absurd conceits, we sow no seeds of discontent or discord." If such notes rang out from the moulders and wielders of the Northern mind, the South would rejoice with joy unspeakable. She might then pass by unnoticed what now excites her protest. But alas! such notes are rarely, if ever, heard. Instead, it is constantly reiterated that the South is the victim of "unreasoning prejudice," that she is old-fogy, antiquated, ignorant, and without liberalizing experience of the larger world. Her plea for race integrity is thrust aside as not worth hearing or is answered at best with fine scorn and lofty contempt. From such Northern utterances it seems impossible to draw any conclusion but that very many would be quite willing to see perfect equality of the races established _in the South_, even with its inevitable corollary of mongrelization.[3] It is this painful consciousness, that the central dogma of her civilization finds apparently so little favour beyond the Potomac, that so alarms the South and makes her so supersensitive as to Northern practice. Examples, otherwise trifling, acquire deep interest when set to illustrate some vital principle. [3] For documentary proof that the utmost extreme of miscegenation has been zealously preached, and on quasi-scientific grounds, see _infra_, pp. 71, 72, 126-9. To the North, so superior in all the tokens of development, the world looks for the pattern. Her conduct counts as the model. The Negroes themselves cannot be expected to distinguish between the Northerner North and the Northerner South, nor to reflect that the wise man howls with the wolves, and very naturally feel themselves the victims of gross injustice. And herein lies the profound and disastrous significance of the Washington incident and its fellows. They are open proclamations from the housetops of society that the South is radically wrong, that no racial distinctions are valid in social life, that only personal qualities are to be regarded. The necessary inference is the perfect social equality of the races, _as races_, the abolition of the colour line in society, in the family, in the home. The unescapable result would be the mongrelization of the South and her reduction below the level of Mexico and Central America.[4] [4] As to the natural effect of such propaganda on the Negroes themselves, let the present epidemic of crime and lynching bear witness.