The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1922-09-23
IF HA DlNG'S RIGHT, GODS
WRONG

President Harding recently made
two speeches in the South, one at
Birmingham, Ala, the other at At
lanta, Ga, on the race question, in
which he displayed remarkable lack
Of information on the subject evil
IDENTIFY due to the fact that he had
studied only one side of the question.
Of course Mr.. Harding is right,
when he says that the colored man
should have political, educational and
| economic rights, but he is wrong
| when he says that he is not entitled
to every right to which every other
group of Americans is entitled. The
president has no right to say that
one-eighth of the. population of the
! United States must be differentiated
in any way from the other, seven
eighths. .s
In his special message to the Con-
gress which met March 4, Mr.. Hard
ing said that he looked with favor on
the idea of the appointment of an in
ter-racial commission to study racial
conditions in the United States.
There was no need for haste in an
| nouncing his view on question which
could not have been studied properly
in the short time since he, in June,
1921, announced his intention to do,
owing to his many and pressing Off
cial duties, and it seems that the
President has taken advantage of an
| opportunity and thrust his views upon
the public ear, for the purpose of Gre
ating sentiment in favor of his ideas
| on the subject, which were evidently
obtained from individuals and books
favorable to the South but inimical to
the real interests of the colored peo-
! pie. 49,
The President enormously con-
POUNDS social equality" with amalga-
nation. He says that amalgamation
cannot be, but it exists, it has always
existed and always will exist. The
combined efforts Of the law and pub
lie opinion have failed to prevent the
mixing of the races. Throughout, the
ages there has been so much racial
mixing that today the scientists and
ethnologists agree that there is no
such thing as pure race: In no
other country on the globe has there
been more racial mixing than in the
United States which is the melting
pot of the world. The majority of
the people of the United States are
mixtures of various races and the
greater part Of this majority is COM
posed of people with more or less
Negro blood. The racial mixing in
the South is almost wholly illegitimate
as. the laws: make marriage between
the races a crime.
Now as to social equality, that ex-
lists in some part of the United
States and it is only in those parts
of the, country which have more or
less of social equality that the colored
people have any rights which the
white people respect. The very words,
"social equality" imply that all rights
! are secure. In the South. there is
neither equality nor respect for rights.
The contempt for the colored man is
largely due to his inferior social
status, which extends through all hui
man relationships in that benighted
section of the country. Even at the
speech of the President the colored
people were segregated and the dis
patches say, SIN the white section
there was a silence which was abso-
lutte and stony, only one light futter
of applause came when the President
said, 11The Negro should be encour-
aged to be the best possible Negro
and not the best possible imitation of
the white man." This seemed to
please a few Of the whites who evil
IDENTIFY visioned a "good Negro of
Slavery days, who hat in hand bowed
low when cole massa" approached.
The South has queer idea of So
cial equality. In the North "social
equality in its narrow sense, init
mate social mingling in private house
parties, dances, pink teas, etc. In
the South the idea is distorted so that
it includes civic rights, hence the jim
crow car, the jimcrow school, the
jimcrow library, the jimcrow park, the
jimcrow telephone booth and so on ad
nauseam.
When Harding was candidate for
President, THE APPEAL doubted
that he would give colored people a
square deal and was not disposed to
support him but we were reassured