The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1914-08-29
A NEW BOOK.
Used by thousands
for a generation

The old saying, CT the making OF
books there is no end" is probably
more nearly true today than eve be-
fore. So the publication of a new
book is not usually the signal for gen
eral public excitement. But when the
new book is written with particular
reference to a certain class or group
of people, the members of that group
are justified in noting carefully its
contents. Negroes then will be inter
ested in reading Democracy and Race
Friction" by John Moffatt Mecklin,
Phi. d. professor of philosophy in the
University of Pittsburg. Prof. Neck
Inns book is saturated with a militant
and all-absorbing Anglo-Saxonism;
and is the frankest statement yet put
forth by those who believe in the di-
vinity and infallibility of the white
man, and that the Negro in America
has no rights whatever. 1t is above
the average of its type in force and
clarity of statement, and by being
couched in rather scientific phrase
ology, will be likely to catch the fan
cy and command the belief of the un-
thinking. The style Of composition
is on its face almost purely exposl-
tional, but the exposition is deftly
carried out in such a manner as to
constitute a strong, subtle and menac-
ing argument.
Apart from the many little argu-
mentative side implications in which
the author delights to indulge, such
for instance as that the Anglo-Saxon
race is the chief creator, preserver
and guardian of civilization, the main
purpose of the book is to convince the
American people of two things: %
that the Negro being of a different
ethnic type from the white man and
possessing different racial character
~istics, can never appropriate unto him
self nor realize within his own life
those culture ideals of civilization
which constitute the white mans pc
culiar social heritage; and therefore,
(2) the American people should eX-
clude the Negro from any participa-
ton in our social democracy, and
should deny him every form Of equal
ity, including equality before the'law.
Now if it were possible to sustain
the argument assumed in the first
proposition, namely, that the Negro
in America cannot take in and take on
the best in American civilization, the
deduction that therefore he has nc
natural rights and should be denied
equality before the law, eXemplifies a
species of logic of which John Stuart
Mill would hardly be proud. But the
attempt to show that one ethniC
group cannot appropriate and Absorb
the civilization achieved by another
ethnic group-that assumption is Sc
contrary to the history of civilization
and so totally at variance with con
temporaries human events that i
really amounts to a crude and gros:
! a%bsurdity. No race, as Prof. Kelly
I Miller has already pointed out, has
sole proprietorship in civilization; anC
if the Anglo-SaXon race had been un
der the necessity of inventing its owl
alphabet and symbols to represeni
numbers or evolving it's own religion
or enriching and celebrating withouf
borrowing from the Latin its own Ian
guage, or creating without the benefi.
of previous models its own system o
jurisprudence-in that case those peo
pie today would be in the same state
they were when the Caesars used Il
sell them in the slave markets o
Rome. In trying to show that thu
Negro cannot acquire what he call
the white mans social heritage. Prof
Mecklin rehashes a lot of matter tina
has been exploded time and tim
again, besides mis-stating, misintel
preting and suppressing facts.
There are two broad and fundamen
tai considerations that Prof. Mecklil
ignores. One is that the Negro IL
after all, a human being; and the othe
is that ethics cannot be divorced from
the problem. But Prof. Mecklin ha
no patience with any effort to injec
any considerations of equity or hi
manitarianism into the matter. II
: denounces the attitude Of those VIII
believe that the Negro has nature
and inalienable rights in the case a
an "uncritical humanitarianism," an
repudiates Prof. Royce of Harvard a
being an %"uncritical humanitarian
Dixon, Vardaman, Thomas Nelso
Page, Ben Tillman-they are philos'
piers. But Josiah Royce, professor
philosophy of Harvard-he is uncri
! ical. But Prof. Mecklin's plea will |
7 in vain. The greatest Americans wi
} never repudiate equity, and they wi
never consent to pervert those fund
{ mental doctrines of natural rights, al
. equality before the law, which are Il
: particular safeguards of our civiliz
ton. Prof. Mecklin's book does n
!. add anything of value to the ~literatu
of the problem he has under discu
sion. w. L. GRIFFIN.