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