Dawson and Klondike City (South Dawson) in September, 1898.
A first impression of Dawson, in August, 1898, could not be other than one calculated to bring up comparisons with strange and foreign lands. As we saw it, approaching from the water side, it persistently suggested the banks of the Yang-tse-kiang, or of some other Chinese river, on which a densely apportioned population had settled. Hundreds—one is almost tempted to say thousands—of boats were lined up against the river front, and so packed in rows back of one another that exit from the inner line was made possible only by a passive accommodation from the outside. There were steam craft, house-boats, scows, and a variety of minor bottoms, ranging from the hay-packed raft to the graceful Peterboro canoe. Many had canvas spread over them, giving house quarter to those who preferred the economy of an owned estate to the high-priced cabins oflog huts and hotels, and the purity of the open air to what was at least considered to be the polluted atmosphere of the stable city. It would be far from the truth to assume that this floating population was composed exclusively of men, women, and children; there were dogs galore, abundant by both presence and voice, horses and mules, and an occasional goat betrayed itself munching among hay-packs and the usual combination of simple and hard things which makeup goat food. One canvas bore the tempting inscription "Hot and Cold River Baths," several carried legends of variously designated laundries, and a few even invited to "Board and Lodging, Cheap." Of course, the word cheap had here a special etymologic significance, and bore little relation to the same form of word which is current in lexicons.
Some Mud in the Main Street—First Avenue.
The first favorable impression of dry land in Dawson was tempered by a knowledge that even here were many moist spots. The mud lay in great pools along the main street—First Avenue or Front Street—but hardly in sufficient depth to make walking dangerous. Dogs and goats could alone drown in it. It is true that an occasional wading burro or even a mule would find a dangerously low level, but I am not aware that any in this condition had added to a list of serious casualties. No mention is made in this connection of cats, for, in truth, only two specimens of the feline family had up to this time reached Dawson—one, a blue-ribboned kitten, which was endearingly received as the mascot of the Yukon Mining Exchange.
The Main Street in a Spring Freshet.
The Dawsonites are not entirely oblivious to the discomforts of mud, for an effort is being made to block it out with sawdust, of which the three or four sawmills in the town furnish a goodly supply. In some parts a rough corduroy has been attempted, but the price of lumber, two hundred dollars per thousand linear feet, renders this form of construction too expensive for general use, especially in a community all of whose members, female as well as male, are prepared to stem the tide with high-top boots. About one half the street length shows the pretense of wooden sidewalks, but no one has yet recognized a special responsibility for repairs, or seemingly considered that a continuous walk requires a continuous support. Walking is a succession of ups and downs; boards are missing here, other are smashed elsewhere, and the whole walk gives the impression of having been in existence for centuries rather than for the period of a short twelvemonth.
It was not difficult to determine what, perhaps, the majority of the sixteen thousand inhabitants of Dawson were doing at the time of our arrival. They were simply loitering, and the streets were packed with humanity. This was not strange, either, for it must have been difficult to resist the enjoyment of that open sunshine, that soft, warm atmosphere which is the delight of the summer climate of the far North. Never had I experienced anything comparable, and others who had traveled much agreed with my experience. On my way to the hotel, the "Fair View," which had been strongly recommended for itscuisineand the circumstance that it was "brand" new in its appointments—having only come into existence a few days before—I caught a good general glimpse of the town, the dominantfeatures of which were registered in the two sides of the main thoroughfare along the river front. A nearly continuous row of one-story, or at the utmost two-story, frame shacks or booths, many of them still in canvas form, and most of them supported over the river's bank by pile proppings, built up the river side of this First Avenue. All manner of articles, both serviceable and unserviceable, for theKlondike business were displayed, mostly in cramped quarters. The variety of things that had in so brief a period found their way to this region was truly astonishing, and one marveled at the mental ingenuity which spirited some of these articles to achamp de vente. Surely nothing but "manifest destiny" could have placed a mammoth's molar on sale for a hundred dollars, when it was thought that a period of starvation was reigning in the town. And yet almost alongside of it were posters announcing that four loaves of bread could be purchased for one dollar—in another place "six loves" for the same price—and that "half an ounce" of gold dust, the equivalent of eight dollars, would gain admission to the best seat witnessing a boxing and wrestling contest.
In addition to the booths doing a regular merchandise business, there were those whose masters ministered to a specialty—druggists and doctors, photographers, auctioneers, and brokers of one kind or another. "Bartlett Bros., Packers" served the inner core of the gold regions by means of long trains of pack-mules, but they were not the only ones to whom thecargadorwas an officer militant. Dog teams there were as well as mule teams, and the majesty of the law was hardly considered invaded when the former effected a junction with man in the capacity of common carriers. One of the most interesting sights was to me the large number of letters awaiting ownership which were tacked up to the fronts and sides of different buildings, in the most public way petitioning for rapid delivery. My first letter in Dawson was obtained by stripping it from a door-jamb, but it was three weeks before my attention had been directed to it by a friendly discoverer. To obtain anything from the post office was a most exhaustive process, and usually required a long wait, sometimes of a day, or even of two days, before entry could be obtained into the small room where the sorting, distribution, and dispensation of mail matter were being effected. Even when finally issued, this matter was usually of several weeks' antiquity of arrival, the sorting of tons of substance being much beyond the capacity of the few official hands that were engaged in the work.
Dog-Team Express—Dawson.
