COLOR OF AMERICANS
Of peasant life in Russia, Jane Addams tells this story:
"I went with a friend to a peasant home to call on an old lady who was famous among her neighbors because she could read. The common belief was that she had been taught to read by [Tolstoy]. It seems that years before [Tolstoy] had given her a few lessons in reading, but she had forgotton most of the little she had learned. However, she was fond of telling her friends marvelous stories about people in other lands, of whom she said she had read in books. One of these stories was that Americans were black. So when we were presented, one of her friends asked:
"'Why, these ladies are not black, and they came from American. How is this? You told us Americans were black.'
"The old lady was disconcerted for a minute, and then explained: 'Why, there are two kinds of people in America, and I told you about only one kind. There are black people and yellow people, and these ladies are the yellow kind.'"
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