spite
of all this, illegitimacy is not a desirable distinction, and is likely
to become less so as these people of mixed blood advance in wealth and
social standing. This presumption of illegitimacy was once, perhaps,
true of the majority of such persons; but the times have changed. More
than half of the colored people of the United States are of mixed blood;
they marry and are given in marriage, and they beget children of
complexions similar to their own. Whether or not, therefore, laws which
stamp these children as illegitimate, and which by indirection establish
a lower standard of morality for a large part of the population than the
remaining part is judged by, are wise laws; and whether or not the
purity of the white race could not be as well preserved by the exercise
of virtue, and the operation of those natural laws which are so often
quoted by Southern writers as the justification of all sorts of Southern
"policies"--are questions which the good citizen may at least turn over
in his mind occasionally, pending the settlement of other complications
which have grown out of the presence of the Negro on this continent.

_Independent_, May 30, 1889

The Future American

WHAT THE RACE IS LIKELY TO BECOME IN THE PROCESS OF TIME

The future American race is a popular theme for essayists, and has been
much discussed. Most expressions upon the subject, however, have been
characterized by a conscious or unconscious evasion of some of the main
elements of the problem involved in the formation of a future American
race, or, to put it perhaps more correctly, a future ethnic type that
shall inhabit the northern part of the western continent. Some of these
obvious omissions will be touched upon in these articles; and if the
writer has any preconceived opinions that would affect his judgment,
they are at least not the hackneyed prejudices of the past--if they lead
to false conclusions, they at least furnish a new point of view, from
which, taken with other widely differing views, the judicious reader may
establish a parallax that will enable him to approximate the truth.

The popular theory is that the future American race will consist of a
harmonious fusion of the various European elements which now make up our
heterogeneous population. The result is to be something infinitely
superior to the best of the component elements. This perfection of
type--no good American could for a moment doubt that it will be as
perfec