to a more congenial atmosphere of classes that have been oppressed.

It has been a matter of surprise that the negro has manifested so little desire to adopt some such method of escape from the evils by which he is beset. Beyond a few sporadic attempts to shift from one part of the United States to another, no organized or systematic plan of emigration has ever been successfully carried out.

The cause of this apathy in regard to a matter of such vital interest to his future may be attributed, in a large measure, to his temperament. In the first place he does not belong to a nomadic race, and, besides, the circumstances and conditions surrounding him are radically different from those experienced by the races above cited. They are the products (or residuum, if I may be allowed the expression) of centuries of civilization. The negro rarely shows any inclination to change his place of abode. The old Southern home around which cluster his earliest memories, notwithstanding many painful experiences, he still regards as the dearest spot on earth, and only under the severest pressure can he be induced to abandon it.

Individuals, in the early days of slavery, who had the temerity to leave their homes in the South and escape to Canada over the "Underground Railroad," bettered their condition and prospects. Their history is a record of which their descendants have just reason to be proud. Under British laws, with protection to life and property, they have enjoyed freedom and prosperity, and the hearts of their descendants overflow with gratitude and loyalty to the British nation for affording their forebears a refuge in those troublous times. But while these heroic exiles dared to be free, the fact remains that the normal negro accepts as a truism that it is better" To bear the ills we have, than fly to others we know not of."

Any one who has carefully studied the history of the negro race in America, its antecedents, its providential transference to this country, and its remarkable preservation and progress since emancipation, cannot but discern the unfolding of a divine purpose. That the great bulk of the negro race is in the South to

stay, is a fact that has outgrown the limits of profitable discussion. Any speculations in regard to the negro's future that do not recognize this fact are bound to lead us into a Serbonian bog of mixed opinions.

Charles H. Pearson, in his work "Decay of the Aryan Races," states that "Europeans cannot flourish under the tropics, and will not work with the hand, where an inferior race works." Speaking of the Indians of Mexico and Peru, he says: "Had it not been for their adaptation to civilization, the white man could never have existed side by side with them. He must either have exterminated them or have been driven out."

The movement of the colored population since the Civil War shows that the trend of population is to the cotton States of the South. Francis A. Walker, speaking of the census of 1870 in regard to the geographical distribution of the negro population, says: "Now that he can move freely from place to place, in those parts of the country where he is not an economic necessity the black population will become more and more reduced. Industrial considerations will draw him to his natural habitat at the Gulf States, where the white man cannot take his place." In 1870, the percentage of negroes in Mississippi was 1.04; in 1880, it had increased to 47.; Alabama from 8. to 26.; South Carolina from I per cent. less to 45. per cent. gain; North Carolina from 4. to 33.; Georgia, 17. to 32.

In view of the statement of these capable observers of the trend of affairs in the Southern States, it must be patent to every student of passing events that the dark races are destined to occupy the tropical and semi-tropical regions of this continent.

It also appears manifest that the white man has about reached the limit of his conquests in the temperate zone. He needs an ally to extend his civilization. This is fortunate for the negro because his hope lies in his association with the white man. The two races cannot go beyond the reach of each other, neither can transcend the bounds of the other. The labor of the one is indispensable to the civilization of the other, especially in the tropics.

The finger of destiny points to the occupation of the South by the two races as joint inheritors of a patrimony that they have enriched by their common labor and enterprise. It would seem to be, therefore, a wise policy on the part of the white people of the South to cultivate in their intercourse with the dark race a feeling of mutual interest and respect, and make them know that coöperation in the arts and industries of peace is equally good for both. Time which brings its revenge bears with it also its amenities, and reconciliations will give surcease to racial strife.

