ol, the church and public sentiment will be more marked and
have a more potent effect in causing him to withstand temptations.
But, notwithstanding the shortness of the time which the Negro has had
in which to get schooled to his new life, any one who has visited the
large cities of Europe will readily testify that the visible signs of
immorality in those cities are far greater than among the colored
people of America. Prostitution for gain is far more prevalent in the
cities of Europe than among the colored people of our cities.

Professor Straton says that the Negro has degenerated in morals since
he became free; in other words, that his condition in this respect is
not as hopeful as it was during the early period of slavery. I do not
think it wise to place too much reliance upon such a view of the
matter, because there are too few facts upon which to base a
comparison. The bald statement that the Negro was not given to crime
during slavery proves little. Slavery represented an unnatural
condition of life, in which certain physical checks were kept
constantly upon the individual. To say that the Negro was at his
best, morally, during the period of slavery is about the same as to
say that the two thousand prisoners in the State prison and the city
penal institutions in the city of Boston are the most righteous two
thousand people in Boston. I question whether one can find two
thousand persons in Boston who will equal these two thousand
imprisoned criminals in the mere negative virtues. During the days of
slavery the Negro was rarely brought into the court to be tried for
crime; hence, there was almost no public record of crimes committed by
him. Each master, in most cases, punished his slave as he thought
best, and as little as possible was said about it outside of his
little plantation world. The improper relations between the sexes,
with which the black race is now frequently charged in most sections
of the South, were encouraged or winked at, under the slavery system,
because of the financial value of the slaves. A custom that was
fostered for three centuries cannot be blotted out in one generation.

In estimating the progress of a race, we should not consider alone the
degree of success which has been actually attained, but also the
obstacles which have been overcome in reaching that success. Judged by
the obstacles overcome, few races, if any, in history have made
progress commensurate with that of the colored pe