THE WORLD'S PROBLEMS                    553

subsisting between the peoples of the West and those of the
East, between so-called white and so-called colored people,
with a viewto encouraging betweenthem a fuller understand-
ing, the most friendly feelings, and a heartier co-operation."
In order to make its deliberations a success, it was decided
that the assemblage should not be purely scientific in point
of merely stating facts without recording judgments; and
while sympathetic toward all and avoiding all expression of
bitterness toward governments, peoples or factions, it should
not bar those who took part in its discussions from expressing
their reasonable praise or blame of existing political parties
and religious agencies.
  The idea of organizing such a convention originated in the
fertile brain of Dr. Felix Adler, Professor of Social Ethics in
Columbia University and the founder of the Ethical Culture
Society. Speaking in 1906, at a meeting of the International
Union of Ethical Societies assembled at Eisenach, he declared
that the modern conscience had not kept pace with the racial
problems confronting the world to-day, and that a congress
should be convened with a view to finding the way out of the
labyrinth of prejudiced opinion in which all races are lost.
Almost from that day to the time fixed for the sessions, Mr.
Gustave Spiller, the honorary organizer, with the aid of a
strong executive council, international in its personnel, with
headquarters in the British metropolis, actively undertook
the task of sending propagandist literature and invitations to
the four corners of the globe, requesting men and women of
world-wide fame to contribute thoughtful papers on inter-
racial problems, and as many of them as possible to support
the congress by personally taking part in its deliberations.
In some countries, the United States for one, committees were
formed to push the scheme.
  It is not within the scope of this article to report the speeches
delivered at the various sessions of the Congress and the dis-
cussions that followed them; or to attempt a statement of
the scientific theories that claimed or disclaimed a common
origin for the different races and explained their present rel-




			

OHS/National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center Serial Collection

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 28, Num. 2

Volume:  28
Issue Number:  02
Date:  10/1911