Geographical Review
Volume 11, Number 2 (April, 1921)
pages 311-313
Ellsworth Huntington, Professor of Geography
Yale University
The Negro Problem
M. S. EVANS. Black and White in the Southern States: A Study of the Race Problem in the United States from a South African Point of View. xii and 299 pp.; map, bibliogr., index. Longmans, Green & Co., London and New York, 1915. $2.25. 9 x 6 inches.
E. B. REUTER. The Mulatto in the United States, including a Study of the Role of Mixed-Blood Races throughout the World. 417 pp.; indexes. Richard G. Badger, Boston, 1918. $2.50. 8 x 5 inches.
Many people have written on the problem of the negro, but it is doubtful whether anyone has written with a truer balance than Mr. Evans. His “Black and White in South-East Africa” is the standard book on the problem in Africa, and the present book on the United States is equally good. According to Mr. Evans, “The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the colour line.” His method of solving it is first that the white man should really know the negro…
…In the Geographical Review for October last there appeared a review of Houghton’s book on the Metis or French-Indian half-breeds. The gist of the book was that the “Indians” who have distinguished themselves have been almost wholly half-breeds. By far the best results have come from intermarriages of scions of the French nobility with the daughters of chiefs. In other words heredity is of dominant importance. It is most interesting to find that in Mr. Reuter’s book on the mulatto in the United States the general conclusion is the same. The method, however, is so much more exact than in any previous study of this subject that the book may almost be considered the final word.
The first part of Mr. Reuter’s book is a straightforward account of the races of mixed blood in all parts of the world and at all times. This is interesting and valuable for reference but contains little that is new. Then follows a discussion of types of mulattoes or mixed races and of their position as the key to the race problem. This leads to the main problem of racial intermixture in the United States. First an attempt is made to estimate the actual number of the mixed types who stand between whites and negroes. For the country as a whole about a fifth of all those classed as negroes are mulattoes, but this proportion varies, being least in the South and greatest in the North and West where negroes are least numerous. The first half of the book ends with a good account of the growth of the mulatto class in the United States, the types of intermixture at various periods and in various regions, and the social status of the mulattoes. Reuter believes that a large part of the mulattoes are the descendants of white men of a decidedly inferior type and on the whole the colored women of the baser sort. Exceptions, however, are very numerous.
The second half of Reuter’s book is an accurate and painstaking statistical study of the leaders among the negroes, using the word to include every one who has even a trace of negro blood. From every available source the author procured lists of prominent colored people. Then by means of photographs or descriptions he classified these according to the color of the skin, texture of the hair, regularity of the features, etc. Those who plainly show Caucasian characteristics are counted as mulattoes, the rest as full-blooded negroes. So far as this classification errs, it is on the side of putting too many into the full-blooded group…
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