Winfield H. Collins

“ And let some Negro brute, guilty of rape, suffer the punishment he so richly deserved at the hands of an outraged community, and one would think, if he considered the bitter censure from distant quarters, that the foundations of the government were being undermined, or that a poor lamb was set upon by a pack of howling wolves, thirsting for its blood, but not a word of commiseration for the family, or the victim, of the fiendish Negro’s unbridled bestiality. ”

“ Is it not the business of the South to endeavor to make the South safe for white women by whatever method appears to be most effective? The women of the South should be just as free to go when, where, and as they please as women in other sections of the country and not be, as has been so aptly put by John Temple Graves, “prisoners to danger and fear”:
“In a land of light and liberty, in an age of enlightenment and law, the women of the South are prisoners to danger and fear. ”

“ How can Negro criminality and immorality be lessened? The answer is not easy, and what follows is merely suggestive. Up to the present, what little the Negro has accomplished, in most part has been due to the white blood he has received, or to white direction and sympathy. The Negro is woefully lacking in initiative and persistence. He would be greatly benefited by some sort of probationary oversight. If the Filipinos are not fit for self-government collectively, much less the Negro individually. A great part of them are no more fit to profit by their freedom than so many children. ”

“ So, lazy, worthless, robbing, murdering gangs of them went prowling through the South. For it is as natural for the Negro to sit in idleness, or shoot crap, to go on marauding expeditions or connive at insurrections, as it is for the white man to establish courts, collect libraries, and found schools. ”

“ Human nature cannot be changed overnight by edict. When the sun fails to rise wars will cease. It is to be hoped that enough sanity yet remains in the American people to save them from such nonsensical vagaries of sentimental dreamers.
But the Negro, son of a wild and tropical race, content for thousands of years to roam the jungles of Africa, supplied by bountiful nature with all his heart’s desire, failing thus to develop any controlling trait of character, or mental stamina, and although civilizations rose and fell beside him, it meant nothing to him. ”

“ Any hope of escape or mitigation of punishment that even unintentionally may be held out to the criminal serves as a wonderful stimulant to crime. The positive knowledge on the part of those criminally inclined that punishment will be immediate, sure, and adequate, is the best deterrent. The Negro is a creature that lives in the present and even postponement of punishment robs it of much of its force. The law sanctions personal self-defense. The white man in lynching a Negro does it as an indirect act of self-defense against the Negro criminal as a race. ”

“ Indeed, Negroes and mulattoes have been toilers in the United States for generations but who ever heard of an important labor saving instrument invented by them? The same abilities or characteristics which would make a white man only locally important would make a Negro or a mulatto famous. There were thousands upon thousands of white men intellectually and otherwise superior to Booker T. Washington who gained but little recognition, but because he was a negro, or rather mulatto, Washington’s abilities stood out in striking relief. ”

“ A mode of punishment that would be out of place as to the white man may be well suited to the Negro. Small-pox is not to be treated as chicken-pox. Barbarous criminals require barbarous laws. The innocent and law-abiding citizens of a State have rights as well as the criminals—at least, the right to protection from the criminals. But let some crafty scoundrel finally get in jail, and he will be flooded with letters of consolation and sympathy from sentimental women and soft-headed men. ”

“ Again, in extenuation of lynching, it is important to observe, that, as a result of most crimes against the body, such as murder, but little, if any, humiliation attaches. But it is quite different in rape cases. Not only is there often great physical injury, but also an unutterable humiliation. Our civilization teaches that one should hold certain personal rights and considerations even more dear than life itself. To have in mind such ideas and live up to them measures our reach above lower peoples. ”

“ Another reason for segregation is the criminality and immorality of the Negro race. Even if it would benefit a few Negroes or satisfy their vanity to travel with whites or to live on the same street with them is little reason why the comfort, property values, health and morals of the whites should be endangered thereby. The better elements of society have rights as well as the worst and the majority should receive consideration as well as the minority. ”

“ If a few Negro industrial schools make such a good showing, then why not multiply the number? Indeed, it is yet too early for either the Negro or his friends to indulge in too much optimism in regard to the matter. For while it may be true in general that whatever is done in behalf of a lower element in a society benefits the whole society, at the same time, it needs to be borne in mind that to the extent that it is done to the cost or by the neglect of a more homogeneous and wholesome element in the society or if it in any way militates against such element it is a questionable proceeding. ”

“ And so long as racial antipathy shall exist—and practical minded men see no signs of an end of it in the near future—regulations for the promotion of harmony should be encouraged by both whites and blacks.
It would be almost as reasonable to expect an [120] idiot and a genius to find a common ground of association as to expect it of a white man and a Negro. For in both races there is a failure to recognize that consciousness of kind which is the basis of all pleasant association. Indeed, even the subdivisions of the white race show a strong preference each for those of his own division. ”

