The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-02-18
THE NEW PUBLICATIONS.
SOME OF THE NEW BOOKS OF
 THE SEASON

tons ''The Bell in the Fog"-FOrth-
 coming Books and Others.
 An important new book already exci- ting much interest among leading thinkers in America is ''The Color Line" "a brief in behalf of the un- born," by Professor William Benjamin Smith. who is a professor at Tulane university, New Orleans, and which is published by Mcclure, Phillips X Co., New York; $1.5O net. He takes an un- compromising stand on the hesfo question, yet all will concede his Work to be scholarly production. The au- thor is a well-known authority on the negro problem and this work is the re- suit of years of patient research ana study. The question of social, polltlcal and commercial equality for the negro, with it's inevitable sequence of inter marriage, has been treated from the scientific point of view in relation 10 the conditions that exist in America The entire discussion is purely scientl- fic, and ethnological inquiry divested to a n extent of some partisan or political Influence or sentimental considerations In the first chapter of this book the main issue is stated, the position Of the south is defined and her lines Of defence are indicated. The second chapter is devoted to a lengthy argu- ment of the assumed inferiority Of both the negro and the negroid. Mir. Smith takes up the side of the south. HHis opening chapter defines the po- sition of those below the Mason and Dixon line. He refers with regret to what he calls, without emntioning fur ther particulars, "The Luncheon at the White HHouse,' and attempts to de- rive a disastrous outcome to social in- terningling of the races. Here is a specimen of the authors argument:
 If we sit with the negroes at our ta- bles; if we entertain them as our guests and social equals; if we disre- gard the color lint in all other rela- tions, is it possible to maintain fixedly in the marriage of our sons and daugh- ters in the propagation of our species? UnquestionabIy no! It is as certain as the rising of to-ornrow's sun, that, once the middle wall of social partition is broken down, the mingling of the tides of life would begin instantly and proceed steadily
 In the authors discussion of the as- suen1d inferiority of both the negro and the negroid, he presents striking array of arguments. He then consi- ders the notion that this inferierity, which he assues demonstrated, is after all merely cultural and removable by education, or other extra-organic means, attempting to refute it in eve- ry detail. - -...
 The arguments of Dr. Boas, the emi- rent anthropologist, occupy much of the authors attention, after which he takes up the query which most natu- rally formulates in the readers mind then, is to become of the black man ?''
 Much space is given to the duty of resisting social equality of the races. Professor Smith admits that miscege- nation has already progressed far in the south, a fact which he deplores; Dut HG says It io iiot eb quSSblotl oA individual morality, nor even of se1f-re- spect. He. who commences with ne- gress debases himself and dishonors his body, tn temple of the spirit; bit he does not impair, in any wise, the dignity or integrity of his race; he may sin against himself and others, and even against his God, but not against the germ-plasma of his kind"
 If white and black blood shall ever be permitted to mingle he foresees the ultimate degradation of the Causasian race in this country. Tn his own pie turesque expression: ''If the race bar rier be removed, and the individual standard of personal excellence be es- abolished, the twilight of this century will gather upon nation hopelessly sinking in the mire of mongrelism."
 Even a little leaven, he urgts, may leaven the whole lump. Far more than this, however, even if only very super for negroes formed unions with none superior whites the case would not me altered; for it is grievous error to suppose that the child is born of its proximate parent only it is born of all its ancestry; it is the child of it's race. The eternal past lays hand upon 1t and upon all it's descendants. How ever wtak the white, behind him stands Europe; however strong the black, behind him lies Africa So there must be no social equality, for that would lead to marrying and giv- Ing in marriage. "fIe who supposes," says the author, ''that the south will ever waver a hairs breadth from her position of uncompromising hostility to any and every form of social equal ity between the races, deceives himself only less than that other who mis- takes her race instinct, the palladium of her, future, for an ignorant preju- dice, and who fails to perceive that her resolution to maintain white racial su- premacy within her borders is deepest rooted and most i1nmutable precisely where her civic virtue, her intelligence and her refinement are at their highest and best"
 Professor Smith thinks it is the sheerest folly to expect of education the impossible-to dream that it can affect the blood, or transmute racial 1 qualities, or smooth down the inc qualities between individuals of the same breed, much less between the 1 breeds themselves. He presents sta- tistics in support of Governor varda- l mans favorite assertion that the ne- 1