s class, there
is a section of negro society in which social lines are drawn as strictly
as in the most aristocratic white community. To prove that the negroes are
not emotional, these aristocrats among them are likely to insist upon rigid
formality in their church services and upon meticulous correctness in all
the details of social gatherings. Since many of these individuals have a
very large admixture of white blood, occasionally one crosses the barrier
and "goes white." Removal to a new town or city gives the opportunity to
cut loose from all previous associations and to start a new life. The
transition is extremely difficult, of course, and requires much care and
discretion, but it has been made. The greater part of them nevertheless
remain negroes in the eyes of the law, however much they strive to
separate themselves in thought and action from the rest of their kind.
It is this small class of "intellectuals" who were Booker T.
Washington's bitterest enemies. His theory that the negro should first
devote himself to obtaining economic independence and should leave the
adjustment of social relations to the future was denounced as treason to
the race. Washington's opportunism was even more obnoxious to them than
is the superior attitude of the whites. They denounced him as a trimmer,
a time-server, and a traitor, and on occasion they hissed him from the
platform. From their safe refuges in Northern cities, some negro orators
and editors have gone so far as to advocate the employment of the knife and
the torch to avenge real or fancied wrongs, but these counsels have done
little harm for they have not been read by those to whom they were
addressed. Perhaps, indeed, they may not have been meant entirely
seriously, for the negro, like other emotional peoples, sometimes plays
with words without realizing their full import.

On the whole there is surprisingly little friction between the blacks
and the whites. One may live a long time in many parts of the South
without realizing that the most important problem of the United States
lies all about him. Then an explosion comes, and he realizes that much
of the South is on the edge of a volcano. For a time the white South
attempted to divest itself of responsibility for the negro. He had
turned against those who had been his friends and had followed after
strange gods; therefore let him go his way alone. This attitude never
was universal nor was it consistently maintained, for