Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/110

94 "The future American negro will part, undoubtedly, with many of his racial characteristics as he approximates in color and conduct the white race. Even now many persons of negroid ancestry are so fair in color that they readily pass for white people, and marry among that class without exciting the slightest suspicion as to their mixed race identity. Furthermore, white American marriages are constantly contracted with every variety of the colored races, and the fruit of such unions is certain to exert, hereafter, a considerable influence upon many existing social perplexities. The inevitable outcome of a perfect blending of our heterogeneous peoples would be the development of a composite type of American people of incomparable strength and beauty, who, if they clung fast to their best ethical instincts, would attain such heights as would make our country what it was ordained to be,— the cradle of world-wide liberty, the citadel of human fraternity, and the seat and centre of universal righteousness."

Without exception, I think this is the most outrageous and vilest proposition that has yet been made on the part of any one as a solution of the negro problem in the United States. It is surely deplorable enough to know that this is without doubt what is actually now taking place, but to have a writer of Mr. Thomas's ability arise and suggest that such a course be encouraged and sanctioned is absolutely heinous and damnable. I can conceive of no greater calamity that could happen to my people, to my race in this country than this. We have here at least a certain proportion of the population who can call themselves true Americans — a race that, although it came from the