Chicago Tribune Baltic correspondent Donald Day writing in 1942: In my earlier contacts with the Russians I was impressed with the great similarity existing between them and the American Negro. Both races are artistic. They have natural gifts for music and dancing. They have a childish love for adornment. Just as the Russian peasant will hang up his new pair of boots beneath the ikon in the comer of the wall to admire them better, so the Negro will place his new shoes on a table to contemplate them with the rapture of a child.
It is remarkable fact that the best bass voices in the world are to be found among the Russians and Negroes. Both are collective minded, they like to live in groups. Both are lazy and not inclined to work except under compulsion. They are both irresponsible and unreliable. If you send either a Russian or a Negro out to do something for you, you are never certain that it will be done the way you want it to be. This sounds childish but they are childish in many ways. They have many of the good and bad characteristics of children.
The mentality of the Russians and the American Negroes has been affected by centuries of slavery. Both were freed from slavery about the same time. The Negro in 1863, the Russian 1858-63. These generations of servitude developed an aptitude for petty intrigue and duplicity, which, coupled with their instability, spells tragedy. This comparison could be continued and broadened, but in defense of the Negro I must report that he has a higher conception of honor than the Russian, probably because in his homeland he most generally saw high standards of honesty and honor.
