They, Too, Are the People

North of the Mason Dixon line Princeton stands alone as the only major university that refuses to admit Negroes. This week the "Daily Princetonian" attacked this policy as being incompatible with the University's announced adherence to democratic principles. The condemnation of white supremacy at Princeton may be just a thorn in the impenetrable sides of those behind-the-coffee-table democrats who believe that equality in the United States means equality for the white race alone; but to all who think America is fighting the war for 13,000,000 Negroes as well, this college newspaper crusade will bring loud applause.

The policy of demanding admission of Negroes to Princeton is all the more ambitious because one-third of its students come from the South. Some Southern students have threatened to leave, and alumni clubs are considering withdrawing their financial support if Princeton reverses its color policy. It appears that the Southern minority is determined to keep Negroes away from the college gates, while not a single member of the lukewarm and passive university administration has yet had the courage to come out in support of the "Princetonian's" policy.

But objections come not only from the South. Some men, agreeing in theory with the editorials, feel that the uncompromising hostility of the Southern minority makes immediate admission of Negroes inadvisable. Others point out that the Negro problem has remained unsolved since, the Civil War, and find no basis for hoping that a college newspaper can go even a little way toward solving it.

Such objections merely sidestep an issue which has become even more pressing since our entrance into the war. The "Princetonian" notes that "Japanese propagandists are capitalizing on American racial discrimination to nourish disunion at home and among our one thousand million colored allies. . . . It would be easier to deal with their charges if the kernel of truth contained in them were smaller." It is not only anomalous, but dangerous, to criticize British subjugation of the Indians, to scoff at Hitler's doctrine of blood and soil, while we continue blindly on our way, dealing with our own "burden" like imperialists of the 19th century.

But most important of all is that the "Princetonian" realizes that the Negro problem can only be solved piecemeal. The Fourteenth Amendment has no value unless the majority of Americans are convinced that the black race can exist side by side with the whites without overrunning them. Only by little concessions can we slowly, but surely, clear the way for this most fundamental principle of race equality.

The "Princetonian" has taken a daring step in the midst of powerful opposition. As a measure to translate ideals into reality, it deserves the unqualified approval of all college men. As a measure taken during a war in which the Negro is with good reason beginning to wonder what he would lose by a Nazi victory, it reflects a policy which must now penetrate all sections of the nation. The Negro problem at Princeton has now approached a crisis from which there is no retreat.