NATIONAL SPIRIT OF THE COLORED PEOPLES*

JOE L. CLARK

Sam Houston State Teachers College

In much of the grist from the press of today there is a tendency toward radicalism. Especially is this true of that which deals with racial problems. In view of the chaotic conditions now prevailing throughout the world this tendency is probably natural. Nevertheless it portends evil.

In one of the most recent and widely read books dealing with race relationships,1 the author is convinced that the World War "was from the first the White Civil War, which whatever its outcome, must gravely complicate the course of racial relations." He argues that the "basic factor in human affairs is not politics but race," and that since the greatest losses in the recent war were inflicted upon the white race the peoples of color were real gainers from the catastrophe. Moreover, he contends that the most disquieting feature of the present world situation is not the war, but the peace; that the white world's inability to frame a stable and constructive settlement will lead to other "white" wars which will have the effect of keeping brighty burning in the heart of colored races the hope of eventually wresting from the "self-styled" superior race supremacy in world affairs.

This view of a publicist receives able endorsement from certain eminent biologists. The age-long contest between East and West has been waged mainly, they say, along the color line-Persians and Greeks, Parthians and Romans; Turks and Crusaders; Châlons, Tours, Narbonne, etc.-regretable and wasteful of white stock; but nevertheless necessary and vital in the course of human progress. But an

*Paper read at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Southwestern Political Science Association, Dallas, April 2, 1923.

1Lothrop Stoddard, The Rising Tide of Color Against White Supremacy.

other class of wars has been tragic and all but deadly to the parent stock of the white race. That class includes the wars of Europe and America embracing the civil wars of the Greeks and the Romans, Caesar's Gallic devastations, the Medieval conquests in continental Europe and England, the revolutionary wars of France and America, the Napoleonic wars and the recent World War. These were "white" wars

and the cumulative effect upon civilization has been bad. For, says Madison Grant," "If this great race with its capacity for leadership and fighting, should ultimately pass, with it would pass that which we call civilization. It would be succeeded by an unstable and bastardized population where merit and worth would have no inherent right to leadership and among which a new and darker age would blot out our racial inheritance." To avoid this disaster there is but one course to pursue. "Such a catatsrophe," to quote further, "cannot threaten if the Nordic race will gather itself together in time, shake off the shakles of internationalism and reassert the pride of race and the right of merit to rule."3 In echo to this clanging pronouncement comes a challenge from across the color line: "The colored peoples will not always submit passively to foreign domination... These nations and races are going to endure this treatment just as long as they must and not a moment longer. Then they are going to fight and the war of the Color Line will outdo in savage inhumanity any war this world has yet seen. For colored folks have much to remember and they will not forget."

In the study of races comparative figures are often illuminating. The habitable area of the earth's surface is estimated at fifty-five million of square miles. Of this area the white race occupies twenty-two millions and the colored races thirty-three; and a glance at an ethnic map reveals the fact that in a race war the colored races would have the strategic advantage.

2Madison Grant in Introduction to The Rising Tide of Color Against White Supremacy.

3Ibid.

4W. E. B. DuBois, "The African Roots of War," Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 115, pp. 713-714, May, 1915.

In point of numbers the colored races are even more favorably situated. In all the world there is a grand total of about one billion seven hundred millions of people, distributed according to color as follows:5

Numerically, therefore, the colored races have the advantage over the whites in the ratio of a little more than two to one. The ratio in their favor, moreover, is steadily increasing; because, while the white race doubles in about eighty years, the yellow doubles in sixty, and the black in forty. Before the advent of the white man, nature, through pestilence, flood, famine, and war adjusted the population to the food supply in the regions inhabited by the colored races. But the white man with his soap and civilization has so lowered the death rate among them that he appears to be in danger of being pushed off the earth's surface through sheer weight of numbers. Such facts are common knowledge to colored folk the world round.

All of these peoples came within the scope of the World War, most of them as participants in one way or another. What was its effect upon their spirit?

The Yellows

Consider first Japan: This little nation first challenged the West and became "mistress of its own house" in the Korean affair of 1894-1895. In the following decade she was ready to oust Europeans from China; then came her successful war with Russia, followed by her advantageous

5B. L. P. Weale, The Conflict of Color, p. 11.

Lotroph Stoddard, The Rising Tide of Color Against White Supremacy, p. 6 ff.

participation in the recent war. In all of these undertakings the balance sheet of Japan's war experiences showed clear gains. And since the war "she is watching with delight the exhaustion of Europe" through loss of man power, destruction of productive industries, and the accumulation of debts. Though usually taciturn, her leaders have become emboldened to speak of her national aspirations; inspired by the war's excitement, Japan's bellicose attitude has become more pronounced and the "world dominion" note is more frequently heard. Witness the following quotations:

In the future we must not look eastward for friendships but westward. In them [Russian friends] Japan will find a strong ally. By marching then westward to the Balkans, to Germany, to France, to Italy, the greater part of the world may be brought under our sway. The tyranny of the Anglo-Saxons at the Peace Conference is such that it has angered both gods and men."

Fifty million of our race wherewith to conquer and possess the earth! It is indeed a glorious problem! ...how well have done our people! How well have our statesmen led them! No mistakes! There must be none now! In 1895 we conquered China-Russia, Germany, France stole from us the booty... In ten years we punished and retook our own from Russia; in twenty we squarred and retook our own from Germany; with France there is no need of haste. She has already realized why we withheld our troops which might have alone driven the invader from her soil! Her fingers are clutching more tightly around her Oriental booty, yet she knows it is ours for the taking... As for America, that fatuous booby, with much money and much sentiment, but no cohesion, no brains of government...a race of thieves with hearts of rabbits. America to a warrior race is not as a foe but as an immense melon ripe for the cutting.

Then turning his attention to the Pacific, the writer continues:

.but the sea means the Western Americas and all the islands between; and with these must come Australia and India. And then the battling for the balance

"Literary Digest, July 5, 1919, p. 31.

of world power, for the rest of North America.... North America alone will support a billion people; that billion shall be Japanese with their slaves...that continent so succulently green, fresh, and unsullied-except for the few chattering, mongrel Yankees-shall be ours by the higher, nobler right of conquest."

Ravings of the jingoists? Doubtless so, and possibly written principally for home consumption where it is effective in creating among the masses the world dominion attitude of mind. Supported by a united people with whom religion and patriotism are synonomous, Japan took a long step forward during the World War in carrying out her imperial ambition. Although there may be some division of opinion as to the next step in attaining her national ends, a very strong and active group see in the rapprochement of China and Japan the means of expelling all the whites from the Far East and thereby beginning the downfall of white world dominion.

While thus quickening the national ambition of her people, Japan is not unmindful of the necessary material preparation for her future role. She is continuing with renewed zeal the carrying out the work of internal development which she had begun before the World War. Her marvelous growth industrially, the organization of labor, the rapid modernizing of her school system, the spread of feminismthese and other significant movements speaks eloquently of the agressiveness that now characterizes these capable yellow people of the Far East. Since Russia has ceased to checkmate her and Germany no longer stands in her way, Japan is a greater danger to the Pacific interests of her former allies, as they have now come to see, than their erstwhile enemy, Germany, ever could have been. Japan herself is fully awake to her advantage in world politics, and in the boldness of this knowledge is spreading imperialistic propaganda throughout Persia, Afghanistan, and other portions of the colored world. In order to secure the support of all other colored races in furthering her ambition for

'The Military Historian and Economist, Jan., 1917, p. 43. 8H. A. Gibbons, Introduction to World Politics, p. 318.