As I came from the White House some days ago I met a delegation of native Indians going in, a sad sight. In Indian affairs occurs a page of national history which the Americans are not proud of. In less than four hundred years they have almost literally been wiped from the face of the earth; the whites have waged a war of extermination, and the pitiful remnant now left is fast disappearing. In no land has the survival of the fittest found a more remarkable illustration. But the Indians are having their revenge. The Americans long ago brought over Africans as slaves; then, as the result of a war of words and war of fact, suddenly released them all, and, at one fell move, in obedience to the hysterical cries of their people, gave these ignorant semisavages and slaves the same political rights as themselves.
Imagine the condition of things! The most ignorant and debased 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.