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neighbors are doing their best to keep the negroes down, retarding the only possible solution. What with the educational disqualification, from which most of the illiterate whites are exempt, and the polltax laws, and the pressure of white disapproval of negro participation in politics, the negroes are not in a position to relieve their own situation at the ballotbox. It is necessary to awaken the conscience of their white compatriots to the true implications of Americanism.

The act of freeing and giving the franchise to the negroes was, as Professor Hartley Alexander has said, "the most heroic act of political faith in history." They have not had a fair chance to justify that faith. But some of their leaders are making heroic efforts to uplift their people. The return of negro soldiers from participation in the War, with its broadening outlook, the growing appreciation of the economic value of the negro in a time when farm-labor is increasingly scarce, the work of the few endowed negro schools, and of such bodies as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, offer hope for the alleviation of an intolerable situation. At any rate, the negroes are not dying out, not emigrating, not being blended with the rest of the population. Their degradation involves the degradation, in some degree, of their white neighbors; as Booker Washington used to say, "You can't keep a man in the ditch without staying in the ditch with him." The only possible solution of the negro problem lies in a frank recognition of the American principle of equality. This does not imply intermarriage or unnecessary social contact. It does imply equal rights to education, to the ballot, to all the privi

leges available to the white population. America is theirs as well as ours.

The crux of the negro problem lies in the fact that, on the one hand, we do not want to assimilate them biologically, and, on the other hand, the presence of an unassimilated race so different from our own creates an unhappy social situation. The situation seems permanently unsatisfactory, with no way out. We can, and must, insist on fair treatment for the negroes; we must respect them and cease to look upon them as inferiors. But we should learn the lesson of our fathers' blunder in bringing them to our shores, and make sure that another such situation does not arise.

Yet just such another situation might arise if the Chinese or Japanese or Hindus were to be allowed to enter our country in any considerable numbers. It is not, again, that these are inferior races. The Chinese and Hindus were civilized while our Caucasian ancestors were still savages; and the Japanese have already shown a capacity for modern methods that everyone admires. It is likely that within a comparatively short time, as history goes, these nations will all be as civilized as our own.

But do we want to intermarry with these races? Are we sure that it would be wise? Certainly most of our people would vigorously repudiate the idea; and these Orientals would form a separate race in our midst, not so ignorant, and-let us hope-not so illtreated as the negroes have been, but still aliens, separate, and made to feel their separateness. Candidly, we cannot count on our courtesy to such an alien race living in our midst. Race-prejudice rests on deep-seated human instincts, and it is

utopian to expect it to disappear. It is far wiser to avoid situations that inflame it. We can respect and admire the Orientals in their own homes; we can gladly learn from them and have a happy interchange of students and scholars, travellers and technicians. But occasions for friction and race-wars will be best averted by restrictions which will, in general, keep each race to its own continent.

The policy of Oriental exclusion, then, does not, or should not, rest on any denial of the doctrine of human equality. It rests on the obvious fact that the hybridizing of races, once done, can never be undone. And the complementary fact that another unassimilated race in America would be a constant source of friction and a danger to democracy. These sources of friction we must be wise enough to avoid, whenever possible.

"With the two races physically on different sides of the ocean, we can develop our common national and international interests. But with any considerable immigration to this side, causes of friction would inevitably develop. They might be our fault, but we could not prevent them. Our people have learned their racial lessons in a dangerous school. . . . We have dealt unjustly with the Negro and he submits. We have dealt unjustly with the Indian and he is dead. If we have many Japanese, we shall not know how to deal otherwise than unjustly with them, and very properly they will not submit. The only real safety is in separation."

With the various Caucasian races ("white men") the situation we have discussed will not arise, or, at least, be permanent; for they are all assimilable, and rapidly being assimilated into the American stock. But the question may still be raised whether for other

reasons some further restriction of immigration is not desirable.

There seems to be no abstract right of the inhabitants of one country to emigrate to another. If for any reason it seems best for the general welfare, our people may properly reserve to themselves the right to say who shall come and who shall not come to live here. But there is much to be said for the policy of a comparatively unrestricted immigration. It is diffi cult to devise laws that will shut out the less desirable and admit the more desirable immigrants-except for the exclusion of people of obviously sub-normal mentality and those suffering from contagious or inheritable diseases, or likely to become a public charge, or likely to indulge in crime or flagrant vice. The illiteracy test now in force keeps out a good many who have had no educational opportunities, but is no fair test of mental capacity or race-value.

It is doubtful if, as is so often assumed, the people from southern and eastern Europe are really inferior on the average in their potentialities to the immigrants from northern and western Europe. It is certainly true that they have ideals and ideas to bring us, as well as muscle. The cessation of immigration during the war brought about a shortage of unskilled labor particularly irksome to the owners of factories and mines, but of moment to us all. Why not welcome their brains and brawn, rejoice in the bettering of their condition over here, in the relief to overcrowded districts of Europe, and in the return flux of ideals and ideas to the lands from which they came and with which they usually remain in touch?

In answer, we may say that while there is any doubt as to the average mental capacity of a given race, we may well hesitate to admit great numbers of

that race into the melting pot out of which is to come the American stock of the future. More clearly, the admission of great numbers of ignorant and untrained foreigners makes it very hard to raise the standard of living not only of their own families but of the American laborers with whom they compete. Many of these immigrants are willing to work for low wages, because they were used, in the Old World, to poor living conditions. It is difficult to organize men of many different races into unions which can demand a living wage and proper working conditions. The presence of multitudes of these servile laborers is welcome to the owners of some of our factories and mines, but is undesirable from the public point of view.

Apart from this economic situation and a possible eugenic disadvantage in certain racial mixtures, the immigrant-problem is, as we said of the negroproblem, not so much their problem as ours. It is the problem of treating the immigrants fairly, protecting them from exploitation, giving them decent housing conditions, facilities for education, and influences that make for moral upbuilding rather than for demoralization. It is, unhappily, by no means always true that the influence of America upon immigrants is wholesome. Many of them degenerate morally here. The children of immigrants form, more than any other class, the supply for our criminals and prostitutes. The traditions of the immigrants themselves persist sufficiently to keep them "straight,” for the most part. But we do not take enough pains to see to it that their children have American ideals to take their place.

The two traditional American attitudes toward the

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