To the Editor: Will you be kind enough to give me space--since the idea is so new, since it has excited so much interest, and since so many people are ignorant of my exact purpose—to explain to your readers just what I propose by the policy of race segregation I have been advocating for the rural South?

But to begin with, let me say a word as to the imperative need for some such remedy as I have been urging. I knew when I began this agitation that thousands and thousands of white farmers in all parts of the South were being forced from their homes for social reasons by the growing number of negroes around them (as my own father was), but I did not then know how widespread are the evils resulting from our present indiscriminate sandwiching of white and negro farmers.

Situation Demands Remedy.

The hundreds of earnest messages from farmers, and even more earnest messages from farmers' wives and daughters, have opened my eyes. A white farmer may have bought land in what he expected to remain forever a white community, may have built a good home with this expectation, ordering his whole life accordingly. And yet some non-resident owning land adjoining him may put any kind of negroes on it, terrorizing the farmer's wife and daughters, destroying the social life of the community, depreciating the value of the farmer's land, and finally forcing him to move for social reasons—leaving the negroes to gobble up the farm for half its real worth.

This is not a fancy picture but a literal report of what is actually happening all over the Cotton Belt. Almost every section of the South feels the blighting effect of such conditions. Worthy settlers refuse to come, and farmers already in a community hesitate to build worthy country homes, because they have no assurance that they or their children will not be forced to leave the place in order to find plenty of white neighbors.

A Simple Law Advocated.

If we are to save the rural South to the white race, we must find some remedy, and I have become convinced that an aroused public sentiment is not enough. We must have a statute which will enable any white community that wishes to do so to take steps to insure its remaining white—a statute framed not in a spirit of injustice and persecution to the negro, but in a spirit of justice and protection to the white man.

Briefly, I propose a simple law which will say that wherever the greater part of the land acreage in any given district that may be laid off is owned by one race, a majority of the voters in such a district may say (if they wish) that in future no land shall be sold to a person of a different race. Provided such action is approved or allowed (as being justified by consideration of the peace, protection, and social life of the community), but a reviewing judge or board of county commissioners.

It may be argued, I know, that such a law is unjust because with the government of the South as it is, it could be utilized by white people to keep their communities white, but the negroes would rarely or never be able to use it to make a community wholly negro. All of which I admit, and yet I believe it is just.

Not Unjust to the Negro.

I believe it is just because the white man needs the social protection of such a law and the negro doesn't. If a majority of his neighbors are white, the negro doesn't care. His land is made more valuable by the predominance of neighbors of a different race; the chances of selling it for its worth are better; his family are not uneasy or unsafe; they don't mind running off day or night to see neighbors or kinsfolk miles away; and his money-making facilities are better. But with the white man surrounded by negro neighbors exactly the contrary conditions exist. So I am confident such a law as I propose would be just, and eminent lawyers have assured me it would be constitutional.

As for its practicability, that is apparent on its face. It is not a radical measure. It would not be forced on any community that doesn't want it. But wherever any white community does wish to keep itself white and does want the protection of such a law as I propose, I believe it should have that privilege.

I shall be glad to send further information to any interested reader who agrees with me.