Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/151



REVIEWS 137

Under the caption "Of Booker T. Washington and Others" he gradually delineates the origin and evolution of negro leadership and the conditions incident to each cycle of change and progress. His attitude toward Mr. Washington is one dictated by radical difference of opinion. While tolerant of Mr. Washington's views and deeply grateful for his assistance in the efforts for racial uplift, he does not fail to emphasize the possible interpretation that Mr. Washington, by his silence in regard to the political activity of the negro, lends influence and confirmation to the advocates of negro disfranchisement.

The chapters "Of the Faith of Our Fathers" and "The Sorrow Songs" give a vivid picture of the credulity of the negro and the power of his soul to express in plaintive melody his soul-sorrows and strivings.

As a practical solution of the color-line problem, which is assuredly assuming national importance, Professor DuBois's book cannot be said to do more than offer the rich hints from a vast store of sympathy and knowledge. Yet it is, indeed, the best statement of the factors that greatly complicated the negro's life and destiny in America and which tend largely to segregate him as a "group within a group." The author feels intensely and expresses beautifully the soul-sighs and the spirit of unhopefulness, which are the heir-looms of slavery and oppres- sion, of those "who dwell within the Veil," shut out from the greater and freer life by ignorance, oppression, ostracism, and infant strength of purpose and ambition. Although conscious of the fact that the negro is hardly self-effectual and that the future's sky is over-dark, he has shown a depth of sympathetic investigation and a seriousness of purposeful expression which everywhere strive with the reader and influence him to the thought that now we are coming to a systematic discussion and an intelligent striving from which shall ultimately be born that time, long written of and striven for, when all men shall enjoy the inalienable rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

THEOPHILUS BOLDEN STEWARD.

Lorigine degli Indo-Europei. By E. DE MICHELIS. Torino : Fratelli Bocca, 1903. Pp. viii + 699. Lire 15.

THIS bulky volume is No. 12 in the Biblioteca di Scienze Modernc, which includes, among works of native authors, Italian translations of