By far the most imposing side of the street was that which faced the river. Here, at least, were real buildings. The stately depots of the Alaska Commercial and North America Trading and Transportation Companies, with their outer casing of corrugated iron, would have done credit to a town of larger capacity than Dawson, and in regions much more accessible to civilization than the Northwest Territory. Farther on, the signs of a number of well-built saloons—"The Dominion," "The Pioneer," etc.—attract attention, not by the supposition that they are alone in the business, since they are supported by probably not less than two or three score others of theirkind, but by their specially distinctive interiors; one of these is embellished inside by a series of four mural decorations in oil or distemper, representing a range of subject from Morro Castle, Havana, to a "Moonlight on the Yukon," for which a resident artist "of promise," whose work was done in an open lot, received the handsomecompensation of eight hundred dollars. They were befitting the place which they graced.
Junction of the Klondike with the Yukon.
A more intimate acquaintance with these saloons made it plain that they were patronized both for the drinks which were sold over the bar for fifty cents or more and for the gaming tables which in open evidence betrayed a surpassingly strong interest in faro,rouge et noir, and roulette. Crowds were watching the fortunes of the play at every turn. From the front entrance quite to the rear some of the more favored halls were packed, but with an element that seemed little disposed to disturbance of any kind. While the drinking of spirituous liquors is very largely indulged in, I believe that during all my stay in Dawson only three cases of obtrusive drunkenness were brought to my attention; and of riotism my experience was wholly negative. Life and property are considered safe even in the most doubtful establishments, and it is not uncommon for a man to pass hours in a crowded dance hall with virtually all his possessions, possibly a few hundred dollars, or it may be thousands, carried in the form of gold dust in his trousers pockets. Two main factors are involved in this condition of security or in the feeling that it exists. The first of these is, perhaps, a wholesome dread of the Canadian Mounted Police, whose efficiency in the direction of controlling order is conceded by every one; and the second, the circumstance that the inhabitants of Dawson and of the adjoining Klondike region are not, as is so largely supposed, a mere assortment of rough prospectors, intent upon doing anything for the sake of acquiring gold, but a fair representation of good and indifferent elements borrowed from all professions and stations of life, and not from one country alone, but from nearly all parts of the civilized globe. During my brief stay I stumbled upon "counts," "sirs," military and naval officers, scientists, lawyers, newspaper men, promoters, and others of broad and liberal standing; and if some of these were undistinguishable in external garb from their brethren in mustard-colored mackinaws whose sole resource was digging for gold, their polished and intellectual method was evidence enough that civilization was present in good quantity along the upper Yukon. The fact that there are three weekly newspapers published in Dawson—the Nugget, Midnight Sun, and Dawson Miner, the first two selling for fifty cents a copy and the last for twenty-five cents—can hardly be considered to prove this condition, although favoring it; for, though the substance and especially the typography of the journals are quite good, the demand for reading matter is such that almost anything could realize a subscription list. The long-belated New York journals seem to command a steady sale on the news stands, where one also sees displayed the small and (in our country) gratuitously distributed scenicbook of the transcontinental railways put up for fifty cents. The Argosy, Strand, Munsey's, and Cosmopolitan were the ruling magazines during my visit, and each of these could be had for seventy-five cents a number.
Regretfully must it be said that the female portion of the population does not sustain the male either in character or diversity. I triedin various ways to ascertain the number of women who represented the community, but failed to obtain a satisfactory accounting. A large proportion of those who are in evidence, and perhaps even by far the greater number, belong to the "red" aristocracy, or at least to that side where steady principles are treated with little consideration and respect. I use the word aristocracy advisedly, for it is a notorious fact that an amount of deference is paid to these creatures of shame which is not given to the virtuous or self-respecting woman; and that they themselves, recognizing their standing, are apt to look down upon the rest of their kin, and to even question their proper privileges. A large part of the broadly capacious Second Avenue, together with equally conspicuous sections of the town elsewhere, is given up to the public display of the inmates of neatly constructed log cabins bearing such devices as "Saratoga," "Bon-Ton," "The Lucky Cigar Store," "Green Tree," etc. The number of open houses is probably less than in most mining camps, and far below what it is in some places. In deference to a demand tax of fifty dollars, levied on each member of the profession to pay part costs of two fire engines which had been brought to the town, there was a response of only sixty-nine, and this was considered a sufficiently close representation not to press the matter any further.
A community of this kind must necessarily have its dance halls and places of amusement. The latter consisted at the time of my arrival of four "theatres" or "opera houses"—the "Combination," "Monte Carlo," "Mascot," and "Pavilion," two of which suspended or closed up before the "season" had fairly opened. Ordinarily, the price of a drink at the bar of entrance paid for admission to the performance with seat, and many will agree with me in believing that the admission was fully paid. The acting need not be worse at any theater, and the singing could hardly be surpassed in its eccentricities; yet the performances appeared to satisfy a general demand, as ordinarily the houses were packed to their full capacity evening after evening. Needless is it to say that the performances are not intended for women in good standing, and few such are ever present, unless heavily screened behind the curtains of the "boxes." The plays are all of a low order, but the worst is not much worse than some of the plays that are tolerated in all their nastiness in some of our own legitimate theaters. It is singular and interesting as showing the influence of necessity that a sacred Sunday concert in aid of the fire department was successfully carried through in the capacious halls of one of the most notorious dancing resorts.
