etitive level. What appear often to be religious, political,
and social animosities are economic at bottom, and the substance of the
economic struggle is the advantage which third parties get when
competitors hold each other down. The Southern planter was not hostile
to the negro slave--he was his friend and protector. His nurse was the
negro "mammy," his playmates were her children, and the mulatto throws
light on his views of equality. It was the poor white who hated the
negro and fled from his presence to the hills and the frontier, or sank
below his level, despised by white and black. In times of freedom and
reconstruction it is not the great landowner or employer that leads in
the exhibition of race hostility, but the small farmer or
wage-earner.[69] The one derives a profit from the presence of the
negro--the other loses his job or his farm. With the progress of white
democracy in place of the old aristocracy, as seen in South Carolina,
hostility to the negro may be expected to increase. With the elimination
of the white laborer, as seen in the black counties, the relations of
negro and planter are harmonious.[70]

So it is in the North. The negro or immigrant strike breaker is
befriended by the employer, but hated by the employee. The Chinaman or
Japanese in Hawaii or California is praised and sought after by the
employer and householder, but dreaded by the wage-earner and domestic.
Investors and landowners see their properties rise in value by the
competition of races, but the competitors see their wages and jobs
diminish. The increase of wealth intensifies the difference and raises
up professional classes to the standpoint of the capitalists. With both
of them the privilege of leisure depends on the presence of servants,
but the wage-earners do their own work. As the immigrant rises in the
scale, the small farmer, contractor, or merchant feels his competition
and begins to join in measures of race protection.

This hostility is not primarily racial in character. It is the
competitive struggle for standards of living. It appears to be racial
because for the most part races have different standards. But where
different races agree on their standards the racial struggle ceases, and
the negro, Italian, Slav, and American join together in the class
struggle of a trade-union. On the other hand, if the same race has
different standards, the economic struggle breaks down even the
strongest affinities of race. The Russ