While the sequestration of any considerable portion of the race in the South would be impracticable and inexpedient in its present stage of development-for it will need, for some time to come, all the intellectual resources at its command to combat the ignorance and vice of the masses-there are a large number of young colored men and women of character and ability in the North, graduates of colleges, universities, and technical schools, to whom Prof. Scarborough's proposal will commend itself with considerable force. Many of these bright, intelligent youths, notwithstanding their capabilities, are now forced by reason of color proscription to engage in the most servile and least remunerative employments in order to make a living. Any one who has conversed with them and listened to the story of the hopeless struggle they have made to "get on in the world, cannot but have his sympathies aroused when he realizes that among the great army of insistent applicants for genteel employment " these are hopelessly handicapped by the ineffaceable stigma of color. They are restricted to a few occupations such as those of barbering, waiting on table, lavatory attendance, and even these are rapidly slipping from them.

This displacement would not be a serious cause for regret if equal chances were given them to enter the higher grades of labor. Unfortunately, they are often ruthlessly boycotted by trades unions and other labor organizations; and the doors of workshops, stores, factories, and other mercantile establishments, as a general thing, are shut against them, and nothing is left for them but the daily round of servile labor.

It recks little, that one of their race was among the first to fall in the initial struggle of this nation to gain independence; that in every war for the preservation of national integrity and expansion the despised race has borne its share of the burdens and sacrifice. It avails nothing to urge in their behalf that their ancestors have been the iron-horse of civilization in America, and by their unrequited labor, of nearly three centuries, have enriched this nation beyond the dreams of avarice. These historical facts are systematically shunted out of the sight and hearing of the present generation, and all this credit has been swept away by the tidal wave of selfishness and cupidity which characterize the mercenary spirit of the times.

It is a waste of time, however, to discuss the color question. The educated negro of the North recognizes the fact that he is confronted with a condition that he can neither avert nor control. He is intelligent enough to understand that this is an intensely utilitarian age which makes it imperative to forego all ethical considerations in the mad rush for commercial opportunity. He would, therefore, be glad to avail himself of any feasible plan of emigration to some of the new possessions of the United States where he would have freer scope for the exercise of his faculties.

There are now over 2,000 colored graduates of Northern institutions. How are they employed? Some have successfully struggled to enter the learned professions; some are recognized as teachers in the South. But it is obvious that these vocations are overcrowded. Some of the graduates are employed as domestic servants, bootblacks, messengers, hostlers, coachmen, porters, and waiters, at wages barely sufficient to maintain themselves, to say nothing of their families, while the vast majority find their education of no wage-earning value to them.

Is the felon's cell then the only goal to which the ambitious negro may aspire? It seems to be the only path blazed out for him in the North. This statement is not intended as a reflection upon the multitude of honest and sincere friends of the negro in the North who wish him well. But their influence upon public sentiment is not sufficient to obliterate the color

line which debars him from profitable employment and which is sapping the very tap-root of his existence. The more thoughtful of the race keenly feel this humiliation and reproach cast upon them in the house of their fathers, and are anxiously seeking some way out of this wretched impasse.

Now that the war is practically ended, the Philippines and other dependencies present inviting fields for negro exploitation, in which they can develop their possibilities without always running up against a dead wall of color discrimination. Already a large number of the colored volunteers who belonged to the regiments recently disbanded in the Philippines have married native wives and decided to remain in the country.

If it is the intention of the Government to Americanize its new possessions, no class of citizens can serve it to better advantage than college-trained Afro-Americans. Climate, temperament, racial affinity are all in their favor. They have assimilated our language, politics, religion, education, social and business habits, and are as capable as the average citizen of shedding luster on American institutions. Mechanics, engineers, surveyors, architects, contractors, teachers, agriculturists will be needed in the development of the resources of these new accessions to the territory of the United States. Why not preferably employ local colored men to do government work in these islands? There may not be a large number prepared immediately to embrace such an opportunity; but if the Government would establish a civil service examination, with a special view to their employment in the Philippines, the writer feels warranted in predicting that in a few years there would be no lack of most eligible material at government disposal. This is a duty the nation owes to the loyal colored men and women in the North. Since it cannot secure them industrial opportunity at home, the least it can do is to send them abroad with its imprimatur to that part of the national domain where their color will not be a bar-sinister to their advancement; and this is a very different thing from shipping them abroad as a discredited element of population.