Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/47

Rh "and as both are the gradual outcome of external conditions, fixed by heredity, it follows that the attempt to suddenly transform the negro mind by foreign culture must be, as it has proved to be, as futile as the attempt would be to suddenly transform his physical type." This is really the point that the untutored masses in the United States fail to see. Sometimes, however, a witty politician will say something on this line, and I heard a republican Congressman, remark upon one occasion that "the legislature could accomplish a great deal but it could not legislate the woolly kink out of the hair on a negro's head." The negro in fact has no morals, and it is therefore out of the question for him to be immoral — in other words he is non-moral rather than immoral. In speaking of the condition of the blacks in the Southern States in 1883 the Rev. Dr. Tucker is quoted as having said at the American Church Congress for that year, that he knew of whole neighborhoods "where there is not one single negro couple, whether legally married or not, who are faithful to each other beyond a few weeks. In the midst of a prayer-meeting I have known negroes to steal from each other, and on the way home they will rob any hen-roost that lies conveniently at hand. The most pious negro that I know is confined in a penitentiary for an atrocious murder, and he persists in saying he can see no offence against God in his crime, though he acknowledges an offence against man." [I believe the negro to be correct on this point, although it makes the atrocity of the crime none the less.]

Mention is further made of negro missionaries guilty of the grossest immorality, living in concubinage, addicted to thieving, lying, and every imaginary crime, yet