WILLIAM B. SMITH

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William Benjamin Smith, perhaps the greatest scholar ever born on Kentucky soil, first saw the light at Stanford, Kentucky, October 26, 1850. Kentucky (Transylvania) University conferred the degree of Master of Arts upon him in 1871; and the University of GÖttengen granted him his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1879. Dr. Smith was professor of mathematics in Central College, Missouri, from 1881 to 1885, when he accepted the chair of physics in the University of Missouri. In 1888 he was transferred to the department of mathematics in the same institution, which he held until 1893, when he resigned to accept a similar position at Tulane University. In 1906 Dr. Smith was elected head of the department of philosophy at Tulane, which position he holds at the present time. He was a delegate of the United States government to the first Pan-American Scientific Congress, held at Santiago, Chile, in 1908. Dr. Smith is the author of the following books, the very titles of which will show his amazing versatility: Co-ordinate Geometry (Boston, 1885); Clew to Trigonometry (1889); Introductory Modern Geometry (New York, 1893); Infinitesimal Analysis (New York, 1898); The Color Line (New York, 1905), a stirring discussion of the Negro problem from a rather new perspective; two theological works, written originally in German, Der Vorchristliche Jesus (Jena, Germany, 1906); and Ecce Deus (Jena, Germany, 1911), the English translation of which was issued at London and Chicago in 1912. These two works upon proto-Christianity have placed Dr. Smith among the foremost scholars of his day and generation in America. Besides his books he wrote two pamphlets of more than fifty pages each upon Tariff for Protection (Columbia, Missouri, 1888); and Tariff Reform (Columbia, Missouri, 1892). These show the author at his best. And his biography of James Sidney Rollins, founder of the University of Missouri, was published about this time. During the month of October, 1896, Dr. Smith published six articles in the Chicago Record, on the sliver question and in defense of the gold standard, which were certainly the most thorough brought out by the presidential campaign of that year. Among his many public addresses, essays, and articles, The Pauline Codices F and G may be mentioned, as well as his articles on Infinitesimal Calculus and New Testament Criticism in the Encyclopaedia Americana (New York, 1906); and he compiled the mathematical definitions for the New International Dictionary (New York, 1908). Dr. Smith's fine poem, The Merman and the Seraph, was crowned in the Poet Lore competition of 1906. As a mathematician, philosopher, sociologist, New Testament critic, publicist, poet, and alleged prototype of David, hero of Mr. James Lane Allen's The Reign of Law—which he most certainly was not!—Dr. Smith stands supreme among the sons of Kentucky.

Bibliography. Current Literature (June, 1905); The Nation (November 23, 1911).

A SOUTHERN VIEW OF THE NEGRO PROBLEM[5]

[From The Color Line (New York, 1905)]

It is idle to talk of education and civilization and the like as corrective or compensative agencies. All are weak and beggarly as over against the almightiness of heredity, the omniprepotence of the transmitted germ-plasma. Let this be amerced of its ancient rights, let it be shorn in some measure of its exceeding weight of ancestral glory, let it be soiled in its millenial purity and integrity, and nothing shall ever restore it; neither wealth, nor culture, nor science, nor art, nor morality, nor religion—not even Christianity itself. Here and there these may redeem some happy spontaneous variation, some lucky freak of nature; but nothing more—they can never redeem the race. If this be not true, then history and biology are alike false; then Darwin and Spencer, Haeckel and Weismann, Mendel and Pearson, have lived and laboured in vain.

Equally futile is the reply, so often made by our opponents, that miscegenation has already progressed far in the Southland, as witness millions of Mulattoes. Certainly; but do not such objectors know in their hearts that their reply is no answer, but is utterly irrelevant? We admit and deplore the fact that unchastity has poured a broad stream of white blood into black veins; but we deny, and perhaps no one will affirm, that it has poured even the slenderest appreciable rill of Negro blood into the veins of the Whites. We have no excuse whatever to make for these masculine incontinences; we abhor them as disgraceful and almost bestial. But, however degrading and even unnatural, they in nowise, not even in the slightest conceivable degree, defile the Southern Caucasian blood. That blood to-day is absolutely pure; and it is the inflexible resolution of the South to preserve that purity, no matter how dear the cost. We repeat, then, it is not a question of individual morality, nor even of self-respect. He who commerces with a negress debases himself and dishonours his body, the temple of the Spirit; but he does not impair, in anywise, the dignity or integrity of his race; he may sin against himself and others, and even against his God, but not against the germ-plasma of his kind.

