Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/161

 THE AMERICAN

JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

VOLUMKXI SEPTEMBER, 1905 NUMBER 2

THE NEGRO RACE AND EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION

PAUL S. REINSCH The University of Wisconsin

While in the past century populations and racial elements which had formerly been far distant from each other have been brought into intimate contact, the twentieth century will witness the formation of new mixed races and the attempt to adjust the mutual relations of all the various peoples that inhabit the globe. The recent great advance in the safeness and rapidity of com- munication has made the whole world into a community whose solidarity of interests becomes more apparent day by day. Closer contact with the more advanced nations of the Orient will have a profound influence upon European civilization, because these nations, though ready to adopt our industrial methods, are deter- mined to maintain their national beliefs and customs. Though from the races that stand on a lower level of civilization no such deep-going influence upon European and American life is to be expected, their relations to the peoples of more advanced culture will nevertheless be a matter of great moment. Some of them, the weakest and lowest in organization, may indeed continue to fade away before the advance of European power ; but this is not likely to be the fate of the negro race. The negroes have come in contact with the worst side of European civilization; yet their buoyant, vigorous constitution and their fundamental common-