Rising on wings we cross again the rivers of St. Louis, winding and threading between the towers of industry that threaten and drown the towers of God.  Far, far beyond, we sight the green of fields and hills; but ever below lies the river, blue,—­brownish-gray, touched with the hint of hidden gold.  Drifting through half-flooded lowlands, with shanties and crops and stunted trees, past struggling corn and straggling village, we rush toward the Battle of the Marne and the West, from this dread Battle of the East.  Westward, dear God, the fire of Thy Mad World crimsons our Heaven.  Our answering Hell rolls eastward from St. Louis.

* * * * *

Here, in microcosm, is the sort of economic snarl that arose continually for me and my pupils to solve.  We could bring to its unraveling little of the scholarly aloofness and academic calm of most white universities.  To us this thing was Life and Hope and Death!

How should we think such a problem through, not simply as Negroes, but as men and women of a new century, helping to build a new world?  And first of all, here is no simple question of race antagonism.  There are no races, in the sense of great, separate, pure breeds of men, differing in attainment, development, and capacity.  There are great groups,—­now with common history, now with common interests, now with common ancestry; more and more common experience and present interest drive back the common blood and the world today consists, not of races, but of the imperial commercial group of master capitalists, international and predominantly white; the national middle classes of the several nations, white, yellow, and brown, with strong blood bonds, common languages, and common history; the international laboring class of all colors; the backward, oppressed groups of nature-folk, predominantly yellow, brown, and black.

Two questions arise from the work and relations of these groups:  how to furnish goods and services for the wants of men and how equitably and sufficiently to satisfy these wants.  There can be no doubt that we have passed in our day from a world that could hardly satisfy the physical wants of the mass of men, by the greatest effort, to a world whose technique supplies enough for all, if all can claim their right.  Our great ethical question today is, therefore, how may we justly distribute the world’s goods to satisfy the necessary wants of the mass of men.

What hinders the answer to this question?  Dislikes, jealousies, hatreds,—­undoubtedly like the race hatred in East St. Louis; the jealousy of English and German; the dislike of the Jew and the Gentile.  But these are, after all, surface disturbances, sprung from ancient habit more than from present reason.  They persist and are encouraged because of deeper, mightier currents.  If the white workingmen of East St. Louis felt sure that Negro workers would not and could not take the bread and cake from their mouths, their race hatred would never have been translated into murder.  If the black workingmen of the South could earn a decent living under decent circumstances at home, they would not be compelled to underbid their white fellows.