter's opinions upon any subject were not to be gathered always from his facial expression. For instance, when the club porter's crippled child died Baxter remarked, it seemed to me unfeelingly, that the poor little devil was doubtless better off, and that the porter himself had certainly been relieved of a burden; and only a week later the porter told me in confidence that Baxter had paid for an expensive operation, undertaken in the hope of prolonging the child's life. I therefore drew no conclusions from Baxter's somewhat enigmatical smile. He left the room at this point in the conversation, somewhat to my relief.

"By the way, Jones," said Davis, addressing me, "are you impressed by Baxter's views on Degeneration?"

Having often heard Baxter express himself upon the general downward tendency of modern civilization, I felt safe in discussing his views in a broad and general manner.

"I think," I replied, "that they are in harmony with those of Schopenhauer, without his bitterness; with those of Nordau, without his flippancy. His materialism is Haeckel's, presented with something of the charm of Omar Khayyam."

"Yes," chimed in Davis, "it answers the strenuous demand of our day,—dissatisfaction with an unjustified optimism,—and voices for us the courage of human philosophy facing the unknown."

I had a vague recollection of having read something like this somewhere, but so much has been written, that one can scarcely discuss any subject of importance without unconsciously borrowing, now and then, the thoughts or the language of others. Quotation, like imitation, is a superior grade of flattery.

"The Procrustes," said Thompson, to whom the metrical review had been apportioned, "is couched in sonorous lines, of haunting melody and charm; and yet so closely inter-related as to be scarcely quotable with justice to the author. To be appreciated the poem should be read as a whole,—I shall say as much in my review. What shall you say of the letter-press?" he concluded, addressing me. I was supposed to discuss the technical excellence of the volume from the connoisseur's viewpoint.

"The setting," I replied judicially, "is worthy of the gem. The dark green cover, elaborately tooled, the old English lettering, the heavy linen paper, mark this as one of our very choicest publications. The letter-press is of course De Vinne's best,—there is nothing better on this side of the Atlantic. The text is a beautiful, slender stream, meandering gracefully through a wide meadow of margin."

For some reason I left the room for a minute. As I stepped into the hall, I almost ran into Baxter, who was standing near the door, facing a hunting print of a somewhat humorous character, hung upon the wall, and smiling with an immensely pleased expression.

"What a ridiculous scene!" he remarked. "Look at that fat old squire on that tall hunter! I'll wager dollars to doughnuts that he won't get over the first fence!"

It was a very good bluff, but did not deceive me. Under his mask of unconcern, Baxter was anxious to learn what we thought of his poem, and had stationed himself in the hall that he might overhear our discussion without embarrassing us by his presence. He had covered up his delight at our appreciation by this simulated interest in the hunting print.

When the night came for the review of the Procrustes there was a large attendance of members, and several visitors, among them a young English cousin of one of the members, on his first visit to the United States; some of us had met him at other clubs, and in society, and had found him a very jolly boy, with a youthful exuberance of spirits and a naive ignorance of things American that made his views refreshing and, at times, amusing.

The critical essays were well considered, if a trifle vague. Baxter received credit for poetic skill of a high order.

"Our brother Baxter," said Thompson, "should no longer bury his talent in a napkin. This gem, of course, belongs to the club, but the same brain from which issued this exquisite emanation can produce others to inspire and charm an appreciative world."

"The author's view of life," said Davis, "as expressed in these beautiful lines, will help us to fit our shoulders for the heavy burden of life, by bringing to our realization those profound truths of philosophy which find hope in despair and pleasure in pain. When he shall see fit to give to the wider world, in fuller form, the thoughts of which we have been vouchsafed this foretaste, let us hope that some little ray of his fame may rest upon the Bodleian, from which can never be taken away the proud privilege of saying that he was one of its members."

