[27] But the Boston Negroid still swears by the classics and logarithms, and regards the recent change of front as little less than a betrayal and surrender. Similarly, but with recognition of the merits of Mr. Washington's idea, Dubois, in his _The Souls of Black Folk_, and the sympathetic reviewer in _The Nation_. In this controversy we think that Dubois and Washington are both right and both wrong; but the higher and deeper right, as well as wrong, belongs to the former. But our sympathy with such rational and well-directed efforts must not blind us to near-lying limitations, which no might of man can possibly remove. Let it be said, then, boldly that the Negro will not enter generally or in great numbers into the field of skilled labour--neither in the North nor in the South. It is, of course, not unattended with danger to venture into the realm of prophecy, but in this case the bases of prediction seem particularly broad and solid. We all know that skilled labour is daily growing more and more thoroughly organized. Rightly or wrongly, for weal or for woe, it regards capital, especially combined and organized capital, if not as its enemy, at least as its exploiter, prepared at every instant to make the very most of it--to assail it at any and every exposed point, to throttle it by any and every means, and to reduce it to serfdom. As over against the might of accumulated millions, the labourer cannot fail to perceive his utter impotence--he is not even a drop of a bucket. It is only in great numbers, in compact and readily wielded organizations, that the individual workman can count for anything whatever--can find any hope of escape from the veriest servitude. It is idle to suppose that, in many years to come, capital will not continue to mass itself into formidable aggregations, or that labour will cease to array itself in firmer and firmer unions and associations for self-protection and for maintenance or elevation of the standard of life, the minimum of subsistence.