Does some one reply that some Negroes are better than some Whites, physically, mentally, morally? We do not deny it; but this fact, again, is without pertinence. It may very well be that some dogs are superior to some men. It is absurd to suppose that only the elect of the Blacks would unite with only the non-elect of the Whites. Once started, the pamnixia would spread through all classes of society and contaminate possibly or actually all. Even a little leaven may leaven the whole lump.

Far more than this, however, even if only very superior Negroes formed unions with non-superior Whites, the case would not be altered; for it is a grievous error to suppose that the child is born of its proximate parents only; it is born of all its ancestry; it is the child of its race. The eternal past lays hand upon it and upon all its descendants. However weak the White, behind him stands Europe; however strong the Black, behind lies Africa.

Preposterous, indeed, is this doctrine that personal excellence is the true standard, and that only such Negroes as attain a certain grade of merit should or would be admitted to social equality. A favourite evasion! The Independent, The Nation, The Outlook, the whole North—all point admiringly to Mr. Washington, and exclaim: "But only see what a noble man he is—so much better than his would-be superiors!" So, too, a distinguished clergyman, when asked whether he would let his daughter marry a Negro, replied: "We wish our daughters to marry Christian gentlemen." Let, then, the major premise be, "All Christian gentlemen are to be admitted to social equality;" and add, if you will, any desired degree of refinement or education or intellectual prowess as a condition. Does not every one see that any such test would be wholly impracticable and nugatory? If Mr. Washington be the social equal of Roosevelt and Eliot and Hadley, how many others will be the social equals of the next circle, and the next, and the next, in the long descent from the White House and Harvard to the miner and the ragpicker? And shall we trust the hot, unreasoning blood of youth to lay virtues and qualities so evenly in the balance and decide just when some "olive-coloured suitor" is enough a "Christian gentleman" to claim the hand of some simple-hearted milk-maid or some school-ma'am "past her bloom?" The notion is too ridiculous for refutation. If the best Negro in the land is the social equal of the best Caucasian, then it will be hard to prove that the lowest White is higher than the lowest Black; the principle of division is lost, and complete social equality is established. We seem to have read somewhere that, when the two ends of one straight segment coincide with the two ends of another, the segments coincide throughout their whole extent.

THE MERMAN AND THE SERAPH[6]

[From Poet-Lore (Boston, 1906)]

I
Deep the sunless seas amid,
Far from Man, from Angel hid,
Where the soundless tides are rolled
Over Ocean's treasure-hold,
With dragon eye and heart of stone,
The ancient Merman mused alone.
II
And aye his arrowed Thought he wings
Straight at the inmost core of things—
As mirrored in his magic glass
The lightning-footed Ages pass—
And knows nor joy nor Earth's distress,
But broods on Everlastingness.
"Thoughts that love not, thoughts that hate not,
Thoughts that Age and Change await not,
All unfeeling,
All revealing,
Scorning height's and depth's concealing,
These be mine—and these alone!"—
Saith the Merman's heart of stone.
III
Flashed a radiance far and nigh
As from the vortex of the sky—
Lo! a maiden beauty-bright
And mantled with mysterious might
Of every power, below, above,
That weaves resistless spell of Love.
IV
Through the weltering waters cold
Shot the sheen of silken gold;
Quick the frozen heart below
Kindled in the amber glow;
Trembling heavenward Nekkan yearned,
Rose to where the Glory burned.
"Deeper, bluer than the skies are,
Dreaming meres of morn thine eyes are;
All that brightens
Smile or heightens
Charm is thine, all life enlightens,
Thou art all the soul's desire"—
Sang the Merman's heart of fire.
"Woe thee, Nekkan! Ne'er was given
Thee to walk the ways of Heaven;
Vain the vision,
Fate's derision,
Thee that raps to realms elysian,
Fathomless profounds are thine"—
Quired the answering voice divine.
V
Came an echo from the West,
Pierced the deep celestial breast;
Summoned, far the Seraph fled,
Trailing splendours overhead;
Broad beneath her flying feet,
Laughed the silvered ocean-street.
VI
On the Merman's mortal sight
Instant fell the pall of Night;
Sunk to the sea's profoundest floor
He dreams the vanished vision o'er,
Hears anew the starry chime,
Ponders aye Eternal Time.
"Thoughts that hope not, thoughts that fear not,
Thoughts that Man and Demon veer not,
Times unending
Comprehending,
Space and worlds of worlds transcending,
These are mine—but these alone!"—
Sighs the Merman's heart of stone.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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