Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/500

49° P. S. Rcinsch hold on the masses of the population, they are more deeply influenced by the arts of the native sorcerers ( qiiimboiseurs ). The Church has never been in sympathy with the political ambitions of the mu- lattoes, and it bewails the bitter struggles which party politics have introduced. When asked to celebrate a mass to commemorate the twenty-five years of political service of Depute Duquesnay, Abbe Parel of Fort-de-France expresses himself as follows : " Political ambition does wrong to the people ; it works their ruin. We have just had an electoral battle which has furnished too many recruits to hospitals and prisons. What we need is unity of the country under the guidance of the Church. Party strife is unchristian." ' The leaders of the mulatto party have exerted themselves to ac- quire the intellectual culture and the liberal principles of France. No more faithful exponent of the tenets of the older Liberalism could be imagined than the paper Lcs Colonies. F"requently, of course, this adoption of ideas is far from being an effective assimila- tion, and is only a very superficial acquisition producing ridiculous incongruities. Thus when M. Hurard spoke before a local labor union, the worthy negro who replied to him gave utterance to Orphic maxims such as " Heureux celui qui a pu creerdes ingrats," and " L'exile est la recompense des grands hommes" (referring to M. Hurard's exile from office). The strikers at Francois addressed the gendarmes in Mirabeau's famous phrase, "We are here by the will of the people and we shall yield only to bayonets." A speaker at a public function thus apostrophized the mother country, " O France, berceau de la liberte, terre cherie, oil poussent les plus beaux sentiments."- On the other hand when papers like Les Colonies discuss public questions they bring to bear a clearness of style and a moderation of judgment that do not allow one to sus- pect the bitter virulence of political strife in the Antilles. They are full of enthusiasm for popular education, for equality of rights, for a civilization of peace and industry, for a separation of church and state with complete religious toleration. Often there is a severe self-criticism entirely different from the ordinary wailing of tropical colonists to which the world has become callous from long hear- ing, far removed too from the supposed self-importance and vanity of a colored population. They recognize and lament the many evils of their political life, but plead for time in order that they may learn the lesson of self-government and improve their institutions by experience. A population that is thus struggling away from its inherited tendencies, tendencies that are threatening to engulf Hayti ' Les Colonies, May 29, 1900. -Les Colonies, July 30, 1900.