I then pointed out the beauties of the volume as a piece of bookmaking. I knew, from conversation with the publication committee, the style of type and rubrication, and could see the cover through the wrapper of my sealed copy. The dark green morocco, I said, in summing up, typified the author's serious view of life, as a thing to be endured as patiently as might be. The cap-and-bells border was significant of the shams by which the optimist sought to delude himself into the view that life was a desirable thing. The intricate blind-tooling of the doublure shadowed forth the blind fate which left us in ignorance of our future and our past, or of even what the day itself might bring forth. The black-letter type, with rubricated initials, signified a philosophic pessimism enlightened by the conviction that in duty one might find, after all, an excuse for life and a hope for humanity. Applying this test to the club, this work, which might be said to represent all that the Bodleian stood for, was in itself sufficient to justify the club's existence. If the Bodleian had done nothing else, if it should do nothing more, it had produced a masterpiece.

There was a sealed copy of the Procrustes, belonging, I believe, to one of the committee, lying on the table by which I stood, and I had picked it up and held it in my hand for a moment, to emphasize one of my periods, but had laid it down immediately. I noted, as I sat down, that young Hunkin, our English visitor, who sat on the other side of the table, had picked up the volume and was examining it with interest. When the last review was read, and the generous applause had subsided, there were cries for Baxter.

"Baxter! Baxter! Author! Author!"

Baxter had been sitting over in a corner during the reading of the reviews, and had succeeded remarkably well, it seemed to me, in concealing, under his mask of cynical indifference, the exultation which I was sure he must feel. But this outburst of enthusiasm was too much even for Baxter, and it was clear that he was struggling with strong emotion when he rose to speak.

"Gentlemen, and fellow members of the Bodleian, it gives me unaffected pleasure—sincere pleasure—some day you may know how much pleasure—I cannot trust myself to say it now—to see the evident care with which your committee have read my poor verses, and the responsive sympathy with which my friends have entered into my views of life and conduct. I thank you again, and again, and when I say that I am too full for utterance,—I'm sure you will excuse me from saying any more."

Baxter took his seat, and the applause had begun again when it was broken by a sudden exclamation.

"By Jove!" exclaimed our English visitor, who still sat behind the table, "what an extraordinary book!"

Every one gathered around him.

"You see," he exclaimed; holding up the volume, "you fellows said so much about the bally book that I wanted to see what it was like; so I untied the ribbon, and cut the leaves with the paper knife lying here, and found—and found that there wasn't a single line in it, don't you know!"

Blank consternation followed this announcement, which proved only too true. Every one knew instinctively, without further investigation, that the club had been badly sold. In the resulting confusion Baxter escaped, but later was waited upon by a committee, to whom he made the rather lame excuse that he had always regarded uncut and sealed books as tommy-rot, and that he had merely been curious to see how far the thing could go; and that the result had justified his belief that a book with nothing in it was just as useful to a book-collector as one embodying a work of genius. He offered to pay all the bills for the sham Procrustes, or to replace the blank copies with the real thing, as we might choose. Of course, after such an insult, the club did not care for the poem. He was permitted to pay the expense, however, and it was more than hinted to him that his resignation from the club would be favorably acted upon. He never sent it in, and, as he went to Europe shortly afterwards, the affair had time to blow over.

In our first disgust at Baxter's duplicity, most of us cut our copies of the Procrustes, some of us mailed them to Baxter with cutting notes, and others threw them into the fire. A few wiser spirits held on to theirs, and this fact leaking out, it began to dawn upon the minds of the real collectors among us that the volume was something unique in the way of a publication.

"Baxter," said our president one evening to a select few of us who sat around the fireplace, "was wiser than we knew, or than he perhaps appreciated. His Procrustes, from the collector's point of view, is entirely logical, and might be considered as the acme of bookmaking. To the true collector, a book is a work of art, of which the contents are no more important than the words of an opera. Fine binding is a desideratum, and, for its cost, that of the Procrustes could not be improved upon. The paper is above criticism. The true collector loves wide margins, and the Procrustes, being all margin, merely touches the vanishing point of the perspective. The smaller the edition, the greater the collector's eagerness to acquire a copy. There are but six uncut copies left, I am told, of the Procrustes, and three sealed copies, of one of which I am the fortunate possessor."

