But even suppose that only the lower strata of Whites mingle with the upper strata of Negroes, the result would be more slowly, but not the less surely, fatal. The interpenetration in our democratic society is too thorough. Here and there the Four Hundred may isolate themselves, but only for a time and imperfectly. Who knows when the scion of a millionaire may turn into a motorman, or the son of a peasant hew his way to the Capitol? Let the mongrel poison assail the humbler walks of life, and it will spread like a bubonic plague through the higher. The standing of the South would be lost irretrievably. Though her blood might still flow pure in myriad veins, yet who could prove it? The world would turn away from her, and point back the finger of suspicion, and whisper "Unclean!" Just here we must insist that the South, in this tremendous battle for the race, is fighting not for herself only, but for her sister North as well. It is a great mistake to imagine that one can be smutched and the other remain immaculate. Up from the Gulf regions the foul contagion would let fly its germs beyond the lakes and mountains. The floods of life mingle their waters over all our land. Generations might pass before the darkening tinge could be seen distinctly above the Ohio, but it would be only a question of time. The South alone would suffer total eclipse, but the dread penumbra would deepen insensibly over all the continent. Well, then, the determination and attitude of the South are just and holy and good, and we may now advance to another question. Granted the completest social separation in the South, where the danger is instant and fearful, is it also right or demanded in the North, where the danger is distant or wholly unreal? Why not social separation and the race standard in the South, but social equality and the standard of personal merit in the North? We apprehend that such will be the position of many fair-minded men at the North, and perhaps we may hope for no greater concession. Such a compromise, if carried out to the letter and its purpose and spirit everywhere boldly proclaimed and distinctly understood, might indeed be accepted as a _modus vivendi_. If the Northern Press and Pulpit should speak on this wise: "You Southerners mistake us entirely. We recoil with your own horror from the idea of a hybridized Dixie; God forbid that you should 'herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains'! We too eschew the notion of race equality. We do not practise, we do not preach it. We applaud your inflexible resolution to keep the Caucasian blood uncorrupt and consecrated to the highest ideals of humanity. Only, we would generously remember high achievements and reward exceptional merit with recognition, but always without will or desire to disturb your social order or to debase the coin of your White civilization. We hold out no false hopes, we encourage no vain ambitions, we flatter no