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our judgment of the negro? He has come handicapped into life, and is now
on trial before the world. But it is not fair to subject him to the same
tests that you would a white man. I believe that there are possibilities
of growth in the race which we have never comprehended."

"The negro," said Dr. Latrobe, "is perfectly comprehensible to me. The
only way to get along with him is to let him know his place, and make
him keep it."

"I think," replied Dr. Gresham, "every man's place is the one he is best
fitted for."

"Why," asked Dr. Latimer, "should any place be assigned to the negro
more than to the French, Irish, or German?"

"Oh," replied Dr. Latrobe, "they are all Caucasians."

"Well," said Dr. Gresham, "is all excellence summed up in that branch of
the human race?"

"I think," said Dr. Latrobe, proudly, "that we belong to the highest
race on earth and the negro to the lowest."

"And yet," said Dr. Latimer, "you have consorted with them till you have
bleached their faces to the whiteness of your own. Your children nestle
in their bosoms; they are around you as body servants, and yet if one of
them should attempt to associate with you your bitterest scorn and
indignation would be visited upon them."

"I think," said Dr. Latrobe, "that feeling grows out of our Anglo-Saxon
regard for the marriage relation. These white negroes are of
illegitimate origin, and we would scorn to share our social life with
them. Their blood is tainted."

"Who tainted it?" asked Dr. Latimer, bitterly. "You give absolution to
the fathers, and visit the misfortunes of the mothers upon the
children."

"But, Doctor, what kind of society would we have if we put down the bars
and admitted everybody to social equality?"

"This idea of social equality," said Dr. Latimer, "is only a bugbear
which frightens well-meaning people from dealing justly with the negro.
I know of no place on earth where there is perfect social equality, and
I doubt if there is such a thing in heaven. The sinner who repents on
his death-bed cannot be the equal of St. Paul or the Beloved Disciple."

"Doctor," said Dr. Gresham, "I sometimes think that the final solution
of this question will be the absorption of the negro into our race."

"Never! never!" exclaimed Dr. Latrobe, vehemently. "It would be a death
blow to American civilization."

"Why, Doctor," said Dr. Latimer, "you Southerners began this absorption
before the war. I understand that in one decade t