n sold at the ruling prices. The gain is due not only
to the emancipation of the blacks, but to the emancipation of the
whites from enforced idleness.

The cotton factories of the world annually require about 12,000,000
bales of cotton, American weight. Good land in Texas produces one bale
to the acre. The world's supply of cotton could be grown on less than
19,000 square miles, or upon an area equal to only seven per cent. of
the area of Texas.

* * * * *

THE COLOR-LINE QUESTION: WHAT IS IT?

1. It is not the question of _social_ equality. No one doubts the
right of individuals, or the family, or the social circle, to draw
their lines of association and fellowship at their own pleasure,
whether at wealth, rank, fashion, talent, or anything else. To
confound this with the real question, is not candid.

2. Still less is it the question of the inter-marriage of the races.
Here, individual preference is undeniable. To claim that this is the
question, and to ask tauntingly: "Do you want your daughter to marry a
_nigger_?" is ungentlemanly and unworthy of an answer.

3. The question is: Shall a line be drawn between the white and black
races, giving rights and privileges in Church and State to the one
race, which are denied to the other, solely because of race or color?
In other words: Shall a line be drawn which shall separate the
Negroes, and assign them as a race to the position of inferiors
irrespective of merit or character, and merely on the ground of race
or color?

To narrow the discussion, we leave out of view the civil or political
aspect of the question and confine ourselves to the religious, and we
propose to give a few illustrations. A Negro in every way qualified,
in character, piety, and intelligence, applies for membership in a
white church. Shall the color-line be drawn and he be refused
admission for no other reason than that he is a Negro? This does not
imply that the whites and blacks should be urged or persuaded to unite
in all churches or in any church. It may be conceded that the blacks
generally do not desire to unite with white churches, and that, in
their present state of culture, it may not always be for their
edification to do so. But where an individual Negro _does_ believe
that it would be for his edification and growth in grace to belong to
a white church, shall the color that God stamped on him, or the race
in which God gave him his birth, be a sufficient rea