r their collective
interests and for the National interests of the great industrial democracy
of which they form a part. Is it astonishing then that under such
circumstances there have sprung up and flourish in the South the peonage
and convict lease systems, the plantation lease and credit systems,
contract labor and "Jim Crow" laws, lynching and the inequitable
distribution of the public school funds between the races? For the
Southern white man, and he is not different from any other white man or
black man either for that matter who possesses irresponsible power over
others, regulates his conduct toward the Negro in his midst by the law of
might, which allows him with a good conscience to do to the Negro whatever
he wants to do, and to take from him whatever he wants to take whether
life or liberty, while it forbids his victim to do what he wants to do; or
to retain what belongs to him as an American citizen whether it be his
life or his liberty--that is, to do so by identically the same means
which white men use to retain what belongs to them under similar
circumstances.

Things would undoubtedly be different for the colored people in those
states had they though slight, some positive and appreciable influence at
the polls. Their condition would not even then be ideal--far from it. But
their hard lot as men would improve, their worth as citizens, their social
and industrial value to their community, state and country would rise
correspondingly in the scale of being and character, with the increased
freedom, self-respect and security which in consequence would come to them
as a race. Legislatures and administrative officers would begin to make
some response to their claim for social justice and political rights, and
the courts would begin also to lend a more attentive ear to their rights
of person and property. The end of all those terrible systems which
exploit and rob and oppress them and keep them poor and ignorant and weak,
the sad victims of race prejudice and greed and cruelty, would grow nearer
to the perfect day of the race's final deliverance as American citizens.
They would begin to get for their children more and better schools and
longer school terms, and for their teachers more equal pay as compared
with that received by white teachers for similar service.

Such is the deplorable situation of the Negro in the South at the close of
the first fifty years of his freedom. There will be no improvement in that