The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1909-12-27
THE CASTE OF RACE.

In an editorial discussion Of the dis
elimination against the negroes as the
inferior race, The New Orleans Picay-
une has the following:
The race question is as old as the
world. This feeling Of antagonism Is
apparently based on color, but there
are influences at work to keep 1t I'D
for reason far more potential than
mere color. The whites have not hest
tated to intermarry with the red In
dams, or even with the yellow Chinese
or the brown Japanese, but they have
only formed temporary unions with the
negroes and seldom consolidate and
perpetuate the connection by marriage.
b. l.. Putnam Weale, writer in sew
eral issues Of the Worlds Work on
the conflict of color, remarks in the De-
cember number Of that publication
that almost universally the negro from
the earliest times, has been held TO be
inferior to the lighter colored people.
In Europe, where negroes are not gen.
orally seen or understood, 1t may sound
like an overstatement to speak of the
race in such uncompromising terms,
but in the two Americas, in Africa and
along the vast Asiatic coast line, the
coal-black native is almost universal
ly considered an inferior being. The
whole history Of India has been one
long story of color prejudice as is
shown that the white and Aryan races
devised the system OF castles to pre-
vent the mixing of the white and
dominant race with an inferior peope,
and he mentions that the word 'castes"
in the original Sanscrit language means
"colors."
In addition to the instructive pre-
JUDGE which keeps the negro in infer
Tor regard on the part Of the whites,
there is an ethical reason for this pro-
found aversion. The black man has
given nothing to the world. He has
no architecture of his own, no art, no
history, no real religion, unless amin
ism be a religion. His hands have
reared no enduring monuments, save
when they have been forcibly directed
by the energies OF other races. The
black mantle negro-is the worlds
common slave. He has been slave In
Asia far more than he has ever been
slave in America-for his slavery in
the cotton growing states lasted but
few short decades, whereas In Asia
it has certainly endured for 5000 years,
If not twice that long.
Fate seems to have marked the Af-
rican down. No matte what one may
say against the Asiatic 1t is a fact
that he contributed immensely to the
world. He has founded every religion
that exists; he has built most endur-
ing monuments and temples, and he
possesses in many ways a far more
subtle and speculative brain than the
European. In poetry and in art the
debt Europe owes Asia is immense, far
greater than is commonly supposed.
Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Arab Hin
doc, Persian--all have contributed
their ordered quota; all have had and
viii continue to have a profound In
fuence on the worlds progress. Not so
the black man. He is the child OF ma
ture-the one untutored man who was
a slave in the days of Solomon and is
still slave, though his manumission
throughout the world is one of the
great landmarks In the history of the
nineteenth Gentry.
Thus, the negro has always been
held up as a perfect example of arr
rested development. Though he has
for 1900 years been in contact with
other peoples, he has remained a child
of nature, despised and ill-treated
whenever possible.
The whole country in the temperate
zone of the New World where the me-
gro is well treated is In tn southern
states of the American republic Here
his inferority Is recognized, but here
also he Is regarded with kindness and
friendship. When he commits an
atrocious crime against the white race
the criminal alone 10 hunted down and
punished summarily in many cases, but
the anger and indignation directed
against the individual is never visited
upon others OF his race who are I'M
connected with the crime. This Is
precisely different from the situation i'm
the northern states of the Union, where
a conflict OF individuals OF the white
and black races brings on a race war
In which entire communities are in
volved. and these disturbances only oc-
cur where the equality Of the negro
with the whites 10 openly proclaimed
and defended.
From the earliest times and in every
age OF the worlds history, the negroes
have been in contact with the whites
OF the dominant races such as the
Egyptians, Greeks, Carthagians and
Romans, and yet, the negroes have
made no advances In the civilization as
Q race. There have been individuals
who have attained distinction, but they
were Of mixed blood, unless there may