Edward E. Wilson

“ From the Bible, likewise, the Negro draws justification for his failure to be actively resentful of his wrongs. And who best represents the Christian spirit, the Aryan raging over the loss of a tooth, demanding a tooth in return and refusing to be comforted without it, or the humble black, who hardly smitten on one cheek, meekly present the other to the smiter? In the lowliness of the Founder of his faith the Negro finds comfort for his own poverty. He is not so engrossed with earthly things, but he has a constant eye on Paradise. ”

“ Those who exercise it are bound to have delights that the individual who cares but for himself can never hope to attain. What a scope, then, for selflessness must not the Negro have, when he is told that he must raise all of his race to a high level of respectability and intelligence before any individual thereof, whatever his merit, can hope to receive the treatment accorded to a man and a citizen! At first blush such a proposition would seem absurd, but the very fact that Aryans advance it shows that they, as a rule, regard the Negro as capable of more general cultivation than themselves. ”

“ He is in position to pity the self-extolled Aryan who, if American, thinks himself nearing the limits of perfection.
In fact the Negro is the rustic of America. Of the doings of this great and busy nation he is but a spectator. He stands as the procession passes, with mouth agape. He imagines that ever new wonders are to arrive, and his fancy creates a veritable Arabian Nights. What is common to others is a source of admiration to him. ”

“ While a German, Irishman, Frenchman, and even the proud Englishman, who comes to this country, pools each his individuality in Americanism, the Negro, developing independence, stands aloof, with a determination to yield only when longer resistance would be criminal folly.
The negative pleasures of the Negro are not few. He has none of the burdens of governing, being relieved therefrom by his altruistic Aryan fellow-citizens. He has none of the troubles and temptations of millionaires; he expects but little and hence is seldom disappointed. ”

“ If this be true, the Negro, presumed by the thoughtless majority, because of his environment, to be the most joyless of creatures, has a much larger share of happiness than many who outwardly appear more fortunate. (Here we speak of the typical Negro, not the late, revised, Aryanized one.) First of all he has what satisfaction there is in knowing that the theory of things is right. In theory he has whatever any other man has; just as in theory all men are created equal, - the law is impartially administered, - we are a Christian nation. ”

“ Yet they can fairly claim to have lightened the burdens of myriads, and to have furnished amusement to countless thousands who could not, perhaps, have been otherwise entertained. One often wonders what would become of the cheap cartoonist and outlandish dialect-writer if the Negro were suddenly removed from American life; what untimely fate would overtake the melon joke and the chicken joke. As one contemplates the matter a real alarm is created; for what would become of certain heavy magazine writers, sensational novelists, and numberless Lilliputians in newspaper offices? ”

“ Does a heartless real estate dealer decline to sell me a house outside of the slums? - I simply call on a white Negro to buy one for me, and go off, gloating over the fact that the proud Aryan has put it in my power to triumph over his unrighteous exclusiveness. ”

“ How happy, then, must the Negro be, when, if fairly dressed, entering a public place with wife or sweetheart, he, without effort on his part, arouses a bustling curiosity that good manners, even, do not restrain! ”

“ Now I challenge the world to show me an Aryan who can successfully pass for a Negro.
Moreover, it is a great wonder that the blacks have so little haughtiness when they find themselves the topic for magazine and newspaper articles, the inspiration for many marvelous songs, the subject on innumerable discussions in the very Congress of the United States, and not seldom the moving spirit in those latter-day gems of literature, - race novels. ”

“ Though the Negro is actually excluded from the social, political, and industrial life of America, there is comfort in the fact that he is not the least of the non-Aryans in this country. He has been theoretically placed on equal footing with the great white man by the great white man himself. Mongolians cannot become citizens of the United States, while the African from any part of the world and his descendant have this glorious privilege. ”

“ It would not be fair to presume that, because one leads a lowly and unlettered life, he in his own way has not as much solid enjoyment as the greatest of philosophers, poets, or artists. The youngster, swallowing with eager gulps the contents of a detective story in which are recounted the hairbreadth escapes of some matchless sleuth, will, even though raised in afterlife above such literature, confess, if ingenuous, that he enjoyed his Old Thunderbolt as much as the Adam Bede of his later life. ”

“ One who basks in the sunshine of adulation, who is constantly told or constantly telling himself that his is the very climax of civilization, the heir of all the ages, knows not what it is to feel the heart beat quickly at a word of praise. ”

“ The very wrongs of the oppressed have more than once called out the finest qualities in their oppressors, which might have, for the want of incitement, lain dormant forever. In compensation for injustice at home a deal of commiseration may be scattered abroad. Who can tell but that certain small, sporadic iniquities wrought against the blacks in America have so softened the consciences both of the people and of our ruling powers that they have been led to sympathize with the oppressed of all the foreign world, and to utter tearful protests against Armenian outrages and Kishenev massacres? ”

“ For him there is always something in the future, no matter how distant. A Negro of uncommon ability, the advocate of a new education for Negroes, has told them that in a thousand years they would be fitted to partake of the things the Aryan now enjoys, and this promise of remote enjoyment the blacks hail with enthusiasm. ”

“ In this age where all is doubt, and every statement outside veracious newspapers is picked to pieces by original investigation, one may, without being liable to the charge of heresy, stick at accepting the theory that he who enjoys the highest things alone enjoys existence. ”

“ When one desires to express a truth it is the fashion to apologize for the triteness of it; as though the extirpation of triteness from the earth would not most surely leave us without a shred of truth. ”

“ I could see condescension oozing from every pore. "Young man," he said, "I see you are trying to elevate yourself. This is a glorious country, where every man has a chance. The nation shed its blood for you. ”

“ Heap abuse upon one, however, misrepresent his every action, call his assertion of his ordinary rights insolence, scoff at his efforts at deference and politeness as servility, and then a kind word to him is as a grateful palm in the midst of a desert. ”

“ Such an experience in reality at a Northern hotel or in a Northern Young Men's Christian Association would, in some quarters, call forth a deal of gratuitous sympathy. An idea has unfortunately got abroad that being Negro is like being in solitary confinement, - away from the rest of the world. ”

“ There is no aristocracy of enjoyment. Those who tell us that there is no music but Wagner's, and that the love of melody is an infallible sign of a vicious taste; no poetry but Browning's, - at least that part of him that must be guessed at,- thrive by assumption alone. It is impossible that any considerable portion of the human race shall be elevated to the level where these alleged highest pleasures are ”

“ The dullest can see the advantage of such a condition. A few others, all too sensitive, wilt and wither under this hard candor; but the great world cannot stop to care for the few.
To attract attention monstrari digito has, since the existence of man, been the chief support of his vanity and ambition. Herostratus, in olden times, burned Diana's Temple to become immortal. And to what shifts have not men resorted to gain a modicum of notoriety, to stand for a moment in the limelight? ”

“ If the satisfaction furnished the superior race sometimes causes the less fortunate pain, the latter should remember that what benefits the majority makes for the good of the whole, and that nothing is nobler than vicarious suffering. ”

“ While in particular instances a chance encomium may reach a Negro, yet on the whole he is little subject to that soul-deadening anaesthetic, - flattery. With him plain speaking is the vogue; a spade is a spade, however black ”