The American Negro has always felt an intense personal
interest in discussions as to the origins and destinies of
races: primarily because back of most discussions of race with
which he is familiar, have lurked certain assumptions as to his
natural abilities, as to his political , intellectual and moral
status, which he felt were wrong. He has, consequently, been led
to deprecate and minimize race distinctions, to believe
intensely that out of one blood God created all nations, and to
speak of human brotherhood as though it were the possibility of
an already dawning to-morrow.

Nevertheless, in our calmer moments we must acknowledge
that human beings are divided into races; that in this country
the two most extreme types of the world's races have met, and
the resulting problem as to the future relations of these types
is not only of intense and living interest to us, but forms an
epoch in the history of mankind.

It is necessary, therefore, in planning our movements, in
guiding our future development, that at times we rise above the
pressing, but smaller questions of separate schools and cars,
wage-discrimination and lynch law, to survey the whole questions
of race in human philosophy and to lay, on a basis of broad
knowledge and careful insight, those large lines of policy and
higher ideals which may form our guiding lines and boundaries in
the practical difficulties of every day. For it is certain that
all human striving must recognize the hard limits of natural
law, and that any striving, no matter how intense and earnest,