"The problem of the twentieth century," says Mr. W. B. Du Bois, "is the problem of the colour line." That, no doubt, is the view of a man born "within the veil"; but, whatever our point of view, we cannot but admit that racial adjustment is one of the two or three most urgent problems of the near future.
Ought the colour-lines drawn by Nature to be enforced by human ordinance, and even by geographical segregation? Or ought they to be gradually obliterated by free intermingling and intermarriage? Or, while intermarriage is forbidden (whether by law or public sentiment), is it possible for people of different colours to dwell together in approximately equal numbers and on terms of democratic equality? Or is it for the benefit of both races that one race should always maintain, by social and political discriminations, its superiority over the other? Or is this opinion a mere hypocritical disguise of the instinct which begot, and maintained throughout the ages, the "institution" of slavery?
