About the same time Mr. Melville E. Stone, president of the Associated Press, in an address before the Quill Club on "Race Prejudice in the Far East" reinforced the same grisly truth. Five years later "T. Shirby Hodge" wrote "The White Man's Burden: A Satirical Forecast," and ended it with these pregnant words: "The white man's burden is-himself." His publishers practically suppressed his book, which, by the way, should have been in the library of every intelligent Negro. The white world was indisposed then to listen to its voices of warning. But today the physical, economic and racial ravages of the World War have so changed the white world's mind that within four weeks of its appearance "The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy," by Lothrop Stoddard, has struck the bull's-eye of attention and has already become the most widely talked-of book of the year. White men of power are discussing its facts and its conclusions with bated breath and considerable disquietude. Here is a book written by a white man which causes white men to shiver. For it calls their attention to the writing on the wall. It proves that the white race in its mad struggle for dominion over others has been exhausting its vital resoures and is exhausting them further. It proves to the hilt the thesis advanced in 1917 in my brief essay on "The White War and the Colored Races" that, whereas the white race was on top by virtue of its guns, ships, money, intellect and massed man-power, in the World War it was busy burning up, depleting and destroying these very resources on which its primacy depended. But even though the white capitalists knew all this their mad greed was still their master. This great race is still so low spiritually that it sells even its racial integrity for dollars and cents. Mr. Stoddard's book may disturb its sense of security for a brief space, but it cannot keep white "civilization" from its mad dance of death. "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" And the white race will finally find that this is even more true racially than individually. We have noticed for many years that whereas domestic journalism was merely journalism-the passing register of parochial sensations-the journalism of the international publicists like Lord Bryce, Meredith Townsend, Archibald Colquhoon, Putnam Weale and Hyndman was something more solid than journalism. In the writings of these men hard fact and stark reality are wedded to wide reading and deep thinking. They are the real social scientists rather than the stay-at-home, cloistered sociologists who, presuming to know everything, have seen nothing. The present volume is one of the best of the former and is full of the qualities of its class. But at the very outset it suffers from the unwelcome assistance of Dr. Madison Grant, "chairman of the New York Zoological Society and trustee of the American Museum of Natural History." Dr. Grant has accumulated a large stock of musty ethnological ideas of which he unburdens himself in what he evidently intends as a "learned" introduction, without which freightage the book would be much better. The difference in value and accuracy between Mr. Stoddard's text and the pseudo-scientific introduction of Dr. Grant would furnish fair material for philosophic satire. Unfortunately we cannot indulge the inclination in the columns of a weekly newspaper. Dr. Grant, in owlish innocence, splutters out the usual futile folly which (in other domains) has brought the white race to the frontiers of the present crisis. He reads back into history the racial values of today and trails the Anglo-Saxon's crass conceit and arrogance across the pages of its record, finding "contrast of mental and spiritual endowments elusive of definition," and other racial clap-trap whose falsity has been demonstrated again and again by warm-hearted enthusiasts like Jean Finot and coldly critical and scientific scholars like Dr. Taylor ("Origin of the Aryans"), Sergi ("The Mediterranean Race") and J. M. Robertson (“The Evolution of States"). But one can forgive Dr. Grant; he is a good American, and good Americans (especially "scientists" on race) are usually fifty years behind the English, who, in turn, are usually twenty years behind the Germans. Dr. Grant's annexation of the past history of human culture to the swollen record of the whites sounds good-even if it smells bad. And he is in good Anglo-Saxon company. Sir Harry Johnston does the same thing and gets titles (scientific and other) by so doing. The Englishman takes the very Egyptians, Hindus and tribal Liberians, whom he would call "niggers" in New York and London, and as soon as he finds that they have done anything worth while he tags them with a "white" tag. Thus, to the professional “scientist" like Dr. Grant, living in the parochial atmosphere of the United States, science is something arcane, recondite and off the earth; while to the American like Mr. Stoddard, who has been broadened by