With-
out this there is riot, migration, or crime. Nor is this situation
peculiar to the Southern United States, is it not rather the only
method by which undeveloped races have gained the right to
share modern culture? The price of culture is a Lie.
On the other hand, in the North the tendency is to empha-
size the radicalism of the Negro. Driven from his birthright in
the South by a situation at which every fibre of his more
outspoken and assertive nature revolts, he finds himself in a
land where he can scarcely earn a decent living amid the
harsh competition and the color discrimination. At the same
time, through schools and periodicals, discussions and lec-
tures, he is intellectually quickened and awakened. The soul,
long pent up and dwarfed, suddenly expands in new-found
freedom. What wonder that every tendency is to excess,--
radical complaint, radical remedies, bitter denunciation
or angry silence. Some sink, some rise. The criminal and
the sensualist leave the church for the gambling-hell
and the brothel, and fill the slums of Chicago and Baltimore;
the better classes segregate themselves from the group-life of
both white and black, and form an aristocracy, cultured but
pessimistic, whose bitter criticism stings while it points out
no way of escape.
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