The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-07-15
THE NEGROES SKIN.
Thomas Fortune Says Absorption
Is the Destiny Of His Race.
The Color Line Is Fading Soon VIII
Dusky Brides and White Groor1s End
the Race Trouble All Over tho Land
-Africa's Bishop Writes.
COPYRIGHT, 1891

ICOf1 lcso.i
The future of the people of African
origin in the United States is as press
ing a problem to-day as it was forty
years ago, when it taxed to its utmost
the craftsmanship OF Henry Clay and
! those associated with him. anxious to
preserve the peace of the nation at
whatever cost, regardless of the moral
ity involved in the question. It mat
tered little to Stephen A. Douglas
whether slavery was voted up or voted
down. and President Lincoln, his sue
cessful rival, expressed the same idea
when he declared it to be his para
mount duty to save the union. The
abolition of slavery was with him
secondary consideration.
There are many sides to every race
problem, and many men of many minds
are apt to regard the problem from
many points OF view. That is natural.
The Afro-American has his views, and
they are radically different, in the
main, from those of the Apglo-Ameri-
ca1. Despite the fact that it is gener-
ally conceded that it viii be impossible
to enforce the Geary Chinese exclusion
act. although there are scarcely a half
million of Cinnamon in the United
States, few of them citizens and most
Of them newcomers. Ex-senator John
J. Ingalls, advocates the deportation
of the Afro-American population, of
whom there are 10,000,00 in this coun-
try, citizens born under the flag at that,
who have defended it in every war
which the nation has waged against
enemies, foreign and domestic.
Hon. Murat Halstead, on the other
hand, advocates the abrogation of the
fifteenth article of the amendment to
the constitution, because, as he thinks,
extending the suffrage to the Afro
American was a mistake.
What will be the Afro Americans
future? VIII the republic absorb him,
or will he preserve his race integrality?
It must be one or the other of these
alternatives. It must either absorb
him or quiet him.
The opponents of the theory of alb
sorption are as numerous as leaves in
VallOmbrosa, while those who favor
the theory of ejectment are among the
first to recognize the impossibility of
the undertaking.
The Xpatriation of eight millions of
people after more than two centuries
of residence would be an achievement
miraculous from every point of view.
The presumption that the Afro-Amer-
lean will remain here, homogeneous
and disturbing element, to the end Of
the chapter. as he has been from the be-
ginning of it. is one that the most ultra
opponent of the theory of absorption
would reject.
There is abundant evidence on every
hand that the republic is absorbing
the Afro-American, and that, in conse-
quence, he will contribute in no small
degree, as Victor Hugo prophesied, to
the formation of the future race type
of the United States. 1t could not log
ically be otherwise. We might just as
reasonably ignore the influence being
exercised in the same direction by
other alien races of the population.
The influence of climate upon physic
al development and of culture upon
facial and cranial refinement have
been sufficiently emphasized. The
transformations wrought by these in
fuences have been marvellous. They
have had large influence upon the