There are now two banks in Dawson—the Bank of British North America and the Canadian Bank of Commerce. In the early days of August the first of these was still housed in a tent, and before theend of the month a stately wooden structure with flagstaff, and with commodious quarters for the representing officers and accountants, gave dignity to the institution, while it lent style to the corner upon which it was erected. Adjoining it now is the architecturally most imposing but by no means largest building in Dawson—the three-storied,bow-windowed log cabin of Alexander McDonald, the recognized "King of the Klondike"—intended primarily as an office building. It is a truly fine expression of the art of log-cabin building. In many ways one of the most interesting buildings, if such it can be called, was the air space, with canvas top, which adjoined one of the theaters and was used by Signor Gandolfo for a fruit store. There was no architectural quality to commend this space; nor, indeed, was there anything else in its favor, except that it was in the right place and brought both lessor and lessee fortunes. For the privileges of this space of five feet width the occupant paid the handsome rental of one hundred and twenty dollars a month, or twenty-four dollars per single foot of frontage; his profits were, however, such as to justify this payment, and before leaving he confided to me his plan of renting one half of the establishment. Conceive of the character of a store five feet wide, the opposite sides of which are devoted to quite distinct interests! Other sites rent for very little less, and the singular part of it is that much of the rental goes to the pockets of certain assumed owners, whose actual rights are largely in the nature of a "grab" or of squatter sovereignty alone.
Arrival of the "Susie" from "down the River."
Dawson extends up the river for about two miles, virtually coalescing with and taking in what has been euphoniously called Lousetown and also Klondike City. These more southerly parts carry with them certain characteristics which are either wanting in the main city or are there but feebly represented. The closely packed tents remind one of an army gathering or of the furniture of some religious camp meeting; walking between them might almost be considered to be a branch of navigation. Inscriptions on the canvas tell us of certain "brothers from St. Louis" being occupants here, and of "the Jolly Four from——" occupants elsewhere. Representatives of the press, physicians, and attorneys all have their inscriptions. But the most interesting constructions, picturesque as much as they are instructive, are the elevated platformcaches, diminutive log cabins, which on high stilts store a multitude of articles in safe keeping and beyond reach of the army of hungry dogs which are everywhere prowling about and carousing upon all manner of odds and ends. Their appearance, especially where they are placed among trees and bushes, is such that the observer can hardly resist the feeling that he is traveling in a region of primitive pile-dwellings—it may be the interior of New Guinea or the forest tract of one of the Guianas.
Dawson, which now owns the right to celebrate its third anniversary, is destined before long to assume a modern garb. It already has its electric plant, and before many months have passed electricillumination will lift the burden of the dark winter night. It is believed, too, that an electric railroad for freight and passenger service will be constructed in the course of the present year into the heart of the adjoining gold region. The tiresome accounts of bad trails will then be a thing of the past. In its business aspects Dawson does not materially differ from the majority of the boom towns of the United States, though of course it has its peculiarities. In theperiod of little more than a year it has gathered to itself, besides the usual class of merchants, representatives of a number of professions, such as doctors, lawyers, chemists, and assayers, most of whom, especially of the first two classes, appeared to be doing at least fairly well. Mine brokers, or simply venders of claims, are numerous, but their service does not in most cases sustain confidence; the display of posters announcing "bonanzas" in mining properties may be effective at times, but ordinarily the investor turns either to the Mining Exchange, a reasonably well-conducted private enterprise, or to claim-holders on the ground. The auction of claims at the Exchange was always largely attended at the times of my visits, and the bidding was frequently very spirited. The allowance of a time limit of ten days in which to make an examination of properties purchased and of the titles thereto before payment, beyond a forfeit of ten per cent, was exacted, naturally inspired confidence in the method of the transaction, and there is no question that a considerable number of good properties were parted over the boards here, and with eminent satisfaction to the purchasers.
The practice of medicine is necessarily governed by the laws which are in effect in the Dominion of Canada, and it requires the possession on the part of the practitioner of a diploma properly accredited from some recognized college of medicine in Canada. Graduation with diploma from the best medical schools in the United States is not considered to meet the requirement—nor, for that matter, is the diploma of any but a British school. This restriction also applies in the case of professional trained nurses. A number of cases closely bordering on litigation, and at one time even threatening to bring about international complications, have arisen in connection with practice violating this law; but despite the overwhelmingly large number of foreigners who are resident in the region, and who, it was thought by some, had the right to consult practitioners of their own nationality or choice, there is now a peaceful submission to the reading of the statute. The exaction is in no way intended to legislate against foreigners, but is simply a provision of the Dominion laws, similar to that which requires a "Dominion surveyor" who intends doing official survey work in British Columbia to be properly accredited with a special paper of that section of Canada (as distinguished from the Northwest Territory, etc.). Like the physicians, all surveyors giving out work under their names must be officially licensed from the Dominion, although those not thus certificated are permitted to do office or field work for others who are.
A field of labor that has already been entered upon by women is stenography and typewriting. There has been considerable demand for this kind of work, and there will continue to be much more, butit may be doubted if profits arising from it will ever equal what has been attained in millinery and the sale of fancy dress goods. One of the earliest milliners to come out of Dawson told me at Bennett that she had disposed of a hat which brought her two hundred and eighty dollars (in April, 1898), and its only ornamentation was two black ostrich feathers! Such prices are to-day a thing away in the past, but fur capes or circulars are still marketable for three hundred dollars and upward.
