The funds necessary to start an undertaking of this sort would, in the first instance, have to be advanced by the several communities interested, but would promptly be returned, and thereafter the organization would be no expense to the community but would pay for itself. Meanwhile the applied labor would result in improvements to the country of endless value, and the improvement in the negroes themselves would add steadily to their value as constituents of the body politic.

A certain percentage of degenerates and criminals would have to be segregated and cared for as they are now, only far more wisely. But the saving to the state in cutting off the supply of these degenerates would go far to establish the economy of the proposition.

Here is at present an undeveloped country and an undeveloped race. Here is potential labor that will not apply itself, and the need for labor unmet. This plan brings the labor to the place where it is wanted, and benefits the laborer in the process. There should be nothing offensive in the whole undertaking. Compulsory education we demand for all in many states; this would enforce it more thoroughly, that is all.

The enlistment would be compulsory, but so is enlistment in the army in highly civilized lands, and that is not held dishonorable. To be drafted to a field of labor that shall benefit his own race and the whole community, need not be considered a wrong to any negro. The whole system should involve fullest understanding of the special characteristics of the negro; should be full of light and color; of rhythm and music; of careful organization and honorable recognition. It should furnish good physical training and as much education as each individual can

take.

Every negro graduated would be better fitted to take his place in the community. Every negro unable to graduate would remain under wise supervision, would be really self-supporting, and also help in the great work of raising his people.

Then someone will ask "What will you do when the roads and harbors are all done-when the rough work is exhausted

and the country all properly developed?" By the time that happy end is accomplished there will probably be no negro problem.

"But in the meantime," says the questioner, "How are you going to be sure this great undertaking will be managed wisely, honestly, efficiently? Where are you going to get your superior teachers, your managers and superintendents? What is going to prevent the establishment of an immense system of peonage, of state slavery, of enormous profits wrung from these compulsory enlistments? Of "Army scandals" beside which those of Europe will be as nothing?"

This is a somewhat deterrent suggestion.

If Race A, in Status 10, cannot so behave itself as thus to elevate and improve Race B, in Status 4, it is somewhat of a reflection upon its superiority.

If we, with all our boasted advancement, are incapable of administering a plan of such visible usefulness to both races, of such patent economy and permanent benefit, then we need some scheme of race betterment ourselves. But it does not call for any superhuman virtue.

By the same methods in which a state or county arbitrarily provides for its poor, its defectives, or for the education of its children; so it could now bestir itself to provide for this large class of comparatively backward citizens. If the arrangement were made very clear and visibly attractive, and volunteers were called for, with some special honor and recognition for them, it is quite possible that numbers would enlist of their own accord. It might be called the bureau of Labor and Education, or of Labor and Improvement, and arranged on a military basis, with its construction camps, its base of supplies Nos. 1, 2, 3, etc.; it would form a continuous school for all ages, slowly shrinking and withdrawing as the younger generation of colored people showed their ability for voluntary co-operation or entirely individual effort.

Especial care should of course be given to the management, that it be "kept out of politics," and that the finances of the institution be continually open to the public, that full annual

reports be printed, and that every means be taken to ensure a fair and just administration.

A training-school for domestice service might be part of each stationary base; and individuals could be sent from this on probation as it were perfectly free to remain out in satisfactory home service, or to improve their condition as they were able. In case of unsatisfactory service they should be reinlisted—and try some other form of labor.

A plan of organized labor that would make all negroes self supporting; a plan of education that would make the whole race rise in social evolution; a plan of local development that would add millions to the value of the southern land, and all within the independent power of each state-surely such a plan is worth considering.

THE VOICES OF PIGEONS REGARDED AS A MEANS

OF SOCIAL CONTROL

PROFESSOR WALLACE CRAIG
University of Maine

INTRODUCTION

Darwin's theory of sexual selection is the most important theory ever invented to account for the songs of birds. The idea of sexual selection has been enlarged somewhat by Groos and Haecker and others, and it is held, in one form or another, by almost all writers who are really acquainted with the habits of birds. But even those who accept the theory must feel that it is far from sufficient to account for the facts; and those who oppose it have never attempted to set up any positive explanation in place of it. Thus there is a pretty general feeling that something more is needed to account for the development of bird songs.

The writer has been studying this question for some years, with the privilege of using the large collection of living pigeons kept by Professor Whitman. I hope to bring out within a year or so a book on the subject, but it seems best to give this brief preliminary statement at the present time.

The great fact to be brought out is, that the utility of the voice in birds (pigeons) is of very much wider scope than has ever been suspected. The voice is a means of social control: that is to say, the voice is a means of influencing the behavior of individuals so as to bring them into co-operation, one with another. Naturalists have taken for granted that, to account for the social activities of animals and for their working together in harmony, it is sufficient to show that each individual

1I cannot too strongly express my thanks to Professor Whitman for his constant, generous, and invaluable aid, and for the example of his own work in the study of animal behavior. I am much indebted, also, to Professor G. H. Mead and Professor W. I. Thomas for reading this MS before going to press.

is equipped with a set of social instincts. But it must be remembered that the same view was held until recent years with regard to human society, and that sociologists have now found it altogether untenable.

It is a common delusion that order is to be explained by the person's inherited equipment for good conduct, rather than by any control that society exercises over him. Once it was held that normal human beings are born with a set of commandments etched upon the soul. . . . . Then came the charming tales of the mutual aid of ants, beavers, and prairie dogs, suggesting the existence of certain social instincts which moralists found it very convenient to use in explaining human society. We are not yet sure, however, that man is the "good ape" Buffon supposed him to be.2 Neither is a bird the good machine that naturalists have supposed it to be. No internal machinery, no system of instincts, be it ever so perfect, could carry an individual dove through the vicissitudes of social life without the agency of social control. Of course I do not mean to deny that the behavior of the birds is instinctive: what is meant is, that to treat the behavior as instinctive is to give it an inadequate description. The inadequacy consists in studying the birds as individuals, and in treating the individual as a distinct entity. What is needed is, to transcend this individualistic view-point, and to see that the instincts of the individual can effect their purposes only when they are guided and regulated by influences from other individuals. In a complete explanation of animal society, therefore, the account of the social instincts must be supplemented by an account of the social influences by which the instincts of many individuals are brought into harmonious co-operation.

The reactions of the individual dove must be adjusted to meet the activities of many other birds-first its parents, later its mate, its young, its neighbors, and the strangers that come in its way. The activities of these other birds are endlessly diverse, and are changing from day to day and from hour to hour; the responses to the activities of these other birds must, accordingly, be adapted in each case to the immediate social situation. The adaptation to the immediate social situation

2

* Edward Alsworth Ross, Social Control (New York and London, 1906), p. 5.