Page:The New Negro.pdf/437

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upon a time in my younger years and in the dawn of this century I wrote: “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” It was a pert and singing phrase which I then liked and which since I nave often rehearsed to my soul and asked:-how far is this prophecy or speculation? To-day in the last years of the century's first quarter, let us examine the matter again, especially in the memory of that great event of these great years, the World War. Fruit of the bitter rivalries of economic imperialism, the roots of that catastrophe were in Africa, deeply entwined at bottom with the problems of the color line. And of the legacy left, the problems the world inherits hold the same fatal seed; world dissension and catastrophe still lurk in the unsolved problems of race relations. What then is the world view that the consideration of this question offers?

Most men would agree that our present problem of problems was not the Color Problem, but what we call Labor, the problem of allocating work and income in the tremendous and increasingly intricate world-embracing industrial machine that our civilization has built. But despite our concern and good will, is it not possible that in its consideration our research is not directed to the vital spots geographically? Our good will is too often confined to that labor which we see and feel and exercise around us, rather than directed to the periphery of the vast circle, where unseen and inarticulate, the determining factors are at work. And may not the continual baffling of our