A Voice from the South

America shall one man dare to say as Germany’s somewhat bumptious emperor is fond of proclaiming: “There is only one master in the country and I am he. I shall suffer no other beside me. Only to God and my conscience am I accountable.” The strength of the opposition tones down and polishes off all such ugly excrescencies as that. “I am the State,” will never be proclaimed above a whisper on a platform where there is within arm’s length another just as strong, possibly stronger, who holds, or would like to hold that identical proposition with reference to himself. In this arena then is to be the last death struggle of political tyranny, of religions bigotry, and intellectual intolerance, of caste illiberality and class exclusiveness. And the last monster that shall be throttled forever methinks is race prejudice. Men will here learn that a race, as a family, may be true to itself without seeking to exterminate all others. That for the note of the feeblest there is room, nay a positive need, in the harmonies of God. That the principles of true democracy are founded in universal reciprocity, and that “A man’s a man” was written when God first stamped His own image and superscription on His child and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And I confess I can pray for no nobler destiny for my country than that it may be the stage, however far distant in the future, whereon these ideas and principles shall ultimately mature; and culminating here at whatever cost of production shall go forth hence to dominate the world.

Methought I saw a mighty conflagration, plunging and heaving, surging and seething, smoking and rolling over this American continent. Strong men and wise men stand helpless in mute consternation. Empty headed babblers add the din of their bray to the crashing and crackling of the flames. But the hungry flood rolls on. The air is black with smoke and cinders. The sky is red with lurid light. Forked tongues of fiery flame dart up and lick the pale stars, and seem to laugh at men’s feebleness and frenzy. As I look on I think of Schiller’s sublime characterization of fire: “Frightful becomes this God-power, when it snatches itself free from fetters and stalks majestically forth on its own career⁠—the free daughter of Nature.” Ingenuity is busy with newly patented snuffers all warranted to extinguish the flame. The street gamin with a hooked wire pulls out a few nuggets that chanced to be lying on the outskirts where they were cooked by the heat; and gleefully cries “What a nice fire to roast my chestnuts,” and like little Jack Horner, “what a nice boy am I!”

Meantime this expedient, that expedient, the other expedient is suggested by thinkers and theorizers hoping to stifle the angry, roaring, devouring demon and allay the mad destruction.

“Wehe wenn sie losgelassen,
Wachsend ohne Widerstand,
Durch die volkbelebten Gassen
Walzt den ungeheuren Brand!”

But the strength of the Omnipotent is in it. The hand of God is leading it on. It matters not whether you and I in mad desperation cast our quivering bodies into it as our funeral pyre; or whether, like the street urchins, we pull wires to secure the advantage of the passing moment. We can neither help it nor hinder; only

“Let thy gold be cast in the furnace,
Thy red gold, precious and bright.
Do not fear the hungry fire
With its caverns of burning light.”

If it takes the dearest idol, the pet theory or the darling ‘ism,’ the pride, the selfishness, the prejudices, the exclusiveness, the bigotry and intolerance, the conceit of self, of race, or of family superiority⁠—nay, if it singe from thee thy personal gratifications in thy distinction by birth, by blood, by sex⁠—everything⁠—and leave thee nothing but thy naked manhood, solitary and unadorned⁠—let them go⁠—let them go!

“And thy gold shall return more precious,
Free from every spot and stain,
For gold must be tried by fire.”

And the heart of nations must be tried by pain; and their polish, their true culture must be wrought in through conflict.

Has America a Race Problem?

Yes.

What are you going to do about it?

Let it alone and mind my own business. It is God’s problem and He will solve it in time. It is deeper than Gehenna. What can you or I do!

Are there then no duties and special lines of thought growing out of the present conditions of this problem?

Certainly there are. Imprimis; let every element of the conflict see that it represent a positive force so as to preserve a proper equipoise in the conflict. No shirking, no skulking, no masquerading in another’s uniform. Stand by your guns. And be ready for the charge. The day is coming, and now is, when America must ask each citizen not “who was your grandfather and what the color of his cuticle,” but “What can you do?” Be ready each individual element⁠—each race, each class, each family, each man to reply “I engage to undertake an honest man’s share.”

God and time will work the problem. You and I are only to stand for the quantities at their best, which he means us to represent.

Above all, for the love of humanity stop the mouth of those learned theorizers, the expedient mongers, who come out annually with their new and improved method of getting the answer and clearing the slate: amalgamation, deportation, colonization and all the other ations that were ever devised or dreamt of. If Alexander wants to be a god, let him; but don’t have Alexander hawking his patent plan for universal deification. If all could or would follow Alexander’s plan, just the niche in the divine cosmos meant for man would be vacant. And we think that men have a part to play in this great drama no less than gods, and so if a few are determined to be white⁠—amen, so be it; but don’t let them argue as if there were no part