Toward a more intimate acquaintance with the methods and lines of business now followed in Dawson we subjoin a facsimile of portions of the advertising page of the Yukon Midnight Sun, bearing date of September 3, 1898.
Facsimile of Part of Yukon Midnight Sun, September 3, 1898.
By J. L. M. CURRY, LL.D.,
GENERAL AGENT OF THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND AND OF THE JOHN F. SLATER EDUCATION FUND; LATE MINISTER TO SPAIN.
The negro question is not of recent origin. The Iliad of our woes began in 1620, when negroes were first brought to the colony of Virginia and sold as slaves. Slavery antedates history. The traffic of Europeans in negroes existed a half century before the discovery of America. The very year in which Charles V sailed with a powerful expedition against Tunis to check the piracies of the Barbary states, and to emancipate enslaved Christians in Africa, he gave an open legal sanction to the African slave trade. When independence was declared in 1776 all the colonies held slaves. Slavery, said the late Senator Ingalls, disappeared from the Northern States "by the operation of social, economic, and natural laws," and "the North did not finally determine to destroy this system until convinced that its continuance threatened not only their industrial independence but their political importance." In course of years "the peculiar institution" assumed a sectional character. The war between the States precipitated a crisis. President Lincoln began then the work of emancipation. "As commander-in-chief of the army and navy in time of war, I suppose I have the right to take any measure which may best subdue the enemy.... I view the measure [the Proclamation] as a practical war measure according to the advantages or disadvantages it will offer to the suppression of the rebellion." Senator Ingalls's testimony is as follows: "It may be admitted that the emancipation of the slaves was not contemplated by any considerable portion of the American people when the war for the Union began, and it was not brought to pass until the fortunes of war became desperate, and was then justified and defended upon the plea of military necessity." The Southern States ratified the amendments to the Constitution under penalty of otherwise remaining out of the Union and in political and military vassalage. The abolition of slavery has the assent of all sane men. Apart from ethical considerations, the subjection of the will, thought, or labor of a mature human being to the whim, caprice, or legal right of another is a gross political and economical blunder, unwise and indefensible. After emancipation came citizenship and enfranchisement of the freedmen, and the punitive measures of reconstruction, which were the outcome of hatred, revenge, desire for party ascendency, and which no good man can now approve. No conquering nation ever inflicted on a conquered people more cruel injustice than the disfranchisement of the most capable citizens and the enfranchisementof liberated slaves. Certain great civil rights are the necessary and proper consequences of freedom. Suffrage is not a natural right, nor a legal, political, or general result of freedom or citizenship. The large majority of citizens do not and can not vote.
The liberation of millions of slaves was the most gigantic and, in itself, one of the most beneficent acts of this century. Nothing is comparable to it as a triumph of the inalienable rights of man. Humanity and justice demanded emancipation. Re-enslavement no one proposes or desires. All would rejoice in the prosperity and progress of the Afro-American, but with freedom came citizenship and suffrage, and these revolutionized our Government. Elements undreamed of were introduced as constituents. When the Constitution and the resulting Union were formed, such a citizenship with franchise was not proposed, and if proposed would not have been listened to for a moment. The most infatuated negrophilist would not stultify himself by asserting that the Union of States would or could have been consummated with the present incongruous, heterogeneous citizenship.
From these and other facts has been evolved what has been called the negro problem. In the discussion, it is best to eliminate all extraneous considerations, all issues which, as the lawyers say, are "dehorsthe record." Government is a very practical business. The end is the securing and preserving the peace, safety, and well-being of the State. Civil government has no mission of general philanthropy. This problem, while of terrific importance in the South, where the black population is persistently congestive, is not, in its ramifications or direct effects, local or sectional. It affects every community and every section. It is of paramount national importance, complex, and involving social, moral, and political considerations. Its gravity can not be exaggerated. It compels the attention and demands all the resources of patriots, philanthropists, statesmen. It thrusts itself, uninvited and unwelcomed, into religious and social assemblies and legislative councils. It is pervasive, continuing, vital. It is better to look it full in the face and give it dispassionate thought.
It need scarcely be said that in this discussion no hostile reference is made to individuals. Some negroes are men of intelligence, integrity, patriotism, and stand on a plane with our best citizens in virtues and mental qualifications.[C]The gist of this contention is not based on special exceptions, but on the race in the aggregate.
We find in the South the presence of two distinct peoples, with irreconcilable racial characteristics and diverse historical antecedents.The Caucasian and the negro are not simply unlike, but they are contrasted, and are as far apart as any other two races of human beings. They are unassimilable and immiscible without rapid degeneracy. Ethnologically they are nearly polar opposites. With the Caucasian progress has been upward. Whatever is great in art, invention, literature, science, civilization, religion, has characterized him. In his native land the negro has made little or no advancement for nearly four thousand years. Surrounded by and in contact with a higher civilization, he has not invented a machine, nor painted a picture, nor written a book, nor organized a stable government, nor constructed a code of laws. He has not suppressed the slave trade, which, according to recent testimony, was never more flourishing. He has no monuments nor recorded history. For thousands of years there lies behind the race one dreary, unrelieved, monotonous chapter of ignorance, nakedness, superstition, savagery. All efforts to reclaim, civilize, Christianize, have been disastrous failures, except what has been accomplished in this direction in the United States.
