PROGRESS OF THE DIFFERENT RACES OF MANKIND
Marvelous Rise of the Japanese from Barbarism in Five Decades—The Jews without a National Government Rule the Finances and Commerce of the World—China in Contact with Civilization Has Created a Great Republic—The American Indian Raised From Savagery to Peaceful, Profitable Pursuits—The Colored American’s Part and Opportunities in the Great Onward Movement
A reader of history who does not go deeper than the mere words in books, sees nothing but confusion in the steady, onward march of all mankind from the dawn of creation to the present time.
We hope to bring something easily understood out of this chaos, that will be of benefit to the Colored Americans, and put them in line with the great movement of the human family toward universal peace and prosperity. We expect to show that he is an essential factor in the human race, and that he has performed his part when his ancestors, the powerful kings of Ethiopia, brought civilization and the art of working metals into Egypt, as far as Asia, and into Europe.
The most learned ethnologists hold that there was a time in the history of the human race when all mankind were unified, and that through different causes operating upon passion for power, religious differences and climatic necessities, they became separated and split into divisions each of which claimed supremacy, and made war upon the others who denied it.
Wherever we begin the national history of any nation or tribe, we find them separate from every other nation and tribe, individual entities with their own laws and government.
If we take any fanciful theory of the creation of man, or accept the biblical account of the Dispersion at the plain of Shinar, at the building of the Tower of Babel, 2218 years before Christ, we find them scattered over the face of the earth, whereas before that Dispersion “The whole earth was one language and of one speech.” (Genesis 2:1). After that event “The Lord scattered them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”
The races of mankind began in unity, but separated and scattered becoming a multitude of nations with different languages and religions. But, at the same time, visible as a fine thread through the movements of mankind, was a trend toward another unification.
THE RISE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Nations rose and fell, leaving the earth to a few powerful ones who attacked one another until, finally, the vast and powerful Roman Empire rose upon the ruins of the others. The central point of unification was nearer, and it appeared when Christ was born, the Saviour of all the world.
From that time began a movement toward another unification, but not a national movement, a human movement, an uplift into higher aims and more complete brotherhood.
The conquest of Rome by barbarians did not stay this movement, because the barbarians fell in with it and moved along with it. Every great act on the chessboard of nations, whether war, or the present peace movement toward universal peace, demonstrates that the purpose of the entire human family, as a unit, will be fulfilled sometime. It is rapidly reaching that point.
The great nations that stood in the way of this onward movement toward unification, have been abolished politically, but not individually, the individuals becoming merged, unified into the great moving mass, and progressing onward with it to the end in view.
Of these unified nations or rather peoples of nations who have no more political power or significance, we find the following:
The Jews, the Semitic division of the human race.
The Colored Men, the Hamitic division of the human family.
The American Indians, Aborigines with tribal government.
We shall add to these, by way of illustration to demonstrate the power of civilization, the following:
The Japanese, an offshoot of the Turanian.
The Chinese, pure Turanian.
The two latter races are foreign to our unification in the United States, many of their people, however, have inserted the thin edge of a wedge into our civilization and time alone will tell what the upshot will be.
We have in the United States a most remarkable unification, or merger into one political status, of the descendants of three great divisions of the Human Family, who are living together substantially in peace and amity. Whatever differences and difficulties arise are purely personal.
Of the Colored Americans in the United States, this book refers almost exclusively; in fact, it is dedicated to them and their interests, and intended for their benefit. Hence, we may omit them in this chapter, there being a full account of them elsewhere.
A short sketch of the Jews may be considered as pertinent to the subject and as having a bearing upon the status of the Colored men.
THE JEWS
The Jews considered from the biblical accounts exclusively, are the descendants and representatives of the oldest branch of the human family, but they existed as a nation contemporaneously with the Ethiopians, in whose descendants we find the Colored men of the United States.
It may be said that the unification of the Semitic or Jewish race began with Moses, although Noah was in fact the father of the race. Their history is one of the wildest, most varied and romantic of that of any other race or nation.
After centuries of miserable bondage under the Babylonian kings, and in Egypt, they emerged under the leadership of Moses who married an Ethiopian, and began anew the struggle for national autonomy.
Prior to Moses the government was essentially patriarchal, but after Moses and in the course of time it became monarchical, with various petty kings and offshoots, always quarreling with one another, and meeting with defeats and slavery from other nations, until the Romans had acquired power to conquer the world, and included in their conquered territory the various sovereignties established by the Jews.
Although the political power was taken from them, the Jews were allowed to retain their religious authority, but in process of time, and at the coming of Christ, their chief priests and spiritual rulers generally, were sunk in corruption. In the 70th year of the Christian era, Jerusalem and the great temple of Solomon were utterly destroyed, and from that time until quite recent times, the Jews have been wanderers, obtaining a foothold here and there against fearful opposition and amazing suffering.
