Why should the simple truth give offense to anybody? The Negro in Africa is a childish barbarian. Left to himself, he has never at any time or place evolved even the beginning of a civilization. Do what we may in the way of an education, the mind of the pure Negro, compared to the white, on the average does not get beyond the age of twelve years. To ignore this fact is to get into error from the start. Continue to ignore this fact, especially in the execution of larger national policies, and we shall invite, as we have done in the past, trouble that is deep and dangerous. Two facts should be remembered if we would make real progress in this discussion. The first is that only those who live among the Negro and so learn to know him at first hand can really understand his manifold traits. To sit down five hundred miles from the nearest considerable Negro population and write books about the Negro is not likely to help much. The second fact to be kept constantly in mind relates to our population of mixed blood. Every distinguished leader of the Negro race in the United States has been part white. In fact, a majority of the more distinguished have contained only a small infusion of Negro blood. It is the presence of this Mulatto element which clothes the whole problem in porcupine quills. It is this portion of our colored population which is restless and often unhappy to the point of bitterness because of our present policy with reference to the Negro. If there were no mixed population to consider our problem would not be nearly so difficult. I have always felt that superficial minds have a peculiar tendency to lay hold of the Negro problem. For instance, witness the illogical claims of some of those who think they are the special friends of the Negro and who continually emphasize the necessity for an enlarged sphere for Negro opportunity. On the one hand they boast of the very great progress the Negro has made during his half century of freedom. On one page they will emphasize Negro accomplishment. More than half of our adult Negro population, for instance, can read and write. Tens of thousands of Negro families own their own farms or city homes. An even greater number of Negroes are attending high schools and colleges. Then, on the very next page, the same author will take pains to show that the Negro is most foully treated. He is kept in ignorance and poverty. The wicked white population which surrounds him denies him every advantage and means of progress. Of course both of these tales can not be true at the same time.