It need not be disguised, for it is the ever-present, indisputable fact, that while there are alleviations of the unpleasantness, the relations between the negroes and their co-citizens of the Caucasian race are strained and unsatisfactory. The friction, the prejudice, the cleavage, is not between Teutonic and Latin on the one side and Semitic on the other, nor between Saxon and Celt; it lies deeper, yields less readily to palliatives and remedies, and seems a matter of adjustment for the remotest future. It may help to understand the situation if we analyze its causes.
The great revolution suddenly transformed the customs, traditions, and conditions of the two races. Ownership gave way to freedom; compulsory and wage-unrewarded labor to absolute control of person; inequality, inferiority, subjection, to equality in the eye of the law; restrained locomotion to license of movement; kindness, interest in life, wealth, and physical welfare, to suspicion, distress, alienation. With property in man, regulated and enforced by laws in the interest of the master, labor was organized, directed by intelligent control to the development of agricultural resources and to the building up of a society which for refinement of manners, hospitality, and administrative capacity, has elicited praise from disinterested travelers and investigators. The negro, whatever he may have attained from the discipline of slavery, was not cultivated in intelligence, in manual skill, in forethought, power of initiative, in thrift, and the comforts and graces of home life. When freed, many were deluded by deceptive promises. They construed freedom to mean a division of property. Release from bondage led to intemperance and extravagance. Accustomed to control, unaccustomedto self-reliance, having others to think, plan, buy, and sell for them, to supply wants, to watch over them from the cradle to the coffin, many, when left to themselves, reverted to primitive habits, and became idle and worthless. Slavery had cursed the South with ignorant, unskilled, uninventive labor. Freedom did not change its character. The war, liberation of slaves, the sudden extinguishment of millions of property, bankrupted the South. Subsistence, recovery of means of living, rehabilitation, reorganization of those agencies, which are, with intelligent work, the chief means of the wealth of civilized peoples, became the first duty after hostilities ceased. This demanded steady, persistent industry, the change of former methods of agriculture, subdivision of farms, diversification of pursuits, opening of academies and colleges, and establishment of public schools for free and universal education. The contrast between the wealth and prosperity of the North and South presents an appalling picture. Naturally, the Southern people were in despair, and too often they vented their dissatisfaction, their rage, upon the irresponsible and unoffending negro.
Slaveryper seis not conducive to self-restraint of the enslaved, to high ethical standards, and the best types of human life. When the interest and authority of owners were removed and former religious instruction was crippled or withdrawn, the negroes fell rapidly from what had been attained in slavery to a state of immorality, and, in some cases, to original fetichism. Some remained immovable in their former faith, but many, especially of the younger generation, of both sexes, gave proof of what degeneracy can accomplish in a quarter of a century. It is very common for them to divorce religion and piety. Artificial excitement, passionate emotion, was substituted for a faith which should be the product of a knowledge of and deep reverence for the Word of God. The danger of doing harm, or injustice, restrains my pen from disclosing a mass of disgusting material which could only shock sensibilities and stagger credulity. It is, besides, very easy to magnify our own virtues and others' vices. It is a prevalent mode of religiousness to repent of other people's sins, and to get superfluous merit by showing how others fall short of our attainments. Lowell said, "Everybody has a mission (with a capital M) to attend to everybody else's business," and "to make his own whim the law, and his own range the horizon of the universe." We have all read of the philanthropic Mrs. Jelliby neglecting home and children to sweeten the lot of the unregenerate natives of Borrioboola Gha. Still, testimony, to satisfy the most skeptical, could be adducedad nauseam, from men and women doing educational and missionary work among the colored people, to show the deplorable depths into which multitudes have sunk.
Under the Reconstruction Acts there was a deliberate, predetermined attempt and purpose to put the freedmen in control of the Southern States. The late slaves were enfranchised; the best class of white men were disfranchised. The law presumes that a man or a State intends the logical consequence of acts done. In South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana a majority of the voters, under the coerced policy, were negroes. In other States they were so numerous that a combination with a small fraction of white voters would give the ascendency. In Virginia, a coalition between non-taxpaying white people and negroes, under skilled and bold leadership, accomplished partial repudiation of the State debt. Superadd to this undisguised Federal intent the hungry adventurers who, as governors, judges, marshals, district attorneys, etc., flocked like vultures around the carcass, the horde of persons whose object was to pilfer and plunder, who played upon the ignorance, the superstitions, and gratitude of the negro and made the credulous victims believe that their former masters were not to be trusted in elections, and you have a picture which imagination fails to realize. The negroes, neither by apprenticeship, nor political education, not intellectual culture, were prepared for the boon, and their unscrupulous friends organized them into secret societies and inflamed hopes and expectations of wealth and dominancy. Casper Hauser transferred from a dungeon to a throne would be a fit illustration of this defiance of all the teachings of the past. Suffrage was a wrong to the nation, to the States, to the white and black races, and especially to the negro. Negro suffrage is a farce, a burlesque on elections, and only evil. The negroes generally vote as puppets, as machines, and have not the remotest conception of the character or effect of the act they are ignorantly performing, or of the issues involved in the contest, or of the functions or duties of the officers voted for. Huxley says, "Voting power as a means of giving effect to opinion is more likely to prove a curse than a blessing to the voter, unless that opinion is the result of a sound judgment operating upon sound knowledge." This premature investiture of the negro with suffrage reciprocally provoked alienation, bitterness, strife, and a resolute purpose on the part of the white people not to submit to the misrule and tyranny of ignorance and pauperism, but to resort to all necessary methods to defeat such a result.
