of races
suddenly receives rights and privileges and is made the equal of
American citizens. So strange a move was never seen or heard of
elsewhere, and the result has been relations more than strained and
always increasing between the whites and the blacks in the South. As
voters the negroes secure many positions in the South above their old
masters. I have seen a negro[2] sitting in the Vice-President's chair in
the United States Senate; while white Southern senators were pacing the
outer corridors in rage and disgust. There are generally one or more
black men in Congress, and they are given a few offices as a sop. With
one hand the Americans place millions of them on a plane with themselves
as free and independent citizens, and with the other refuse them the
privileges of such citizenship. They may enter the army as privates, but
any attempt to make them officers is a failure--white officers will not
associate with them. It is impossible for a negro to graduate from the
Naval Academy, though he has the right to do so. I was told that white
sailors would shoot him if placed over them. Several negroes have been
appointed as students, but none as yet have been able to pass the
examination. Here we see the strange and contradictory nature of the
Americans. The white master of the South had the black woman nurse his
children. Thousands of mulattoes in the country show that the whites
took advantage of the women in other ways, marriage between blacks and
whites being prohibited. When it comes to according the blacks
recognition as social equals, the people North and South resent even the
thought. The negro woman may provide the sustenance of life for the
white baby, but I venture to say that any Southern man, or Northern one
for that matter, would rather see his daughter die than be married to a
negro. So strong is this feeling that I believe in the extreme South if
a negro persisted in his addresses to a white woman he would be shot,
and no jury or judge could be found to convict the white man.

In the North the negro has certain rights. He can ride in the
street-cars, go to the theater, enter restaurants, but I doubt if large
hotels would entertain him. In the South every train has its separate
cars for negroes; every station its waiting-room for them; even on the
street-cars they are divided off by a wire rail or screen, and sit
beneath a sign, which advertises this free, independent, but black
American voter as being n