“Theoretically, then no unbiased mind can be opposed to the principle of race amalgamation. On the whole, nature has answered that question affirmatively.”12
Arthur Hale, in letter to Baltimore Afro-American August 9, 1941): “As you know, my wife is white. We never lose an opportunity to let the world know that I am colored and that what we have accomplished represents colored.
“Better still, we thus drive home to the whites the fact that a colored and white couple can love, marry and live in a normal, successful, happy life together. Thus we destroy, in a small way, another of their pet theories.
“We often go about with white couples. I always find some way to let others know what I am. I feel proud to do so. When traveling abroad foreigners never think for a moment that we are what are called American colored people.
“It is always our delight to let the world know what we represent. You would be amazed at the worlds of thought that this opens up for the foreigners. And they are glad to learn of us.”
Negro Youth, a magazine in the interests of the unmixed Negroes as against the mulattoes: “Where a black man marries a mulatto or half breed he strikes a greater blow than white people could ever strike for the degradation, dishonor, and enslavement of the black race …
“Mulatto women are the greatest saboteurs and fifth-columnists among our race. They corrupt and debauch the moral character of black men … White men use mulatto women as concubines and for the worst forms of sex perversion …” (April 1941).
One article in the same issue is entitled, “Mulattoes—An Insult to Black People,” and denounces the mulatto as a “damnable” mixture.13
In its issue of November 20, 1943, the Baltimore Afro-American asked the question, “When a white man marries a colored woman or vice versa, do you think they love each other, or is it merely a sexual attraction.?” Among the answers received were:
“When two people marry they marry for love in most cases. I think that mixed couples marry for love and it doesn’t matter what color the parties are.”
“They marry for sexual reasons. If there is any love I think that it is on the man’s side. A white woman couldn’t love a colored man and if a colored woman married a white man it would only be for what he could give her materially.”
“Races shouldn’t intermarry. My experience has been that mixed marriages aren’t as happy as others.”
“I don’t think that true love exists there, because love is based upon understanding and there is very little of that between the races.”
1 Amer. Jour. of Social., Vol. 21, p. 672. 1915-16
2 Quoted in Holm, J. J., Race Assimilation, p. 488. 1910.
3 Editorial, March 22, 1930.
4 Editorial page, May 3,. 1930.
5 Editorial page, March 15, 1930.
6 Crisis Maga., March, 1930.
7 Crisis Maga., Jan. 1927, p. 128; Feb. 1928, p. 108.
8 Inter-Racial Papers, G Spiller, p. 108. 1911.
9 See No. 3, chapter 2.
10 Negro World, Dec. 25, 1922.
11 Release to Negro Press, Jan. 1930.
12 See No. 3, Chapter 2.
13 The editor of this magazine is Samuel W. Daniels. For further pronouncements of his see J. R. Carlson‘s Under Cover, p. 157, 1943.
Chapter Seven
THE “FOUR LAWS” OF RACE-MIXING
“Men are like bricks alike, but placed high or low by chance.” Webster.
HAVING seen arguments in great variety of pro and con offered by whites and Negroes of all classes, we shall now proceed to examine the subject in its more intimate detail.
As a basis for this, I can think of nothing better than the so-called four laws of race-mixing laid down by Lester F. Ward (1841-1913), the Father of American sociology, when discussing the rape of white women by black men as the supposed reason for lynching. Ward, it is true, wrote some fifty years ago but his view is still held not only by the masses but, I have reason to believe, by most of the white sociologists and certainly most Southern politicians and racial agitators. Since, therefore, it is popular opinion we are dealing with here, we shall examine these four “laws.” They are:
1. “The women of any race will freely accept the men of a race which they regard as higher than their own.”
2. “The women of any race will vehemently reject the men of a race which they regard as lower than their own.”
3. “The men of any race will greatly prefer the women of a race which they regard higher than their own.”
4. “The men of any race, in default of women of a higher race, will be content with women of a lower race.”1
Roughly adapted they read:
1. “Negro women will freely accept white men.”
2. “White women will vehemently reject Negro men.”
3. “Negro men will greatly prefer white women.”
4. “Negro men, unable to get white women, will be content with Negro women.”
Do Negro Women Freely Accept White Men?
Taking the first law I suggest for concurrent consideration another “law” which I will as broadly state:
The women of any social status will freely accept the men of a status which they regard as higher than their own, that is, lower-class white women will freely accept upper-class white men2; and lower-class Negro women will freely accept upper-class Negro men; and so on with Chinese, Africans, Jews and other peoples. In all countries, primitive and civilized, wealth and social position are powerful factors in deciding a woman’s choice of husband or lover. As Byron says:
“Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare
And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair.”
In Europe and Asia, the beautiful untitled girl, rich or poor, if ambitious, dreams of marrying a lord. It is the old story of Cinderella and the prince. Sir Harry Johnston tells of the craze that existed among English girls of the lower middle class to marry into the African nobility, as Zulu princes and Ashanti noblemen.3 The white peasant woman thinks highly of an illegitimate child got by a lord or famous man and one suspects that the American 400 would not regard with too unmoral an eye a child got by one of its debutantes by a certain prince of the “royal” blood, when the latter visited America in the 1930’s.
The daughter of a lord, if ambitious, looks forward to carrying the son of a duke or prince; the daughter of a kinglet, as say one of the many little monarchies that used to exist in Germany looked forward to capturing a Prince of Wales, and so on.
There are, I believe, few dyed-in-the-wool Americans, who, however much they may turn up their noses, do not feel a certain elevation in being in the company of a titled person, even though he is bogus. Many are attracted to titles as a Solomon Islander to five-and-ten-cent jewelry, as note the slobbering of the American press over titled visitors.
Two notorious instances of American plutocrats being bamboozled by bogus lords come to mind; that of a stableman of the Emperor Franz Joseph II, who, posing as “Count Gregory of Austria,” ruled the American beau monde for ten years, extracting millions of dollars from it; and of a French cook, Edouard Rousselot, who, as a “marquis,” fleeced the elite of New York and Washington of large sums.4