It is needless to recapitulate the facts of many thousand years in order to raise the inference of racial difference between the Caucasian and the negro. The immigration to our country is the proof of antagonism of races. The foreigner stays away from the South; so in a large degree does the Northern man. Notwithstanding the unsurpassed climate, the rivers and gulf and mountains, the fertilesoil, the varied products, the hospitable welcome, the territory occupied by the negro is persistently avoided. By the census of 1880 the proportion of foreign-born in all the former slave States was 3.5 per cent; in the Northern States about twenty per cent; in eight Southern States, where the negroes abound, there was in 1880 only one and a third per cent who were of foreign birth. Mr. Lincoln, in 1858, in accounting for the repulsion, said: "There is a physical difference between the two races which will probably forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality.... I am not, or ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor of intermarrying with white people." Absorption, assimilation, is not to be dreamed of. The negro is no nearer common fellowship, equality of association, than he was in 1865. Reconstruction measures, constitutional amendments, sword and bayonet, ecclesiastical anathemas, fulminations of press and pulpit, all power of church and state and public opinion, have not altered, can not alter, what seems ineradicable. Race antagonism reaches deeper than political affiliation. If every negro at the South were to vote the Democratic ticket in every subsequent election, the race division would remain the same.
Can these differences be effaced, alienations be healed, and overshadowing perils be averted? What concerns the patriot is to find a solution for this gigantic and appalling problem. The statesman has not yet arisen, disposed to grapple with the problem, or capable of suggesting a feasible and efficacious remedy. With the least hardship to the negro, proper recognition of his rights as a man, due regard to the just ends of our Government, and the purposes of its founders, some scheme, if possible, wise, adequate, and comprehensive, should be devised. Whatever hitherto has been suggested has been met with opposition and is justly liable to criticism. The most obvious remedy, and which has been tried with some success, is to uplift the race by means of public schools and proper religious instruction. All honor to the schools that train the youth into self-respecting manhood and womanhood! All honor for the efforts that are making to correct the debasement of slavery, to unite faith and practice, to infuse religious life with an ethical Christianity, and to form a moral basis for life and character! The crimes of both races in the South, pushed within the last few years to most brutal atrocities, show that there can be no safety for free institutions, no guarding against savage degradation, if either race be kept in crass ignorance. Both must suffer. It would be some relief from ballot-box evils and perils if the examples of New England and of Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina were followed by all the States. As "universal suffrage has no anchorage except in the people's intelligence,"Massachusetts requires of voters a prepayment of taxes, and voting and office-holding are limited to those who can read the Constitution in the English language and write their names. What has been done by States, denominations, and individuals through schools is not discouraging to larger and better efforts, but is a stimulus to and an assurance of excellent results. The plantation system of the South, when land was in the hands of a few territorial magnates, was of very doubtful utility. A bold peasantry is a country's pride, and a small farmer should take the place of the large landed proprietor. If the negroes should acquire and hold more real estate, they would be of more value as citizens, and would have increased interest in the stability of laws, enforcing of contracts, and the preservation of State honor. An enlargement of the number of those who have a solid stake in the well-being of the country would be adding to the ranks of natural supporters of law and honor, and strengthening the true foundations on which the stability of a republican government must rest.
The congestion of the negroes aggravates the difficulties and dangers of the problem. The area of the States holding slaves in 1860 was 901,740 square miles, and of the Northern States, excluding Alaska, 2,123,860 square miles. By the census of 1890, the total population of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia, was 37.3 per cent of negroes and 62.7 per cent of whites; or, including Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, 30.7 per cent of negroes and 69.3 per cent of whites. The African citizens are localized within a narrow area. A French statesman said, "Cross the Pyrenees and Africa begins." Cross Mason and Dixon's line, or the Ohio and Potomac Rivers, and in a truer sense Africa begins, for south of that line the negroes are massed. It has been nearly forty years since slavery existed, for no one born since 1860 was ever practically a slave, and yet freedom has not diffused the seven million and a half of Africans. Despite all the traditions of bondage, all the misrepresentations of modern literature, all the exaggerated accounts of intimidation and cruelty, the South remains the home of the negro. When he is told that equality, friendship, political sympathy, and good wages may be secured by passing an invisible geographical line, he persistently refuses to be seduced across. Senator Windom, of Minnesota, advocated a plan for distributing by assisted emigration, but nothing came of it. Senator Edmunds, in discussing the Chinese question, said: "The people of Massachusetts would not be hungry for an eruption of a million of the inhabitants of Africa, ... because they believe, either by instinct or education, that it is not good for the two racesto be brought into that kind of contact in that place.... The fundamental idea of a prosperous republic must be a homogeneity of its people."
