Race and Reason: A Yankee View

Race and Reason
cover Cover of the 2006, New Century Foundation Edition
Author(s)	Carleton Putnam (author), Jared Taylor (forward)
Cover artist	Kevin I. Slaighter
Country	[[]]
Language	English
Genre(s)	Political Science
Publisher	New Century Foundation
Publication year	1961
Pages	126
ISBN	0-914576-08-9

About the Book

First published in 1961, this was the first major book to address race and racial differences in a calm, educated and sophisticated manner just as the “Civil Rights" revolution began sweeping America and overturning the established order. Written by one of America's most successful businessmen - the founder and president of Delta Airlines - Race and Reason is a question and answer format book dealing with race, racial differences, and which answers every liberal argument-and counter argument-with passion, reason, compassion and intellect. It addresses the issues of physical, mental and psychological racial differences, backed up with meticulous research, statistics and analysis-and proves conclusively that integration can only lead to the harming of all races, and the destruction of Western European civilization in particular. "Unquestionably a major common denominator of fallacy in the many-sided equalitarian ideology was the suppression of the truth concerning the genetic foundation of life. We saw this truth around us every day, in the color of our children's eyes, in the structure of their bones, in the cast of their countenances, in the qualities of mind and heart that paralleled these elements, yet trance-like we clung to the belief that it did not exist. "Genetic racial limitations should have been as clear as crystal. All history taught it. All free science confirmed it. Few but a patently self-serving minority of trained investigators contested it. Yet the leading nation of the free world embraced the fallacy, used its influence in foreign affairs in support of it, and corrupted its own people in its name."-From the conclusion.

About the Author

Carleton Putnam (December 19, 1901 – March 5, 1998) was an American businessman, biographer, writer, and segregationist. He graduated from Princeton University in 1924 and received a Bachelor of Laws(LLB) from Columbia Law School in 1932. He founded Chicago & Southern Airlines in 1933, which in 1953 was merged with Delta Air Lines. He would later serve as chief executive officer of Delta Air Lines and hold a seat on its board of directors until his death.

Table of Contents

Forward iii

Introduction vii

Chapter I: Frame of Mind 1

Chapter II: The Hidden Issue 15

Chapter III: Point by Point 34

• Anthropology and Intermarriage 35
• American Democracy 60
• Christian Ethics 67
• Sociology and Communism 71
• The Constitutional Issue 97
• Summation and Outlook 101

Chapter IV’'’

• Conclusion 114
• Index 119

Reaction

"Although it is difficult to imagine such a thing today, Mississippi and Virginia made Race and Reason part of their high school curricula. Governor Ross Barnett of Mississippi even declared October 26, 1961 “Race and Reason Day,” and invited Putnam to Jackson to give a major address, in which Putnam emphasized that it was futile to defend Southern traditions in the name of states’ rights. It was science, not the Constitution, that would protect whites from miscegenation.

Putnam was such a force, and had so obviously captured the mood of the South that academic associations felt compelled to condemn him. The first to do so was the American Anthropological Association, which, in November 1961, voted 192-0 to “repudiate statements now appearing in the United States that Negroes are biologically and in inherent mental ability inferior to whites.” Putnam was the clear but unnamed target.

The next year the American Association of Physical Anthropologists voted to “deplore the misuse of science to advocate racism.” The president of the association and chairman of the meeting that passed the vote was Carleton Coon, who taught at the University of Pennsylvania and was the author of The Story of Man and The Origin of Races. He and Putnam were kinsmen, and agreed on many matters. Coon asked how many of the assembled anthropologists had read the book they were condemning; only one raised his hand. Later Coon wrote: “There they were, some of them old and trusted friends, apparently as brainwashed as Pavlov’s puppies. . . . I told my fellow members that I would no longer preside over such a craven lot, and resigned from the presidency.”"

Other Books by Carleton Putnam

• ‘’Race and Reason: A Yankee View’’ (1961)
• ‘’Race and Reality: A Search for Solutions (1967)
• ‘’Theodore Roosevelt: The Formative Years (1958)