Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/93

Rh impossible to separate the two races ; a system of fines, however large the amount imposed in cases, would have but a slight deterrent effect; the whipping-post or other tortures would perhaps be more efficient; but I do not believe that even the death sentence as a penalty would be wholly effectual in preventing it. In fact, sometimes the very danger to be met lends a zest to the attempts to gratify the demands of the sexual appetite and men will seek it and attain it, even with their life in their hands. It is the nature of the animal, and it obtains throughout nature. What would be needed is a thorough comprehension of the entire subject in its wildest sense, and then action accordingly. But a thorough as well as a far separation is, as a matter of fact, the only preventive for interbreeding, when two races come to occupy the same area of country under the conditions I have above pointed out. This may be highly impracticable, but never impossible.

It is clear from what has been said in the foregoing paragraphs of the present chapter that we have, in the case of the negroes in this country, a typical example on a very large scale of the introduction of a large number of representatives of one race into an area occupied by a large population representing another and primarily distinct race. History furnishes nowhere a better example of the kind than this, and in so far as the two races are concerned, they were initially as distinct as they could possibly be. As is well-known, one race, the imported one, was as black as black could be; they were as low and as superstitious a race of cannibals as the world has ever known. Cruel and ignorant they, in their mental and physical organizations, came