Читать книгу Samantha on the Race Problem онлайн

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“The difficulty of this problem did not seem to strike them, whether by any miracle the white race would at once forget its pride and its prejudices.

“Whether by a legal enactment a peacock could be made to change its plumage for the sober habit of a dove, or an eagle develop the humility of a snail.

“The wise men expected to do more than this, and failed.

“And they never seemed to ponder this side of the question: Whether it was not cruelty to the weaker class to thus raise up to a greater strength the prejudice and animosity of the dominant race.

“And whether this premature responsibility they had caused them to assume was not as cruel as to put knives and rifles into the hands of babies, and send them out to fight a battle with giants—fight or die.

“I SOT DEMUTE.”

“And so these wise men, having done their best, it would seem, to rouse the blind passions and intensify the ignorant prejudice and class hatred of the blacks, sit at their ease.

“And so the farce has been played out before a pitying heaven, and has been for a quarter of a century, growing more pitiful to look at year by year.