That   the   negro    race    has    some    very    amiable
qualities   is  not   denied.     It  is   not   denied   that
civilization    has    brought    with    it     certain     dis-
advantages  and   corruptions,  and  that  the  white
savage  is  in  some  ways  a  more  deplorable  pheno-
menon than  the  black  savage.     Nor  is  it  denied
that  the  negro,  in  virtue  of  his  strong  imitative
instinct,  has,  in  many  cases,  shown  a  remarkable
power  of  taking  on  a  certain  measure  of  civiliza-
tion.    But  all  this  does  not  practically  lessen  the
huge  historic  gap  between  the  two  races.     Even  if
we  admit  the  innate  power  of  the  negro  to  over-
take the  white  man  in  intellectual  grasp  and  moral
stability,  we   must    in   reason   allow  him   a  few
centuries  to  make  up  his  millenniums  of  arrearage.
Whatever  it  may  become  in  the  course  of  ten  or
fifteen  generations,  the  negro  race  here  and  now
is  inferior  to  the  white  race,  not  only  because  of
its  "previous  condition  of  servitude,"  but,  ulti-
mately and  fundamentally,  because  of  its  recent
condition  of  savagery.     Therefore,  the  white  race,


THE    PROBLEM    FACED  223

in  accepting  amalgamation,  would  be  derogating
from  its  birthright  and  climbing  down  the  scale  of
humanity.