travel and contact with the wider world, science, is, as it should be, organized daily knowledge and common sense. Thus journalists, good and bad, are the ones who form opinion in America, because "scientists" are so distressingly stupid. Mr. Stoddard's thesis starts from the proposition that of the seventeen hundred million people on our earth today the great majority is made up of black, brown, red and yellow people. The white race, being in the minority, still dominates over the lands of black, brown, red and (in the case of China) has assumed a right of dictatorship and disposal even in the yellow man's lands. In the course of this dictatorship and domination the white race has erected the barrier of the color line to keep the other races in their place. But this barrier is cracking and giving way at many points and the flood of racial self-assertion, hitherto dammed up, threatens to overflow the outer and inner dikes and sweep away the domination of the whites. The author approaches his theme with a curiously graduated respect for other races. This respect, while it is a novelty in the attitude of the blond overlords, is always in direct proportion to the present power and discernible potentialities of the races discussed. For the yellow man of Japan and China he shows the greatest deference. The browns (of India, Persia, Afghanistan, Egypt and the Mohammedan world in general) are, of course, inferior, but must be respected for their militancy. The reds (the original American stock which is the backbone of the population of Mexico, Central and South America) are a source of contamination for white blood and an infernal nuisance, capable of uniting with Japan and China in an onslaught on the land areas reserved for white exploitation in the western world; while the blacks, at the foot of the ladder, have never amounted to anything, don't amount to anything now, and can never seriously menace the superiority of the whites. The gradation is full of meaning, especially to those fervid theorists who affect to believe that religion, morality, loyalty and good citizenship constitute a good claim to the white man's respect. For it is Japan's actual military might and China's impending military might which have put them in Grade A, while the brown man's show of resistance in Egypt, India and elsewhere under Islam, and his general physical unrest and active discontent have secured for him a classification in Grade B. The American in Mexico and South America keeps his window open toward the east; but the black man still seems, in our author's eyes, to be the same loyal, gentle, stupid beast of burden that the white man's history has known-except in those parts of Africa in which he has accepted the Mohammedan religion and thus become a part of the potential terror of the Moslem world. In this we think our author mistaken; but, after all, it is neither arguments nor logic that will determine these matters, but deeds and accomplishments. But, however his racial respect may be apportioned, Mr. Stoddard holds that his race is doomed. "If the present drift be not changed we whites are all ultimately doomed. Unless we set our house in order the doom will sooner or later overtake us all." The present reviewer stakes his money on "the doom," for the white race's disease is an ingrowing one whose development. inheres in their very nature. They are so singularly constituted that they would rather tear themselves to pieces parading as the lords of creation than see any other people achieve an equal favor of fortune. In the pages of this book the author presents many chastening truths and wide vistas of international politics which are enlightening when carefully studied. But it is not our intent to cover the entire field of his work, and we think that we have said enough to indicate the high value and suggestiveness of the work. But we may be allowed to point out that all the way through the author, though clear and enlightened, remains an unreconstructed Anglo-Saxon, desirous of opening the eyes of his race to the dangers which beset them through their racial injustice and arrogance; but sternly, resolutely, intent that they shall not share their overlordship with any other of the sons of earth. His book is written in a clear and commendable style; he shows but few defects of temper and a shrewd mastery of his materials. The book should be widely read by intelligent men of color from Tokio to Tallahassee. It is published by Charles Scribner's Sons at $3, and is well worth the price. The Black Man's Burden (A Reply to Rudyard Kipling.) By HUBERT H. HARRISON. Take up the Black Man's burden- Until the Fates remove you From a world you have defiled. Take up the Black Man's burden- To veil the threat of terror And check our racial pride; Your cannon, church and courthouse May still our sons constrain To seek the white man's profit And work the white man's gain. Take up the Black Man's burden- Take up the Black Man's burden- |