“ In studying the jail statistics of Alabama, whether cities or counties, it soon becomes evident that the criminality of the Negro increases as his proportion to the whole population decreases; in other words, the fewer the Negroes in a given population the more criminal they appear. An examination of Tables I, II, and III will show that this is not only true of Alabama, but true, with scarcely an exception, both North and South. Negro crime seemingly increases in the cities and in the North and the West. So does the crime of the white man increase, although not to the same extent. ”

“ If the States had the power to train or even to enforce habits of industry and thrift upon the shiftless, idle, and vicious Negroes it would undoubtedly result in measureless benefit to both white and black. ”

“ Often, indeed, a farmer will not employ a Negro if he can get a white man.
[157] Indeed, the Negro farm laborer and the Negro farmer are the greatest stumbling-blocks in the way of the agricultural development of the South. Were it possible to remove from the South at least three-fourths of these and replace them with whites whether native or foreign there can be no doubt that the production of Southern farms would be wonderfully increased. It is an injury to the South and to society as a whole that the Negro has under his control even as much land as at present. ”

“ Again, a great deal of the friction between the two races in the South is caused by the resistance of Negro criminals to officers of the law. Not only so, but relatives, friends and other Negroes as well often attempt to shield the Negro criminal [85] in order that he may escape detection and arrest. This is not exceptional but rather of frequent occurrence. It is one of the ways in which the black man shows himself to be an enemy of law and order. He does not seem to realize the attitude in which he places his race in acting thus. ”

“ So the cause of the Negro’s failure to secure a reasonable share of wealth is not lack of opportunity,—for (at least, in the South) he has every opportunity that he could wish in order to do so,—but rather to his racial traits or characteristics,—some of which are: a happy-go-lucky disposition, indolence, shiftlessness, laziness, indifference, lack of mental stamina and ambition, and strong criminal tendencies. ”

“ Again, in connection with the lynching of Negroes in the South, one must not lose sight of the conditions that are peculiar to that section. The greater the number of Negroes in proportion to the whites in any State or community the easier it is for the Negro to commit crime and escape. And the Negro criminal does often escape. Seldom is it found that the Negro will aid in the detection of the Negro criminal, rather otherwise. Even the hope of escape is a wonderful encouragement to the criminally inclined. ”

“ Here the Negro merchants ply their trade; Negro professional men follow their various vocations; their children are educated; the poor, sick, and the orphan of their race is cared for; churches, newspapers, and books flourish heedless of those outside this Negro community who resent its presence in a white city.” [103:1]
Indeed, in many parts of the country the Negroes have separated themselves from the whites by founding small communities of their own. ”

“ Others, however, object to segregation because to their minds, it is a denial of social equality with the white race, or that they are deprived of the best living conditions. If the Negro had the proper race pride he would welcome the opportunity to live among his own race. He would delight in the companionship of those of his kind. Among the Negroes would develop grades of society as among white people. Indeed, already in Baltimore Druid Hill Avenue and other streets have become a sort of aristocratic section for the Negroes. ”

“ Each Negro is his own boss and can work when it suits him and stop when he pleases. To make such a living as satisfies him he need work scarcely half of his time. This just suits Negro inclinations and consequently Petersburg is a little paradise for the Negro.
[105] However, the segregation of the Negro is not yet universal. In some towns and cities as well both North and South they are more or less scattered. In the City of Washington they are found practically everywhere. In most cities they occupy the most undesirable parts—such as any low muddy places or narrow alleys. ”

“ If such leaders would use their influence to the utmost to make their race as law-abiding as the whites, and should bring it about, it is hardly likely that then they would need to complain that their race is imposed upon. But if they were, at least, there would be more force in their complaint. But so long as the Negro race commits its present amount of crime, the complaint against unfair treatment is more than childish. ”

“ The Negro as a waiter takes more pride in his occupation and is more polite and obliging than the white man of the waiter class but he is even being displaced in this work. Even as a farm laborer, for which service he has been trained for generations, he is losing his grip. “Too slow, unreliable, inefficient” are some of the counts against him.
The idea that prevails outside the South that Negroes do practically all the work on Southern farms is far from the truth. More than half of the cotton crop is raised by white labor,—in Texas, three-fourths or more. ”

“ But no such danger need be feared from the presence of the Negro.
I have just adverted to the fact that the yellow race and the black are not easily assimilated with the white race. It may be well that it is so. To the normal white man amalgamation with these races is almost unthinkable. Nevertheless, there are a few misguided individuals who surely have either a mental or a moral twist who persist in joining together that which nature has put asunder. ”

“ Scholars hold that the average citizen of the ancient Athenian Democracy, the greatest of ancient democracies, was as intelligent as the average member of the British Parliament, or of the American Congress. The Negro, however, with all his barbarism and ignorance, totally unrelated to the white man in origin, character, and race, directly after his emancipation, was made a full-fledged citizen in the greatest of modern democracies. ”

“ Negro conventions denouncing the whites for protecting themselves against Negro crime in their own way, could realize that it is not so much the black skin as what sort of man the black skin covers, that counts, would demonstrate to their black brothers that they themselves are the sinners rather than the sinned against, that they are the transgressors rather than otherwise, they might accomplish much toward lessening Negro crime. ”