After this deliverance, it is not surprising that, at our next auction, a sealed copy of Baxter's Procrustes was knocked down, after spirited bidding, for two hundred and fifty dollars, the highest price ever brought by a single volume published by the club.



THE HEART OF THE RACE PROBLEM by Quincy Ewing

"And, instead of going to the Congress of the United States and saying there is no distinction made in Mississippi, because of color or previous condition of servitude, tell the truth, and say this: 'We tried for many years to live in Mississippi, and share sovereignty and dominion with the Negro, and we saw our institutions crumbling.... We rose in the majesty and highest type of Anglo-Saxon manhood, and took the reins of government out of the hands of the carpet-bagger and the Negro, and, so help us God, from now on we will never share any sovereignty or dominion with him again.'"—Governor JAMES K. VARDAMAN, Mississippi, 1904.

During the past decade, newspaper and magazine articles galore, and not a few books, have been written on what is called the "Race Problem," the problem caused by the presence in this country of some ten millions of black and variously-shaded colored people known as Negroes. But, strange as it may sound, the writer has no hesitation in saying that at this date there appears to be no clear conception anywhere, on the part of most people, as to just what the essential problem is which confronts the white inhabitants of the country because they have for fellow-citizens (nominally) ten million Negroes. Ask the average man, ask even the average editor or professor anywhere, what the race problem is, the heart of it; why, in this land with its millions of foreigners of all nationalities, THE race problem of problems should be caused by ten million Negroes, not foreigners but native to the soil through several generations; and in all probability you will get some such answer as this:—

"The Negroes, as a rule, are very ignorant, are very lazy, are very brutal, are very criminal. But a little way removed from savagery, they are incapable of adopting the white man's moral code, of assimilating the white man's moral sentiments, of striving toward the white man's moral ideals. They are creatures of brutal, untamed instincts, and uncontrolled feral passions, which give frequent expression of themselves in crimes of horrible ferocity. They are, in brief, an uncivilized, semi-savage people, living in a civilization to which they are unequal, partaking to a limited degree of its benefits, performing in no degree its duties. Because they are spatially in a civilization to which they are morally and intellectually repugnant, they cannot but be as a foreign irritant to the body social. The problem is, How shall the body social adjust itself, daily, hourly, to this irritant; how feel at ease and safe in spite of it? How shall the white inhabitants of the land, with their centuries of inherited superiority, conserve their civilization and carry it forward to a yet higher plane, hampered by ten million black inhabitants of the same land with their centuries of inherited inferiority?"

To the foregoing answer, this might now and again be added, or advanced independently in reply to our question: "Personal aversion on the part of the white person for the Negro; personal aversion accounted for by nothing the individual Negro is, or is not, intellectually and morally; accounted for by the fact, simply, that he is a Negro, that he has a black or colored skin, that he is different, of another kind."

Now, certainly, there are very few average men or philosophers, to whom the answer given to our question would not seem to state, or at any rate fairly indicate, the race problem in its essence. But, however few they be, I do not hesitate to align myself with them as one who does not believe that the essential race problem as it exists in the South (whatever it be in the North) is stated, or even fairly indicated, in the foregoing answer. In Northern and Western communities, where he is outnumbered by many thousands of white people, the Negro may be accounted a problem, because he is lazy, or ignorant, or brutal, or criminal, or all these things together; or because he is black and different. But in Southern communities, where the Negro is not outnumbered by many thousands of white people, the race problem, essentially, and in its most acute form, is something distinct from his laziness or ignorance, or brutality, or criminality, or all-round intellectual and moral inferiority to the white man. That problem as the South knows and deals with it would exist, as certainly as it does to-day, if there were no shadow of excuse for the conviction that the Negro is more lazy, or more ignorant, or more criminal, or more brutal, or more anything else he ought not to be, or less anything else he ought to be, than other men. In other words, let it be supposed that the average Negro is as a matter of fact the equal, morally and intellectually, of the average white man of the same class, and the race problem declines to vanish, declines to budge. We shall see why, presently. The statements just made demand immediate justification. For they are doubtless surprising to a degree, and to some readers may prove startling.

I proceed to justify them as briefly as possible, asking the reader to bear in mind that very much more might be said along this line than I allow myself space to say.

