Transcriber’s Note Italic text displayed as: _italic_ THE NEGRO: THE SOUTHERNER’S PROBLEM THE NEGRO: THE SOUTHERNER’S PROBLEM BY THOMAS NELSON PAGE CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS NEW YORK :::::::: 1904 COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS Published, November, 1904 TROW DIRECTORY PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY NEW YORK TO ALL THOSE WHO TRULY WISH TO HELP SOLVE THE RACE PROBLEM, THESE STUDIES ARE RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED INTRODUCTORY In this volume of essays relating to one of the most vital and pressing problems which has ever confronted a people, no pretence is made that the subject has been fully discussed. All that is claimed is that an attempt is made, after years of study and of more or less familiarity with some phases of the Problem, to present them plainly, candidly and, as far as possible, temperately. It is not even claimed that this is wholly possible. No man can entirely dissociate himself from the conditions amid which he grew up, or free himself from the influences which surrounded him in his youth. The most he can do is to strive earnestly for an open and enlarged mind and try to look at everything from the highest and soundest standpoint he can reach. If he does this and tries to tell the truth absolutely as he sees it, though he may not have given the exact truth, he will, possibly, have done his part to help others find it. It is not claimed that the author is absolutely correct in all of his propositions. Sometimes the information on which they are based is, possibly, incorrect; the classification of facts incomplete or inexact; and, no doubt, his deductions are occasionally erroneous; but no proposition has been advanced for which he does not believe he has sound authority; no fact has been stated without what appears to him convincing proof, and whatever error his deductions contain may readily be detected, as they are plainly stated.