ADVANCEMENT OF THE JEWS
Bereft of political power and national autonomy, the Jews advanced along the line of racial unification, and became leaders in the arts and sciences, and have made themselves the financial and commercial masters of the world. A power they never could have reached had they maintained their national distinction under a monarchy or other form of government.
Their position in the United States is exactly that of the Colored Americans. They have all the political rights of freemen, and can rise to positions of high trust and honor. Like their Colored brothers, they are not a race within a race.
THE JEWS THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE
They are all intensely interested in education, and their children possess an insatiable thirst for knowledge. As a consequence they are always ready to seize upon opportunity when it comes their way, and they always profit by experience, and gather information from every source.
Many of the most distinguished scientists and statesmen in the world have been Jews, and although able to dictate financially to governments, and possessing political power, they have never yet attempted to seize upon the reins of any government, or take it out of the hands of those selected to govern.
If a Jew were to become President of the United States, and all the offices filled by Jews, the government would run along the lines upon which it was formed, without a change or jar, and at the expiration of their term of office, or a change in political power, they would lay down their trust and return to their individual avocations without a single regret.
This is a unification such as the world has never before dreamed of. And it is the same unification with regard to the Colored Americans. The situation is the same, the conditions identical with the single exception that the Jews are farther advanced than the Colored man, his experience extending over a larger period of time, but the Colored men are improving and soon they should be where the same sort of unification can be said of them.
THE AMERICAN INDIAN
The American Indian has no ancestry of civilization to look back to. His forebears so far as is known to history were savages, and the Indians found in America by the first white settlers were also savages.
Their origin as a race is shrouded in obscurity, some asserting that they are descendants of the Semitic race of Asia, others that they are Turanian and Malaysian mixed. It is certain, however, that nothing remains of any very ancient civilization, what does exist consists of “mounds” containing crude articles of pottery, flint arrows, etc., and in the case of the descendants of the cliff dwellers in New Mexico and Arizona, their habitations remain, showing that their surroundings were crude and their civilization at a low ebb.
The descendants of the Aztecs, Toltecs and other tribes whose ancestors were ruthlessly slaughtered by Cortez and his Spanish soldiers, and oppressed by his successors, had small title to what is known as civilization. Of these little can be said except that the present descendants present the vestiges of degeneracy, and have no marks of being a pure race of any sort. They are just the same as they were when first discovered, barring vices which they have acquired from the civilized races without receiving any benefit from their virtues.
These people present no example worth being followed, but as to the descendants of the real savage American Indian, the Sioux, Algonquins, and other large and savage warrior tribes encountered by the American pioneer and frontiersmen, they show the power of civilization and their adaptability to changed environment.
Among them were many noble men, men of high aspirations and aims, who as soon as they understood civilization, broke away from the trammels of savagery and became civilized. That is, they adopted the manners and customs of the civilized races, and became unified with them.
RESULTS OF EDUCATION
Among them, education has produced a large number of men of high grade, and influence. Most of them have turned to agriculture, but being a race that is still in embryo, so to speak, that is one of the present era, the time has not yet arrived when it can be predicted of them that they are equal to coming up to the highest rank in civilized life.
They are an open, living illustration of the power of education and modern civilization. The lesson to be learned from them is, that what a race so sunk in savagery and barbarism can do, is much more within the reach of the Colored Americans who have a great and noble ancestry back to which they may look with admiration and feel an incentive to continue to advance—it is in them.
THE JAPANESE AS AN ILLUSTRATION
We come to the Japanese as an illustration of unification of the races, because they have put themselves before the world as entitled to consideration as much as any other race. Inasmuch as they are rapidly becoming a world power, and have the warships and guns to back up their pretensions, the nations of the earth feel justified in considering their claims.
Whence they come nobody knows, not even their own learned men. They originated somewhere in the past, but not ancient past, or they would have been heard of, but may be a cross among the Turanian tribes. They are small men and dark, which lends truth to this theory.
With their origin we have nothing to do, because their rise and progress is something men now living have witnessed and stand amazed at its suddenness and at the height to which these small men have attained.
They are a brilliant example of what education and civilization backed by intense persistence and energy will accomplish in taking advantage of opportunity.
They were given an opportunity to enter the ranks of civilization, but they refused the offer. Then, trade and commerce urged and then forced it upon them, and seeing that they had to progress, they took hold of opportunities, and now, never let the smallest opportunity pass by them. When an opportunity does not present itself they go to meet it or make one to suit themselves. They are giving the world a bad scare by their persistence and clamors for equality with every other nation and peoples, due, perhaps, to their newness as a nation and the probability that they may relapse into barbarism should they get the upperhand with restraint removed.