I

That the Negro is not a problem because he is lazy, because he declines to work, is evidenced by the patent fact that in virtually every Southern community he is sought as a laborer in fields, mills, mines, and that in very many Southern communities the vexing problem for employers is not too many, but too few Negroes. In certain agricultural sections, notably in the Louisiana sugar district, quite a number of Italians ("Dagoes") are employed. The reason is not dissatisfaction with Negro labor, but simply that there is not enough of it to meet the requirements of the large plantations. There is, perhaps, not one of these plantations on which any able-bodied Negro could not get employment for the asking; and as a rule, the Negroes are given, not the work which demands the lowest, but that which demands the highest, efficiency: they are the ploughmen, the teamsters, the foremen. If any one doubts that Negroes are wanted as laborers in Southern communities, very much wanted, let him go to any such community and attempt to inveigle a few dozen of the laziest away. He will be likely to take his life in his hands, after the usual warning is disregarded!

II

The small politician's trump-card, played early and late, and in all seasons, that the Negro is a black shadow over the Southland because of his excessive criminality, serves well the politician's purpose,—it wins his game; but only because the game is played and won on a board where fictions, not facts, are dominant. Nothing is easier than to offer so-called proofs of the contention that the Negro's tendency to crime is something peculiar to his race; there are the jail and penitentiary and gallows statistics, for instance. But surely it should not be difficult for these so-called proofs to present themselves in their true light to any one who takes the trouble to consider two weighty and conspicuous facts: this, first, that the Negroes occupy everywhere in this country the lowest social and industrial plane, the plane which everywhere else supplies the jail, the penitentiary, the gallows, with the greatest number of their victims; and secondly this, that in the section of the country where these penal statistics are gathered, all the machinery of justice is in the hands of white men.

No Negro is a sheriff, or judge, or justice of the peace, or grand or petit juryman, or member of a pardoning board. Charged with crime, again and again, the black man must go to jail; he is unable to give bond; he is defended, not by the ablest, but by the poorest lawyers, often by an unwilling appointee of the court; he lacks the benefit of that personal appeal to judge and jury, so often enjoyed by other defendants, which would make them WANT to believe him innocent until proven guilty; he faces, on the contrary, a judge and jury who hold him in some measure of contempt as a man, regardless of his guilt or innocence. He is without means, except occasionally, to fight his case through appeals to higher courts, and errors sleep in many a record that on review would upset the verdict. In the light of such considerations, it would seem impossible that criminal statistics should not bear hard upon the Negro race, even supposing it to be a fact that that race of all races in the world is the LEAST criminal.

Let it be admitted without question that in most Southern communities the crimes and misdemeanors of the Negroes exceed those committed by an equal number of white people, and we have admitted nothing that at all explains or accounts for the race problem. For is it not equally true that in every other community the doers of society's rough work, the recipients of its meagrest rewards, are chargeable, relatively, with the greatest number of crimes and misdemeanors? Is it not true, as well in Massachusetts and Connecticut as in Louisiana and Mississippi, that the vast majority of those occupying prison cells are members of the social lowest class? that the vast majority condemned, after trial, to hard labor with their hands were accustomed to such labor before their judicial condemnation? Nothing is more preposterous than the idea that the race problem means more Negroes hanged, more Negroes imprisoned, more Negroes in mines and chain-gangs, than white people! If the Negro did not furnish the great bulk of the grist for the grinding of our penal machinery in the Southern states, he would constitute the racial miracle of this and all ages!

My own conviction is, and I speak with the experience of forty years' residence in Southern states, that the Negro is not more given to crimes and misdemeanors than the laboring population of any other section of the country. But be this as it may, it is abundantly certain that no race of people anywhere are more easily controlled than the Negroes by the guardians of law and order; and there are none anywhere so easily punished for disobedience to the statutes and mandates of their economic superiors. Courts and juries may be sometimes subject to just criticism for undue leniency toward white defendants; but that courts and juries are ever subject to just criticism for undue leniency in dealing with black defendants is the sheerest nonsense.