I say "race problem" advisedly, because sociologists, in analyzing the issues growing out of the relations between the white American and the colored American, have eliminated from the discussion all difficulties surrounding their settlement--save the impossible effacement of race or color. All have admitted that the bronzed American may have character, intellect, capacity, wealth, industry and comeliness--yet he is a social "Pariah" because of his social identification. A problem that otherwise would be simple is thus converted into a perpetual issue by reason of race, and hence we have a "race problem." The race issue is particularly acute at the South--not because the Southern Negro differs materially from his Northern brother in character or attainments--but because in the Southern states the Negro abounds in the greatest numbers, and because upon her fertile soil he was once held in bondage. As a slave, the Negro came to be regarded as one whose inferiority must continue from generation to generation. The Civil War brought freedom in its wake, and one of its results was to clothe the emancipated servitor with the full vestments of citizenship. By proclamation and legislation, the ex-slave was made the political equal of his white master, and if numbers are to be counted the slave class became the superior force in the reconstructed Southland. That the new Negro citizen was honest and well-meaning, no one doubts. It must be confessed, however, that the masses were ignorant of the high responsibilities charged to them, and it is but natural that many mistakes were unwittingly made. Indeed, the wonder is not that many errors could be laid at the door of the amateur "statesman," lawmakers and suffragists, but that more grievous blunders were not made. The result, all things considered, is highly creditable to the heads and hearts of the leaders of that trying epoch. The masters did not take kindly to the seeming domination of their former bondmen. The anomalous situation was made infinitely worse by the gross frauds and maladministration of Northern white carpet-baggers, who misled the trusting Negro into false channels and bred in the minds of the landowners and former slave-magnates a bitter hatred for all that savored of the Negro and the party that they held responsible for their humiliation. Readers of history are familiar with the stirring scenes that went abreast with the efforts of the whites to free themselves from the consequences of the war. With the accession of President Hayes came the restoration of the democracy to local control in the Southern states. All are acquainted with the "reign of terror" and the depredations of red-shirted adventurers and night-riders. The instinct of white supremacy solidified that section, and later came the era of lynchings. General disorder prevailed wherever the racial problem was brought actively to the fore.