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II 86 An American Dilemma
In explaining the similarities of the deprivations imposed upon diflferent minority groups,
Donald R. Young points out that:
“It is ... to be expected that dominating majorities in various regions, when faced
with the problem of what to think and do about minorities, will fail to be sufficiently
inventive to create unique schemes of relationships and action. Variations in intensity
of restriction and oppression, special techniques in maintaining superior status and
other adaptations to the local scene will always be found, but the choice of fundamental
patterns of dominance in majority-minority relations is limited by the nature of man
and his circumstances.” {Research Memorandum on Minority Peofles in the Defression^
Social Science Research Council, Bulletin No. 31 [1937], pp. 9-10.)
^ Even a prominent leader of the Ku Klux Klan, whose conservative attitudes on
“racial” questions cannot be doubted, expressed to the writer the considered opinion
that, in time, not only the Poles, Italians, Russians, Greeks, and Armenians, but also
the Turks, Hindus, Jews, and Mexicans would come to be engulfed in the great
American nation and disappear as separate, socially visible population segments. But
it would take a very, very long time. I have heard this view affirmed by Americans In
all social classes and regions of the country.
® Young, Research Memorandum on Minority Peofles in the DefressioUy pp. 18-19.
^ It is the present writer’s impression that anti-Semitism, as he observed it in America
during the last years before the Second World War, probably was somewhat stronger
than in Germany before the Nazi regime.
® See Eugene L. Horowitz, “Race Attitudes” In Otto Klineberg (editor), ChaV’^
acteristics of the American NegrOy prepared for this study, to be published; manuscript
pages 115-123 et fassim,
® Robert R. Moton, What the Negro Thinks (1929), p. 219.
^
This is much to be regretted. Indeed, it is urgently desirable that such Impressionistic
generalizations be critically examined and replaced by statistically verified and precise
knowledge. Meanwhile, because of the lack of such studies, the author has simply been
compelled to proceed by building up a system of preliminary hypotheses. The defense is
that otherwise Intelligent questions cannot be raised in those sectors of the Negro problem
where statistics or other kinds of substantiated knowledge are not available.
Some attitude studies and public opinion polls have been made which touch on some
of the statements presented in hypothetical form in the text. But they were designed
to answer other questions and are practically never comprehensive, and so they cannot be
used as conclusive proof of our hypotheses. We shall cite some of the relevant ones in
footnotes at certain points. For a summary of all the attitude studies (up to 1940)
dealing with the Negro, see the monograph prepared for this study by Eugene L.
Horowitz, “Race Attitudes” in Klineberg (editor), Characteristics of the American
Negro,
* There are some studies, however, which provide evidence for the hypothesis of the
“rank order of discriminations,” even if they are not comprehensive enough to serve
as conclusive proof. There are a host of attitude studies showing how whites have
different attitudes toward Negroes in different spheres of life. Probably the earliest of
these studies was that of Emory S. Bogardus, “Race Friendliness and Social Distance,”
Journal of Afflied Sociology (1927), pp. 272-287. As an example of such studies which
apply solely to Negro issues, we may cite the study by Euri Rclle Bolton, “Measuring
Specific Attitudes towards the Social Rights of the Negro,” The Journal of Ahnortnal
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