Greenbrier independent. [volume] (Lewisburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1980, 1896-05-07
The Unaided Solution of the Southern
Race Problem.

9 Much has been said and write,
3 about the race problem confronting
the South. No solution of it ye
proposed has met general acceptance
, Probably the discussion of the ques
tiOn thus far has resulted in little be.
yond securing recognition Of its i'm.
portance as only less than that OF
slavery itself. Are we drifting then,
} and are we to continue to drift, as
before the war, until danger becomes
imminent and critical? How fares
1T with the patient who has rejected
the prescriptions of the social doc
tors? 1t is the cheerful thesis of q
noteworthy article by Mr.. A. S. Van
de Graatf, of Alabama, which will
appear in the May FOrttn,, that all is
we'll; ; that the problem is already in
process of solution by the spontane-
Gus operation of the same fundamen-
tai economic law which, under tho
different conditions of slavery,
brought it into existance.
The race problem, in Mr.. Van de
Graaff's opinion, arises out of the
unequal distribution of the negroes
in the United States. "It will GER
tainly be agreed that, if the negroes
now within our borders - were
evenly distributed over the country
so that in no State or region did
they form more than one-eighth of
its population, we would have no
race problem in the sense i'm which
we commonly speak of it as exist
ing now. 1t is the presence Of an
undue proportion of negroes in the
Southern States that at once gives
rise to the race problem and makes
1t question belonging peculiarly to
tho South" Mr.. Van de Graaff
gives the result of his Investigations,
extending over q number of years,
into the movement of negroes in the
South, and the results as he presents
them in his Forum article are very
striking. For they show conclu-
sively that over much the greater
portion of the South the race prob.
lem does not exist in the sense in
which he has defined it. In the
whole South the tendency is toward
a more equal distribution of blacks
and the dissipation of black majori-
ties. A remarkable tendency also
exists on the part of the negro to
drift away from the farms into the
cities. The passing of the negro
from the fields into the town is, in
Mr.. Van de CRAFTS opinion, sob
viously fact of the greatest impor-
tance, not only in its bearing upon
his status and distribution within
the South itself, but also upon the
question whether he is to remain in
the eSouth in relatively excessive num-
bers and as an element of its popuIa.
tion not shared in an appreciable de.
gree by the North. Once loosed
from the stability placed upon the
great highways of travel, the negro
has taken the first and longest step
out of the South altogether. The
transition from Richmond to Phila-
delphia, or from Nashville to Chi
cago, is comparative easy, and it may
be made in easy stages" In brief
Mr.. Van de Graaff's figures suffice to
show that the negro is capable of mi
grafton on large scale, and that
neither by choice nor necessity is he
to remain fixed in the Southern
States. Mr.. Van de Graaff concludes
his Forum article-a notable one it
is toO--with a just tribute to the
South's practically undeveloped re-
sources and bOundless possibilities.
He says: "Great as has been the
industrial advance made, considera-
Bile as appears the present immi-
grafton movement. they but family
foreshadow the development now
at hand. If 80 much has been done
in the last thirty years under such
disadvantages and practically I'M
aided by immigration, what may we
not expect when that rich tide which
has created the Empire States of the
Northwest is turned i'm even greater
volume Southward? Only the mar
vellous growth Of the great West it.
self can guide the imagination in at
tempting the forecast, and even that
must be surpassed. To the South
unquestionably belongs the future. "