The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-04-05
Literary Lights and ShadOhs
BY S. MAYS BALL.

by R. W. shufeldt. N. D. (Rich G. Badger-The Gorham Press')
 Inst about ever so often we are ex- Dected to read a new book on the negro question As long as il is not com pulsory that We do read these DOCKS usually written by some one WHO never saw A negro outside of Boston or Washington-surely not good cities Tn which to view or to come in contact with the negro-at least so Represen= tative Hefin thinks any WaY-We southern people may continue to strus- gle along with the black burden. WhicE is so productive of books As MT. Ray Stannard Baker is now busy setthhS this negro question in the American magazine, it does seem such a waste of time and good paper for any other writer to take up the subject at all. However. pr Shufeldt has not feared 10 discuss this question in his book, ."The Negro-A Menace to Civilization. The whole argument of most books written about the negro and the soutn usually consist of a terrible lot ol lh- dictments against the southern people; we are told startling facts which We have known for years over our heads hang most awful things surely To cohs9 to us. if something Gust what IS not explained) is not quickly done to ward
 
 most of the books on this fertile sup feet. this reviewer has never yet been gbIe to find any solution offered to tfe southern people which they are not already trying faithfully to carry ou.. In other words these writers frighteh us to death with awful threats ana they tell us that if we do not do somethlhg- some terrible fate awaits the soutn, but they will not or at least do not tel
 ffald title page to his book uses a quotation from the writings of John Cameron Grant as A key note to his book, real ing "A mixed race: a fatal stumbling block that has cost more than one Latin race the crown of emplre' UT. Sh ufeldt has, different from most writers on this (always with us) negro subject studied his subject yer thoroughly and he makes his cohlen- tion very plausible. But he IS not SIV- ing the southern people any news; he Is only stating what we know to be sscts. and after thrashing the subJeet over and over again, he fails to tel inc southern people what they ought To do. that they are not doing now. Ir1e lie advocates to an extent the trahs- porting of the negro to Liberla or to the Philippine Islands, or any old pldc% where we can get rid ot them at good long distance away, but when writer talks these days of sending l2.- 100000 of people from section or country where they wish to remain to another locality where they refuse to go, that author destroys the effect of most of his other plausible reasoning. It is such a large question that no doubt only by such books and muen study and discussion of this perennial subject can anything be done. Then, too, as one is not compelled to read a book these days unless he wishes to- TO real harm will be done, but there are many people who will wish 70 read such thorough studies as Dr Shufeldt has made in his latest book. What writers on the negro question. hoping to accomplish some good, ought to do, is to give us a remedy, not simp- y tell us over and over again what we know and are sick of, already. Therein lies the great opportunity for tl-e student of the negro question Tn south will welcome and read anythi g that will help her out in her problem.
 There is not any danger of any trans. portation of the negro He won't gc. Then to go back to the original statement in the review it is difficult to discover from any book yet written on the sub ject read by this reviewer Che has read most of thenD any plan by which the south can do one thing more as to allevi- ating it's burden. that it is not attempt ing to do right now. Neither can the sub ject be dismissed, as it was by well informed southerner the other day, q friend of this reviewer. who. being told that Dr. Shufeldt was advocating to an extent the deportation of the negro, he said: Well, when you and pr. Shuteldt send the negroes out of this country, I am going with them.'' And this southern gentleman had only a short time before this narrowly escaped a stay in the Uni- ted States penitentiary for pulling an m- pudent negro driver from a United States mail wagon and thoroughly thrashing him because the negro had attempted to run over him while crossing the street. He had been arrested by the United Sta tes marshal for constructing the mails" Dr. Shufedt goes very thoroughly, as a med ical practitioner in the 'mulatto ques- tion," which is the best work in his book. pr. Shufeldts book is interesting, but he suggests not one single workable rem- edy.
 Katherine Trevalyan, by Louise Maursell
 Field The Mcclure company.
 katherine Trevalyan" is q novel of New York society "seen from the inside 50 the cover to the book says. What an awful place New York society must be
 
 by members of it. Mrs. Edith Wharton certainly thinks nothing good at all of her associates in New York, if we are to judge from 'rhe House of Mirth' and ''The Fruit of the Tree" and Mir. Rob- ert Chambers in his two books, The Fighting Chance" and The Younger Set" could not be called an admirer of the society people of the metropolis. Many of the people in those books, as well as in Katherine Trevalyan," are, accord ing to the authors, nothing better than jackals, vultures and carrion crows. Miss Louise Maunsell Field, the author of "Katherine Trevalyan," must know whereof she speaks, for she is the grand daughter of Maunsell B. Field, who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury dur ing the civil war, and an intimate friend of President Lincoln, and she "goes out" up among the people she tells us about in her book. If her book is true to life, and it is on a line with Mrs. Wharton's and MT. Chambers tirades against their set of people. then we can only wonder why the ''yellow press" of New York does not have more opportunities than it does (maybe they dol to write of the indiscre- tions of New Workers
 The story of the book is about 'Kath- erine Trevalyan,' a rich girl of New York, with more money and time on her hands than she knows what to do with. She does not care for society she