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as it manifests itself in lynchings in a land "where the courts of justice are open and the governments of the States and the Nation are ready and able to do their duty" is undemocratic. Every person who assists in a lynching is a betrayer of Democracy,15 according to the President.

Unfortunately the movement to segregate whites and blacks in cities is being enforced by ordinance. Further, rural race segregation is developing. It was James Bryce who asked how could "the haughty assertion of superiority by the whites and the suppressed resentment of the more advanced among the colored people, be prevented from ripening into a settled distrust and hostility ?"16 Mr. Bryce answered his own question by asserting that race prejudice might be treated successfully by an application of the principles of the Gospel.17

As the Negro rises on the scale of industrial success and of social worth, he must take care not to assume a haughty, boastful, or superior attitude, if he would do his part in stifling race prejudice. His achievements will speak more constructively for him than oratory or argument can do. The white man, likewise, needs to show continuously an attitude of good feeling and a spirit of helpfulness toward the Negro. In his dealings with the black man, he cannot afford as an American to act unjustly or unnecessarily to arouse resentment.

By nature, the Negro is affectionate, teachable, willing. He possesses a talent for public speaking

15Ibid.

16 The American Commonwealth, v1:529. "Ibid., p. 564.

and a remarkable love of music. Almost the only outlet for the musical ability of a Negro young person is the vaudeville and other inferior types of theatres -institutions which pull a Negro down rather than help him up. He is "exasperatingly cheerful under the worst conditions"; he has a saving sense of humor; he fights well for his country and is highly loyal. He is singularly susceptible to improvement, open to religious suggestion, and carries with him the genius of a long-suffering virtue.18 "He has accepted the tongue, the religion, the literature, and the standards of his former masters."19

We need to develop the habit of appreciating the Negro's good traits, of helping him to help himself up the educational highways, and of keeping the ballot open to him when he is qualified to use it. And he, on the other hand, must center his attention upon achievement, and upon showing himself a worthy American.

18 A. B. Hart, National Ideals Historically Traced, p. 50. 19 Ibid., p. 65.

CHAPTER X

THE APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINEER

There are between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 mountaineers in the United States whose environment precludes their contact with progress. The chief group of these Americans is located in Appalachia, "one of the landlocked areas of the globe, more English in speech than Britain itself, more American by blood than any other part of America, encompassed by a high-tensioned civilization, yet less affected today by modern ideas, less cognizant of modern progress, than any other part of the English-speaking world." Appalachia is 500 miles long by 200 miles wide, or nearly as large as the New England states and New York combined. It comprises over 200 mountain counties, and includes perhaps 100,000 square miles of territory. It begins at the southern boundary of Pennsylvania, extends through West Virginia, and includes the mountainous sections of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Eastern Tennessee, Eastern Kentucky, Northern Georgia, and Northern Alabama. The people are of Scotch, Scotch-Irish, Anglo-Saxon, Swiss, and Palatinate German types, and of Cav

1H. Kephart, Our Southern Highlanders, p. 380. The total number of the Appalachian mountaineers is estimated by Mr. Kephart at 4,000,000 (p. 311).

alier and Huguenot ancestry. They are, according to President W. G. Frost of Berea College, "our contemporary ancestors." They are the descendants chiefly of Scotch-Irish and Scotch colonists who straggled into the Appalachian fastnesses and settled down while time went on. They are anthropological survivals of colonial days. They represent a larger proportions of "Sons" and "Daughters" of the American Revolution than any other people in the United States.2

3

The mountaineers of Appalachia may be divided into three classes: the advanced, the normal, and the degenerate. The advanced type live in the cultivated valleys that are in direct contact with civilization. They have established many prosperous cities. It is this class that produced "Stonewall" Jackson, Daniel Boone, Presidents Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. The normal mountaineer is in a belated state. He has come, however, from a good stock, and his backwardness is due not to lack of ability, but to lack of stimulation. To him the chief place in this chapter will be given. Then there is the degenerate in the mountains who in many ways is like the "poor white trash" of the lowlands. He corresponds to the lowest social strata in our cities.

In mountain regions many peculiar social customs are sometimes discovered. Elizabeth W. Klingberg describes interestingly a large family in Appalachia in which the youngest two children were without

'W. G. Frost, "Our Contemporary Ancestors in the Southern Mountains," Atlantic Mon., 83:311ff.

'Cf. S. T. Wilson, "The Southern Mountaineers, pp. 19ff.

"given" names. It was impossible to enroll them in school. When the teacher visited the home, the mother gave the almost incredible explanation that all the names she knew or liked had been given to the older children and that she had been totally unable to provide names for the youngest two. In this home, there was no scrap of reading matter, no Bible, almanac, or school book.*

Carpets on the floors of the single-room cabins are rare. A piece of cloth placed in a tin of grease serves the purposes of a lamp. Chickens sometimes serve as money; the "face value" of a hen is said to be about three yards of calico. Eggs are used in making change.

Privacy and delicacy are uncommon. Little scientific medical knowledge is available. Diseases such as trachoma are prevalent. In 1916, it was reported that in one county-Knott County, Kentucky— three state parties, Democratic, Republican, and Progressive, had planks in their platforms asserting that they would fight trachoma in that county through governmental action.

From the daily speech of the Southern mountaineers, hundreds of words have been gathered which have been obsolete since about the sixteenth century or have survived only in the dialects of England. Some of these words possess a decided Chaucerian flavor. Sample terms are "smilingest,' "talkingest," "knittingest," "jail-house," "Bible

*South Atlantic Quarterly, October, 1915.

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'S. S. MacClintock, "The Kentucky Mountaineers and their Feuds," Amer. Jour. of Sociology, VII:27.

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