(2) The admission of peoples of very alien race to residence side by
side with our own inevitably gives rise to friction and unpleasantness.
However irrational it may be, there are instinctive antipathies and
distrusts between the different racial stocks. The importation of the
Negroes brought us a terrible racial problem, one for which there seems
no satisfactory solution. White men as a class dislike living side
by side with them, and fiercely resent intermarriage, which might
ultimately merge the races, as it seems to be doing in South America.
A general feeling of brotherhood and social democracy is greatly retarded
by this racial chasm.[Footnote: Cf. J. M. Mecklin, Democracy and Race
Friction.] It is earnestly to be hoped that Chinese, Japanese, Hindus,
and other non-European races may not be admitted to residence here
in any great degree; similar antipathies and resentments would be added
to our existing discords. It is not that these races are inferior to
our own, they are simply different; and however superficial the
differences, they are just the sort of differences that cause social
friction. Precisely the same argument would apply to the exodus of
Americans and Europeans to Asiatic countries. A certain amount of
intermingling of students, travelers, missionaries, traders, is highly
beneficial, in the exchange of ideas and manners it stimulates; that
the main racial stocks should remain apart, on their several
continents, in that mutual respect and brotherhood that the superficial
repugnancies of too close contact tend to destroy.
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