For a century, the presence of the negro in the United States has divided the nation. Though the Civil War finally decided some questions about his status, others affecting his place in the social order remained unsettled; new controversies have arisen; and no immediate agreement is in sight. Interest in the later phases of the race question has found expression in scores of books, hundreds of articles, thousands of orations and addresses, and unlimited private discussions which have generally produced more heat than light. The question has kept different sections of the country apart and has created bitterness which will long endure. Moreover, this discussion about ten million people has produced an effect upon them, and the negroes are beginning to feel that they constitute a problem. Differing attitudes toward the negro generally arise from fundamentally different postulates. Many Northerners start with the assumption that the negro is a black Saxon and argue that his faults and deficiencies arise from the oppression he has endured. At the other extreme are those who hold that the negro is fundamentally different from the white man and inferior to him: and some go so far as to say that he is incapable of development. Fifty years ago General John Pope predicted, with a saving reservation, hat the negroes of Georgia would soon surpass the whites in education, culture, and wealth. Other predictions, similar in tone, were common in the reports of various philanthropic associations. Obviously these prophecies have not been fulfilled; but it is just as evident that the predictions that the former slaves would relapse into barbarism and starve have also not been realized. Practically every prophecy or generalization made before 1890 with regard to the future of the negro has been discredited by the events of the passing years. It is perhaps worth while to take stock of what this race has accomplished in America during something more than fifty years of freedom. The negro has lived beside the white man and has increased in numbers, though at a somewhat slower rate than the white. The census of 1870 was inaccurate and incomplete in the South, and in consequence the census of 1880 seemed to show a phenomenal increase in the negro population. Upon this supposed increase was based the theory that the South would soon be overwhelmingly black. From the historical standpoint, Albion W. Tourgée's Appeal to Caesar is interesting as a perfect example of this type of deduction, for he could see only a black South. The three censuses taken since 1880 definitely establish the fact that the net increase of negro population is smaller than that of the white. This seems to have been true at every census since 1810, and the proportion of negroes to the total population of the nation grows steadily, though slowly, smaller. ¹