Colonization as a remedy has had many strong advocates. As early as 1800 the Assembly of Virginia, in secret session, instructed the Governor to correspond with the President with the object of procuring a colony to which the negroes could be sent. Jefferson began the correspondence. The Legislature resumed the question, and expressed its preference for "Africa or any of the Spanish or Portuguese settlements in South America" as the place "to which free negroes or mulattoes, and such negroes or mulattoes as may be emancipated," might be sent or choose to remove. In 1805 the members of Congress were instructed to endeavor to procure suitable territory in Louisiana. In 1811, being asked his opinion as to a settlement on the coast of Africa, Jefferson replied that "nothing is more to be wished than that the United States would themselves undertake to make such an establishment on the coast of Africa." In 1813 the Legislature openly and almost unanimously adopted, for the third time, resolutions similar to those of 1800. The same year the Colonization Society was formed, out of which grew the Republic of Liberia. President Lincoln, in his first annual message, December, 1861, referring to the two classes of liberated persons that might be thrown upon Congress for their disposal, recommended "that in any event steps be taken for colonizing both classes at some place or places in a climate congenial to them. It might be well to consider, too, whether the free colored people already in the United States could not be included in such colonization." Congress responded by voting one hundred thousand dollars for the voluntary emigration of freedmen from the District of Columbia to Haiti or Liberia, and later, in July, 1862, gave five hundred thousand dollars for the colonization of negroes in some tropical country beyond the limits of the United States. Mr. Lincoln continued to favor the policy of removal to another country, and five days after signing the above act he read to his Cabinet a proposed order for "the colonization of negroes in some tropical country." Burdened with this great question, amid the exigencies of the mighty war, he continued to push the matter, and had Secretary Seward send a circular letter to England, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark, with regard to colonizing the negroes in some of their tropical possessions. Offers came from the Danish West Indies, Dutch Surinam, British Guiana, Honduras, Haiti, New Granada, and Ecuador. Mr. Lincoln considered the offers from New Granada and an island off Haiti, and even sent a colony to the latter. Again, in his annual message in 1862, he argued for colonization, and asked for an appropriation, but,under the passions of the terrible conflict then raging, the Congress, instead of heeding the request, repealed the former act appropriating five hundred thousand dollars.
The Indians, against their will, were transported, by coercive measures, to allotted lands beyond the Mississippi, but that was before the modern discovery that the United States should grant "fraternity and assistance to all people" under other than republican governments, and that universal suffrage was the infallible expedient for civilizing semibarbarous peoples. President Harrison, in his letter of acceptance, writing on another subject, says, "We are already under a duty to defend our civilization by excluding alien races whose ultimate assimilation with our people is neither possible nor desirable."
Remedies, strong and adequate and feasible, may not be found readily, but there are gentler and quieter agencies which may be used by both races to mutual advantage. The white people, in accepting the legitimate consequences of defeat, in vigorous efforts to restore antebellum prosperity, in establishing schools, in reconstructing shattered society, have done nobly, but they are not without sin. Laws, general and wise and impartial, on the statute-book need for their enforcement a sustaining public opinion, but this has not always been forthcoming. Lawless and violent proceedings, always unnecessary and demoralizing, sometimes as brutal as the crimes which excited horror; harsh and unjust contracts; interferences in elections; false registration and counting of votes, and other acts which the plea of self-preservation did not justify, have evinced the harshness and injustice of dominant power, and have not tended to soften prejudices or make the situation more tolerable. Each race is fortunately improving in intercourse and in dealings with the other, and time and sober judgment are, in a sensible degree, removing causes of alienation which are not inherent and incurable.
"What a blessing," said President Sir John Lubbock, at the late meeting of the International Congress of Zoölogists, "it would be for mankind if we could stop the enormous expenditure on engines for the destruction of life and property, and spend the tenth, the hundredth, even the thousandth part on scientific progress! Few people seem to realize how much science has done for man, and still fewer how much more it would still do if permitted. More students would doubtless have devoted themselves to science if it were not so systematically neglected in our schools; if men and boys were not given the impression that the field of discovery is well-nigh exhausted. We, gentlemen, know how far that is from being the case. Much of the land surface of the globe is still unexplored; the ocean is almost unknown; our collections contain thousands of species waiting to be described; the life-histories of many of our commonest species remain to be investigated, or have only recently been discovered."
"What a blessing," said President Sir John Lubbock, at the late meeting of the International Congress of Zoölogists, "it would be for mankind if we could stop the enormous expenditure on engines for the destruction of life and property, and spend the tenth, the hundredth, even the thousandth part on scientific progress! Few people seem to realize how much science has done for man, and still fewer how much more it would still do if permitted. More students would doubtless have devoted themselves to science if it were not so systematically neglected in our schools; if men and boys were not given the impression that the field of discovery is well-nigh exhausted. We, gentlemen, know how far that is from being the case. Much of the land surface of the globe is still unexplored; the ocean is almost unknown; our collections contain thousands of species waiting to be described; the life-histories of many of our commonest species remain to be investigated, or have only recently been discovered."
By J. RUSSELL SMITH.
That the Philippine Islands are of value as a place for investment is an unexplained generalization that is now being used to tempt business men. The object of this article is to discuss this generalization. The idea that the Philippine Islands are of importance to us, as a new field for our industrial developments, depends upon two assumptions: First, that we need to go beyond the bounds of the United States; second, that the Philippines offer the best available field for the satisfaction of that need.
As to the first assumption, the occasion and origin of the demand for the retention of the Philippines furnish presumptive evidence that it represents no real economic want of the American people. No one ever thought of it until we heard the boom of Dewey's guns at Manila. The demands that then arose for Eastern territory were the natural result of a just pride in the amazing triumph of our navy. Before the battle of Manila a suggestion that we should take the Philippines andRECEIVE$20,000,000 as a bonus we would have deemed preposterous. Before that battle, one idea was uppermost in the minds of the American people—namely, the development of the American continent. And yet, along with the enthusiasm over the accomplishments of our army and navy, the idea has crept into some minds that we are in need of more land to develop, and that we must find it in the Eastern Hemisphere.
