ning of the 20th century.

Thanks to the wise economic policies of those intrusted with the reins
of legislation and government, our country is enjoying a period of
unexampled commercial prosperity. Business is booming, money is easy,
crops are abundant and labor is receiving a fair return for energy
expended. But, in our mad rush for the material things of life are we
not forgetting the spiritual wants of the citizen, are we not
neglecting the moral qualities that make nations enduring and the
principles that must live when cities decay and dynasties cease to be?
In fine are we not veering too far from the altruism of our fathers,
in the apparent subordination of human rights to the acquisition of
power and of wealth? This dangerous ambition breeds in our midst
socialism and industrial unrest, exemplified in strikes and lockouts.
It fosters anarchy--a spirit of lawlessness, from which but a few
weeks ago the nation suffered the loss of a beloved chief magistrate.
It stirs up racial antagonisms, and defies the ameliorating influences
of Christian brotherhood. All difficulties surrounding our labor
problems, however, are easy of solution, for while capital and
mechanical industry may be frequently at war for one reason or
another, the outbreaks are merely sporadic and short lived. They are
invariably adjusted, from time to time, either through arbitration or
equitable concessions. Capital and industry are of one color, and the
complications are purely superficial. The one contention, that
"passeth all understanding" and which defies the skill of the
ethnologist, the psychologist, and all who deal with the ancestral or
philosophical aspects of mankind, is the "race-problem."

I say "race problem" advisedly, because sociologists, in analyzing the
issues growing out of the relations between the white American and the
colored American, have eliminated from the discussion all difficulties
surrounding their settlement--save the impossible effacement of race
or color. All have admitted that the bronzed American may have
character, intellect, capacity, wealth, industry and comeliness--yet
he is a social "Pariah" because of his social identification. A
problem that otherwise would be simple is thus converted into a
perpetual issue by reason of race, and hence we have a "race problem."
The race issue is particularly acute at the South--not because the
Southern Negro differs materially from his Northern brother in
character or at