Examination of the internal condition of the United States does not seem to indicate such need. Our exports are an index to our condition. In 1872 we exported merchandise to the value of $522,000,000; in 1898 the amount had swelled to $1,230,000,000, an increase of two hundred and thirty-five per cent. No European nation has shown such progress. Despite their colonial empires, their armies and navies, their chartered companies, their spheres of influence, and all their elaborate paraphernalia, we are competing with them in their own markets. We have pursued a policy the opposite of theirs and are outstripping them in the race for a share of the world's trade. It is not compatible with industrial wisdom to change and adopt the policy of our less successful rivals just as the success of our own policy is being fully demonstrated.
A nation's commercial supremacy rests upon the same principles as a business man's leadership in his trade—namely, superiority of production. It does not require a citation of evidence to say that the producers of Europe are staggering under the burden of their armies and navies. While they are thus handicapped, we have nothing tofear unless we inflict upon ourselves a similar burden. We have succeeded by attending to our own industries, by developing our natural resources, by producing things that the people of other nations must have. That development is but begun. Even England, the ruler of the greatest colonial empire the world has ever known, the greatest manufacturing nation, the mistress of the seas, stands with almost stationary exports. The United States, the nation with a small navy, the nation that never really had a colony, the so-called isolated nation, has come by rapid strides to the point where she is the leading exporter of the world.
There is no reason why the progress of the United States should be checked. England has demonstrated the fact that the nation that has the iron and coal is the commercial mistress of the world. The United States is continuing, and will continue the demonstration. England has but 900 square miles of much-used coal lands, and she gets her iron ore from Spain. We have over 200,000 square miles[D]of untouched coal lands; an almost continuous bed of iron ore, reaching from Lake Ontario to Alabama.[E]Beside this great ore bed is the Appalachian coal field, with coal mines in every State between New York and Alabama. There are mountains of iron ore in Missouri and Michigan. By the special lines of lake steamers the iron ore of Lake Superior is taken to Chicago and Cleveland, and thence carried by rail to Pittsburg. There the eastern coal completes the conditions for the most economical production of iron and steel. That gives the United States the basis for our export trade in iron, steel, and machinery. We are capturing the iron markets of the world, and, judging by our supplies, can hold them for ages. As our iron and coal are the basis of all manufacturing industry, continued attention to them will give us the control of the world's trade.
There are many other lines of our internal development that are yet barely begun. Irrigation is an example of this. The report of John W. Noble, Secretary of the Interior for 1891, said, "One hundred and twenty million acres that are now desert may be redeemed by irrigation so as to produce the cereals, fruits, and garden products possible in the climate where the lands are located." That is an area nearly twice as large as the Philippine Islands, and it is open to the American settler, while there is an indication that the Philippines may be inaccessible on account of their climate. Moreover,they are four times as densely populated as is the United States; and while we deem the Chinese so undesirable that we exclude him from our shores, all authorities agree that his race is superior to that of the Malays, Tagals, and Negritos who inhabit the Philippines.
The irrigable area is much larger than the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Massachusetts combined. Those States at the present time are supporting a population of over seventeen millions, and many authorities claim that they will in the future support at least fifty millions. The regions of scanty rainfall that can be irrigated are fairly crusted with potash and other soluble mineral ingredients that nourish plant life, and give to the valleys already irrigated their astonishing fertility. This enables the farmers to support themselves on such small areas that the life is almost a communal one. The irrigated West can sustain a population as great as that sustained on an equal area in the East, or even greater.[F]For years that dry climate has been a health restorer to the sojourner there. This is not claimed for the Philippine Islands. The building up of this Western empire with its canals and irrigating ditches, its railroads and cities, will absorb a vast amount of capital, and it is a natural and easy line of development for us. Mr. Irwin has said, "To capital seeking investment in a large way, irrigation enterprises in the West offer a most solid, lucrative, and tempting field."[G]Secretary Noble has said, "No one can now compute the money value that will concentrate in these reservoirs and canals and ditches, carrying water to the fields of the husbandman, and upon which the people must depend for their prosperity."[H]
Five centuries ago large parts of eastern and western England were impenetrable morasses. These have entirely disappeared before the skill of the engineer.
N. S. Shaler says, "The total area of the inundated lands of the United States probably exceeds 115,000 square miles, counting only those flooded areas which are at present unsuited by their excessive humidity for agricultural use, but which may be won to the service by engineering devices such as have been applied in the regions occupied by older civilizations."[I]This is more than 73,000,000 acres of drainable swamps and marshes. Lands more easy of access have, in the past, so occupied our attention that these lowlands have thus far been almost entirely neglected. They are locatedalong our northern, eastern, and southern borders in close proximity to water transportation and to the large cities of the seaboard. They can be drained, as were the swamps of England. Their fertility will make this profitable, and they will support a large population.
The public highways of the United States are, on the whole, in anything but a desirable condition, and their improvement is a good investment for the commonwealth. We have railroads to build, harbors to deepen, and canals to dig. The United States is young yet, and tremendous tasks await her labor and capital.
In this country, so full of promise for the future, we are still using borrowed foreign capital. In The Forum for February, 1895, Mr. Alfred S. Lauterbach said, "That the people of the United States require European capital for the full development of the great resources of our country there can be no doubt." The same author made a "very conservative estimate," and said that we owed to Europe annually: