WILLIAM BENJAMIN SMITH (continued 3)

No "progressive changes of the human organism," "particularly no advance in the size or complexity of the structure of the central nervous system caused by the cumulative influences of civilization can be proved." There are considerable psychic changes consequent on domestication and civilization; but these are due to environment. Any changes progressive or transmissible by heredity seem doubtful. None of this do we contest. On "relapses," we need not pause.

Hear, then, the conclusion of the whole matter (p. 326): "The anatomical evidence is such, that we may expect to find the races not equally gifted. While we have no right to consider one more ape-like than the other, the differences are such that some have probably greater mental vigour than others. The variations are, however, such that we may expect many individuals of all races to be equally gifted, while the number of men and women of higher ability will differ."

This states the case as favourably as possible for the "primitives," and, as we think for reasons already assigned (p. 146), far too favourably. Nevertheless, we accept it precisely as presented; for the logical purposes of this book, the concession of Negro inferiority here made is absolutely sufficient.

"We did not find proof of cumulative increase of faculty caused by civilization."

Accordingly, the Negro being concededly inferior to the White, there is no hope of raising him to the White level by education or civilization—precisely our fundamental contention.

Finally, "the average faculty of the white race is found to the same degree in a large proportion of individuals of all other races, and although it is probable that some of these races may not produce as large a proportion of great men as our own race, there is no reason to suppose that they are unable to reach the level of civilization represented by the bulk of our own people" (p. 327).

To us, these closing words read very much like a plea of confession and avoidance. It is admitted that the Negro is inferior to the Caucasian, that the summits of genius he will rarely, if ever, reach; but from the fact that many Negro brains equal many Caucasian brains in weight (p. 146), the same is inferred of "the average faculty." Hereby, as already pointed out, there is overlooked the all-important qualification that it is not a mere matter of weight, as well as the highly approved quotation from Donaldson, as to post-adolescent development (p. 147). The inference, then, is illegitimate that "they," i.e., "the large proportion" with "the average faculty" (or rather, average brain-weight) of the Caucasian, may "reach the level of civilization represented by the bulk of our own people." Moreover, it takes no account of those not included in this "large proportion," who are not a few. But the language is too vague to combat. We do not know what significance, relative or absolute, is attached to the group of great men, nor what is thought of the civilization of the bulk of our own people. Perhaps it is held, with D'Annunzio, that the hands of the peasant are "fit to clean out a stable, but not to raise in a legislative assembly." In any case, it is enough to remember that even the admittedly higher Caucasian average is none too high, that it needs heightening, that it cannot stand the least lowering, and to recall the lines of Browning already quoted (p. 88). Moreover, this is an age of intense competition daily intensified. The margin is so small that the least difference becomes important and even decisive. A very slight discrimination in freight rates may turn the tides of commerce this way or that and make or unmake a metropolis. Is it not clear, then, that in the keen competition of races the conceded inferiority of the Black must turn the scale against him more and more and doom him finally to defeat and disappearance beyond the reach of even the longest-armed philanthropy?

While then we greatly admire the testing, probing spirit of Dr. Boas, and thank him heartily for his broad-minded plea for the "primitives," we are unable to find in any of his pages anything but strong confirmations of the theses of our earlier chapters.

CHAPTER FIVE

A DIP INTO THE FUTURE

The reader may find the foregoing discussion convincing; we think the unprejudiced reader will almost surely find it so, and yet he may not find it satisfactory. For he may urge that no solution has been propounded or foreshadowed for the problem, and that it is by no means enough merely to know what the problem is—its dangers, its difficulties, and its terrible threat. This objection is perfectly just. Up to this moment our sole concern has been to establish unshakably firm the central position, of the supreme and all-overshadowing importance of preserving the American-Caucasian blood pure and untainted and dedicated to the development of the highest humanity. But this accomplished, we have no disposition to shirk another task, to avoid another question, however delicate, disagreeable, or depressing. This question is: What has the future in store for the Negro? If social equality must be resolutely denied him forever, if he is to be treated as an outcast and a pariah because of his race and the weight of inheritance which he can never shake off from his shoulders, what hope remains? Where are the blessings of freedom? Is, then, emancipation but an apple of Sodom, turning to ashes on his lips? These are fearful questions, but we must not quail before them; we must confront them firmly, calmly, with eyes wide open to all the facts in the case, and with ears unclosed to all the teachings of history.

In the light of the foregoing, it is vain to appeal to Education. We know that many noble and excellent spirits expect wonders from this potent agency. As an educator ourself, we can have no interest or motive in unduly distrusting or minimizing its capabilities. The work that education may accomplish is undoubtedly great; and in spite of many discouraging disappointments, the task of educating the Negro will assuredly be bravely performed, in larger and larger measure, for all generations to come.

But it is a colossal error to suppose that race improvement, in the strictest sense of the term, can be wrought by education. [25] The reason is simple and easily understood: Race-improvement is organic; education is extraorganic. Any change or amelioration that affects the race, the stock, the blood, must be inherited; but education is not inherited, it is not inheritable. It must be renewed generation after generation in each individual. The Sisyphus-stone of culture is rolled with infinite toil up the steep ascent by the fathers; it thunders instantly back, and must be rolled up again with equal agony and bloody sweat by their children. All must start at the same centre of ignorance, and beat out a long and arduous path to the ever-widening circumference of the farthest knowledge. The son of the learned and the son of the unlearned have equal chance side by side in the race for learning. If the children of the cultured acquire more readily than their fellows, it is not because they have inherited parental culture, but only the inherited parental capacity for culture; not because their parents knew more, but because they had more inborn power to know. Had circumstances doomed the savant to ignorance, his children would not have suffered in their ability to learn. Nay more, if devotion to intellectual pursuits has any influence at all on the native quality of offspring, as it may possibly have in extreme cases, it would seem to be more probably hurtful than helpful; for, by impairing nutrition of the germinal cells, excessive intellectual activity may induce impotence and sterility; and the fecundity of the very highly cultured seems to have suffered measurably in Europe, if not in the United States. [26]

These propositions lie beyond possible contradiction. We need not raise the question of the general Weismannian theory of heredity; but we must recognize, as wholly undeniable, that the characters and qualities acquired by education are not in any degree inherited. The testimony of every-day observation is, on this point, so unanimous and so overwhelming that further insistence would seem superfluous. We may refer however, to the broad, patent, universally recognized fact that centuries of culture and most careful training have never been known to improve the breed, the stock, the inherent quality of any race of men or plants or domestic animals. Wherever any of these have been organically modified, it has been by other agencies, more especially by some form of natural or artificial selection. While the extra-organic development of civilization has gone on and still goes on, and apparently will go on apace indefinitely, under the guidance of science and invention, there is no evidence of any organic improvement in man in thousands of years, since the working of natural selection ceased to be progressive. The Mesopotamian of to-day is surely not the superior of his sculptured ancestors who observed and measured the precession of the equinoxes nearly 6,000 years ago. The Jew of to-day can boast nothing above the authors of the Psalms, and of Job, and of the prophecies of Isaiah. The modern Greek may or may not have descended from Homer or Pericles; but, surely, he has not ascended very far. It is needless to multiply illustrations. We believe firmly in the mutability of species; but the phenomenon of the permanence, even of sub-species and varieties, is far more universal and impressive.

Education, then, can do much; but its mission is to the present—it cannot stamp itself upon the future. The limits of its efficiency, though absolutely wide, are relatively narrow and are speedily reached. It plays with man the function of care and training, of cultivation and domestication, with the lower animals and with the products of the soil. By diligent tillage, by the spade, the hoe, the plough, by irrigation and fertilization, the planter may greatly increase the yield of his field or his orchard and even refine, in a measure, the quality of his fruit or his grain. By feeding, grooming, and the like, the horse-dealer may much improve the appearance and serviceability of his horses and may even add no little to their health, vigour, and value. It would be insanity in these men to neglect or despise such artificial helps and to trust their crops and their stock to grow and to take care of themselves. The farmer and the stockman know very well that only by the highest cultivation and the most watchful attention can they secure the best results in field or fold and maintain themselves in competition with wide-awake neighbours.

But they also know, not less certainly, that the maximal results of such instrumentalities are not far away but are hemmed within a very finite circle. Care and culture soon do their best and attain at least practically their ne plus ultra. For any progressive improvement, whether in animal or in plant, the agriculturist knows that he must look to the seed. This he must select with the utmost skill and caution—if he would even maintain the level of excellence already reached, if he would not have the "stock" lapse back to an ancient inferior average.

All this doctrine, which every one admits so instantly and unhesitatingly in its application to wheat, corn, and cotton; potatoes, apples, and oranges; grapes and melons; sheep, cattle, swine, and horses; bees, birds, and fishes—all holds with full force and with inconceivable significance when applied to men. Education is of exceeding importance. People that neglect it thereby doom themselves to hopeless subordination; they drop out of the race for the prizes of life; they surrender unconditionally to their rivals and commercial foes. Training and culture of the highest type are necessary to secure the realization of potentialities, to make the very best of the material offered at hand; necessary, not only now and here, but everywhere and all the time. Any neglect or indifference at this point must prove fatal. The husbandman dares not deprive his corn of a single "ploughing," or leave his herd one night unprotected from the wolf and the cold.

But it is the sheerest folly to expect of education the impossible—to dream that it can affect the blood, or transmute racial qualities, or smooth down the inequalities between individuals of the same breed, much less between the breeds themselves. Why, if education could lift the Negro to the Caucasian level, to what, pray, in the meantime would it lift the Caucasian himself? We repeat, and the repetition cannot be made too emphatic, there is no hope whatever of any organic improvement, of any race betterment of the Negro, from any or from all extra-organic agencies of education or religion or civilization. Let us, then, educate the negro, to make him a more useful and productive, a law-abiding and happier member of the community; but let us not hope too much from this education, if we would not be bitterly disappointed.

Immediately after the Civil War, in the halcyon days of reconstruction, the higher education was administered copiously to the Negro, in the honest belief that it was the catholicon for his ills; and universities for the Coloured man sprang up thick about us. Here, in New Orleans, there are at least three. A sadder and at the same time a more ludicrous sight we have never beheld than on the occasion of a call upon the President of one of these soi-disant universities. We waited in the ante-room for the dismissal of his class in psychology. At last the bell tapped, and half a dozen Mulatto women, the whole class, emerged from the lecture-room of this distinguished scholar, whose name was not unknown in Europe. With a look of infinite despair, which not even his mistaken enthusiasm for humanity could quite chase away, the heavy-hearted lecturer followed and proceeded to conduct us through the building to his own residence. We passed through but one room where class exercises were in progress. An olive-coloured young man was at the board, trying to explain to a Mulatto woman, the only member of the class, the mysterious nature of a perpendicular. He appeared very earnest in his exposition, but unable to awaken any answering intelligence. To us, it seemed that the force of folly could no further go; and our commiseration for the highly cultured theologian, since released from his labours, who had so utterly forgotten the famous prohibition near the close of the Sermon on the Mount, was and remains even to this day painfully intense.

We hear less nowadays of the saving efficacy of Greek, Latin, and the Calculus, [27] but all the more of the imperative necessity for industrial training—the idea which Mr. Washington has championed so vigorously and to which Mr. Carnegie has lent the sanction of his munificence. Undoubtedly this notion, if not far wiser, is at least far more practicable. While the higher culture at "coloured universities," in the vast majority of cases, merely spoils a plough-hand or house-maid, industrial training, like that given at Tuskegee, may very reasonably be expected to raise sensibly the productive efficiency of the Negro, and to elevate the general standard of his life through the formation of valuable habits of manual dexterity, of accuracy, of conscientiousness, and of thrift—not to mention occasional great gain in scientific equipment, or even some artistic awakening. One cannot deny, then, that Mr. Washington has undertaken a great and beneficent work for his race—one in which some measurable success may reasonably be hoped for.

But our sympathy with such rational and well-directed efforts must not blind us to near-lying limitations, which no might of man can possibly remove. Let it be said, then, boldly that the Negro will not enter generally or in great numbers into the field of skilled labour—neither in the North nor in the South. It is, of course, not unattended with danger to venture into the realm of prophecy, but in this case the bases of prediction seem particularly broad and solid. We all know that skilled labour is daily growing more and more thoroughly organized. Rightly or wrongly, for weal or for woe, it regards capital, especially combined and organized capital, if not as its enemy, at least as its exploiter, prepared at every instant to make the very most of it—to assail it at any and every exposed point, to throttle it by any and every means, and to reduce it to serfdom. As over against the might of accumulated millions, the labourer cannot fail to perceive his utter impotence—he is not even a drop of a bucket. It is only in great numbers, in compact and readily wielded organizations, that the individual workman can count for anything whatever—can find any hope of escape from the veriest servitude. It is idle to suppose that, in many years to come, capital will not continue to mass itself into formidable aggregations, or that labour will cease to array itself in firmer and firmer unions and associations for self-protection and for maintenance or elevation of the standard of life, the minimum of subsistence.

Now, to such federations of labour, to such combinations for the commonweal, involving, as they so often do, the most determined self-renunciation, the most heroic self-sacrifice, even the Caucasian nature is by no means full-grown, and the Negroid is altogether unequal. There is not the slightest probability that the great labour organizations would, in general, think of admitting to their membership an element of such notable weakness as the Negro would certainly be. Such would be the case, even if other considerations were absent. But they are present. As inferiors, accustomed to a lower standard of life and more pliant to the demands of employers, the Negroes would present the same problem and the same menace as the Chinese—only in a more aggravated form. In their admission in large numbers to the ranks of skilled labour, this latter could not fail to see a terrible and instant threat of reduced wages, of lowered life, of baser thraldom. Race prejudice, if you call it so, would blaze out immediately, and with irresistible violence. It makes not the slightest difference whether labour would be right or wrong, justified or unjustified; it would be the instinct of self-preservation fanned suddenly into vehement flame, and nothing could withstand it. As an example in point, take the violent opposition offered a few years ago by the miners of Illinois to the importation of Negro labourers; take the recent practically total expulsion of Negroes, many of them peaceable and unoffending, from various towns, districts, and counties in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, and elsewhere. Consider all this as unreasonable, as outrageous—it matters not; it shows the temper of the American-Caucasian labourer, which will hardly tolerate the competition of his equals, and certainly not of any form of labour lower than his own. And in defence of what he regards as the most important and most sacred of all his rights, he will not hesitate for an instant at the adoption of means. [28]

Accordingly, we may confidently affirm that the experiment of Mr. Washington and his Northern multi-millionaire admirers, to solve the race problem by making of the Negro a skilled labourer, may indeed be magnificent, but, in any large measure, it cannot succeed. If at any time it seemed to promise any very wide success, it would rouse a race animosity, North and South, the like of which we have not yet beheld.

What fields of employment, then, remain open to the Negroid? We answer: Those he has thus far occupied, where there is no great organized competition of the Whites. The plantation and the countless forms of personal and occasional service are undoubtedly the regions where his abilities may be most naturally and most profitably employed. There, too, his better qualities, his endowments both of mind and of body, find fullest and most useful play. Small farming and retail dealing he may also do successfully; he may teach his kind, he may preach and plead and prescribe and publish for them. Superior artisans will show themselves here and there, and occasionally abilities of still higher order will crop out, especially among Mulattoes. If they will, these can find ample scope for their powers within the ranks of their own people. Spartam tuam exorna will, in all such cases, be the counsel of friendly wisdom. Vain and foolish for even the superior Negroid to try to take the kingdom of heaven by force, to conquer a position among the Whites commensurate with his abilities as a Black. Better a big frog in a small puddle than a small frog in a big puddle. In general, whatever tends towards the sharp demarcation of the two races, towards the accurate delimitation of their spheres of activity and influence, will unquestionably make for peace, for prosperity, for mutual understanding, and for general contentment. On the other hand, every attempt to blur these boundaries, to wipe out natural distinctions, to mix immiscibles, must always issue in confusion, discord, failure, reciprocal injury, and final ruin.

We think that universal history attests the correctness of this observation. Wherever border lines have been closely drawn and distinctly recognized, whether between species or races, nations or tribes, castes, classes, or individuals, there have been found at least comparative quiet, harmony, mutual regard, and even happiness. But ill-defined borders have been everywhere and everywhen the fruitful source of strife, destruction, and misery. It was with a just feeling for this great truth that the profound Gnostic, Basilides, declared that in "the restoration of all things," at "the consummation of the æons," every element would seek its own place and there abide forever, and not as if fishes were trying to pasture with sheep upon the mountains. A kindred sense of the fitness of things is revealed here in the South (and also in the North), where one will often hear it said that "I like a Negro—in his place." This does not mean, at least it need not mean, any harshness or over-haughtiness on the part of the speaker. We have often heard it on the lips of the kindest-hearted, the most humane in their treatment of the Negro. It is a just recognition of a patent, unmistakable, and incontrovertible fact, which no humanity can amend and no sophistry can disguise. The same feeling is frequently met with among sober-minded Blacks, who, much to one's surprise sometimes, are found to resent the ambitious attempts of their fellows, generally Mulattoes, to rise above their own race and align themselves with the Whites. We affirm then that drawing the colour line, firm and fast, between the races, first of all in social relations, and then by degrees in occupations also, is a natural process and a rational procedure, which makes equally for the welfare of both.

That this process will actually go on, though with many interruptions and much opposition, we cannot doubt. The latter will be due in the main to aspiring Mulattoes, to purblind philanthropists, and to designing politicians—all three the real enemies of the Negro and the disturbers of his peace.

In spite of them, however, the process will go on, and we shall see whether the Negro be able to maintain himself in the presence of the Caucasian, though in an inferior place, playing a subordinate rôle, within a protected but contracted sphere of activity. Certainly not a brilliant future that opens before him, at the very best. Even the highest success might seem humble enough, but is it sure that even such a lowly victory awaits him?

Here, again, prophecy would seem to be hazardous, but we cannot fail to notice and to record some significant tokens. Of these, one of the most notable is the marked tendency of the Negroes to herd together in the cities. It is well known that the problem of securing labour in the country is becoming increasingly difficult. Many plantations have, in fact, been abandoned for no other reason than that labourers could not be found to cultivate them. Italians and other Europeans are immigrating thither, and the question is eagerly debated whether they will fill acceptably the gap left by the departing Negroes. Whether this tide cityward, which is actually decimating some sections of the Black Belt, will turn and roll back, we may not guess; but it seems unlikely. To all appearances the Negroes will stream steadily towards the towns, and gather more and more densely in certain localities. [29]

But this tendency deals them death. The mortality among the coloured population of our cities is frightful. The gravest maladies establish themselves among these unsanitated throngs and rage with ruinous virulence. In ante-bellum days pulmonary tuberculosis was infrequent among the plantation Blacks of the South; now it lashes them with a scourge of desolation, and pneumonia even more ruthlessly. Typhoid fever also ravages their ranks with fury. Still worse, contagious diseases are fearfully prevalent. Among a populace to which chastity and continence are terms almost unknown and meaningless, these must diffuse and propagate themselves like an epidemic, they must lower the general vitality, and still more directly the virility and fecundity. Hitherto, the rate of multiplication has been in a measure maintained by a high birth rate in the face of a fearful mortality. But this cannot last. The plain indications now are that the birth rate is falling and must fall, while the death rate rises with the steady influx into the towns, the abandonment of the simple and healthful modes of country life for the vice and diseases of the village. [30] Even at best, the city is an ulcer on the face of the earth, a maelstrom, a minotaur devouring the yearly tribute of the strength and beauty of the land. [31] But for the Negro, it stands ready with two-handed engine of death.

Moreover, the gloomy hopelessness of the situation must become apparent as the decades glide by. The Negro must feel that competition is becoming sharper, that his territory is becoming narrower and narrower, that twentieth-century citizenship is, like the Gospel commandment, made for those who can receive it, that he is unequal to the load cast upon him, that he is sinking beneath the burden of an honour unto which he was not born. Herewith the joyousness of life must depart, the old-time buoyancy of the race give place to a deepening despond. [32] As the generations pass on, the Negro will be hemmed every way within straiter and straiter limits, his numbers will decrease, his digit will move further to the right in the great sum of humanity—slowly, silently, steadily he will be driven to the wall. Possibly he may emigrate in large numbers to some tropical clime which nature has forbidden to the Caucasian. This would indeed be the happiest possible solution for the South, and he would be a courageous seer who would declare that this century will not see a large exodus of Negroes from the Gulf region. But we do not believe that such emigration will go northward. Our Northern friends have no more affection or use for the Negro than have we. They love to pet him and let their benevolence play about him—this so long as they can patronize him, can "offer him financial assistance," and "stick a diamond pin in his coat," and lay at his feet "the Presidency of Haiti as soon as it is conquered by an expedition now under preparation." Besides, his vote is a very important weight to throw into the scale in cases of doubtful elections. But once let the Blacks turn their faces northward in great numbers, let them begin to swarm by myriads, and derange the labour conditions, and drag down the scale of wages, and oust the Whites from their places—then philanthropy will be thrown to the winds, and the arm of the government at Washington will not be strong enough or long enough to guard these wards of the nation from violence and persecution and outrage. [33]

If the Blacks should occupy and settle, should colonize, some outlying tropical region, [34] and should there start out on their own path of development, it is interesting, though not so important, to ask, What would be their probable future? We answer, though we build no argument whatever on this answer, that the experiment would most likely be a repetition of Haiti; removed from the sustaining atmosphere of European civilization, the Negro would most probably sink back into barbarism. If there be anything in the history either of man or of nature that would lead us to anticipate some other result, we know not what it is.

At this point our forecast has become so sombre that the optimistic reader may grow impatient with such pessimism, and may at least demand some confirmation of our vaticinations. The fact is that we have long hesitated to make public our convictions, since the rôle of Cassandra has few attractions, and it is only an after-thought to print them in this volume, though they were indicated, many months ago, in The Nation of March 5, 1903. However, to enhearten us, within the last week we have lighted upon the corroborative testimony of perhaps the highest authority in the United States—a scholar whose opportunities for forming a judgement are certainly unsurpassed, if indeed equaled—whose abilities are not questioned, and whose freedom from prejudice is absolute. In a notable address delivered May 10, 1900, at the First Annual Conference held at Montgomery, Ala., under the auspices of the Southern Society for the promotion of the study of race conditions and problems in the South, Professor W. F. Willcox, of Cornell University, Chief Statistician of the United States Census Office at Washington, a "New Englander by birth and ancestry," declared that he could "not read the evidence as Dr. Curry apparently does," "Races, like nations, exist to serve humanity, and come and go in the long run according as they meet or fail to meet this test." "These diverse races of men may be roughly graded according to their value to humanity and their ability to improve. In any effort so to arrange them, the least serviceable and least progressive people are found to be those whose habitat secured the greatest isolation, freedom from competition and lack of incentive to improvement. Such peoples were found especially in the islands of the ocean, in the continent of Australia, in America, and in Africa." Nevertheless, Africa seems to have been the scene of most extraordinary mingling of bloods—a battle ground of widely diverse tribes; [35] in spite of this the African still belongs to "the least serviceable and least progressive people." "Those two backward races, viz., the Negro and the Malay." "When higher and lower races meet and interpenetrate, only two permanent solutions have thus far been recorded in history. Either the lower race has disappeared, or the two have fused, and in the case of especial moment to us all, and to the future of this country, I cannot believe that looking down through the centuries any other permanent solution than one of these two can be found. During the period of slavery the Negro race in the United States was protected from competition with the Whites, somewhat as it would have been by local isolation, or somewhat as domesticated animals are protected from the dangers nature throws about them. Only since emancipation has genuine competition between the races in this country existed, and during the early years after the Civil War the conditions were such as to favor the Negro race and to handicap the whites." "Notwithstanding the fact that the Negroes were aided and the whites downcast during these dark years, the white population has grown with great and increasing rapidity." "The conditions to which the white race is subject will probably never again be so unfortunate, the conditions to which the Negro race is subject will not soon, if ever, be so favorable as during the years after the Civil War." Yet notice some of the changes that have occurred during the thirty years from 1860 to 1890, brief span as this is in the life of a race.

"The black belt may be defined as those counties in which the Negro population outnumbered the white. In Maryland in 1860 there were five such counties, and in 1890 only two. In Virginia there were forty-three and in 1890 only thirty-three. In North Carolina there were nineteen and in 1890 only sixteen. The group of adjoining counties in southeastern Maryland, eastern Virginia and northeast North Carolina, which formed the most northerly outpost of the black belt in 1860, has decreased in thirty years from sixty-two counties to forty-six, or almost exactly one-fourth. In 1860 Kentucky had one county belonging to the black belt, while in 1890 it had none. In 1860 northern Alabama had two counties belonging to the black belt, but in 1890 both of these had disappeared from the map. In the cotton-growing regions of the more southerly States there has been an increase of the counties belonging to the black belt, but not enough entirely to offset these changes. It seems that locally the Negroes have begun to yield ground to the whites in the regions most favorable to the latter, and that such a change is likely to continue.

"I have no time to go into the complex statistical evidence bearing upon the vitality of the Negro race, and its power to meet successfully the increasing industrial competition, to which it must be exposed, as these States fill with people, as cities spring up and prosper, and as industry, trade and agriculture become diversified and more complex. The balance of the evidence, however, seems to me to indicate for the future a continuance of changes already begun, viz., a decrease in the Negro birth-rate decidedly more rapid than the actual present or probable future decrease in the death-rate. This would result obviously in a slackening rate of increase, and then in a stationary condition, followed by slow numerical retrogression. If this anticipation should be realized, the Negroes will continue to become, as they are now becoming, a steadily smaller proportion of the population.

"The final outcome, though its realization may be postponed for centuries, will be, I believe, that the race will follow the fate of the Indians, that the great majority will disappear before the whites, and that the remnant found capable of elevation to the level of the white man's civilization will ultimately be merged and lost in the lower classes of the whites, leaving almost no trace to mark their former existence.

"Where such a lower people has disappeared, the causes of their death have been mainly disease, vice and profound discouragement. It seems to me clear that each one of these causes is affecting the Negro race far more deeply and unfavorably at the present time than it was at the date of their emancipation. The medical evidence available points to the conclusion that they are more than ever afflicted with the scourges of disease, such as typhoid fever and consumption, and with the physical ills entailed by sexual vice. I have argued elsewhere to show that both in the North and in the South crime among the Negroes is rapidly increasing. Whether the race as a whole is as happy, as joyous, as confident of the future, or thoughtless of it, as it was before the war, you, my hearers, know far better than I. I can only say that in my studies I have found not one expression of dissent from the opinion that the joyous buoyancy of the race is passing away; that they feel upon them a burden of responsibility to which they are unequal; that the lower classes of Negroes are resentful, and that the better classes [are] not certain or sanguine of the outcome. If this judgment be true, I can only say that it is perhaps the most fatal source of race as of national decay and death."

The foregoing excerpts seem to us to be the weightiest words of authority on this subject that have fallen under our notice. They deserve to be stamped in letters of gold on the walls of the Public Library in Boston and over the pulpit of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, on the lintels of the White House, and on the title-page of all future editions of The Independent and The Nation. Of course, the superior culture and intelligence of our opponents may easily snuff out all our arguments with a sneer at our straitened and archaic provincialism;—so be it: we deserve no better fate, having been born South of Mason and Dixon's line, most imprudently. But what, pray, if they deign to flutter through this volume, what will they do with this utterance of the Puritan pur sang, the Chief Statistician? Can they afford to dismiss it as that of "another good man gone wrong."

If then the Afro-American race stands even now at the entrance of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, what shall we say, what shall we do? Shall we weep and wail and gnash our teeth? Shall we lift up the trump of indignation against such red-handed iniquity? Shall we cry out to Heaven and to Congress against the crime of the centuries? We think that a much calmer and milder mood may well become us before such a thanatopsis. Why should the spectacle of a racial diminuendo so arouse or revolt us? Surely it is something neither unique nor uncommon. All that breathe will share their destiny. It is appointed unto men once to die. If it were the highest form of human life, we might be concerned or even confounded. But such it is not; on the contrary, it is one of the very lowest, that has hitherto enacted and promises hereafter to enact only unhistorical history. "The old order changeth, yielding place to new." The recession, the evanescence, of the Negro before the Caucasian is only one example among millions of the process of nature. The ministry of death is not maleficent; says the Cabbala, "The Lord said unto the Angel of Death, Behold I have made thee cosmocrator." In the upward mounting of the forms of life, there are no other stepping-stones than their own dead selves. The vision, then, of a race vanishing before its superior is not at all dispiriting, but inspiring rather. It is but a part of the increasing purpose of the ages, a forward creeping of the eternal dawn.

The doom that awaits the Negro has been prepared in like measure for all inferior races. Except where they are bulwarked by the climate, they must be drowned by the mounting wave of their superior rivals. To the clear, cold eye of science, the plight of these backward peoples appears practically hopeless. They have neither part nor parcel in the future history of man; they are rejected as dross from its thrice-heated furnace.

This may sound harsh and unfeeling, but in reality it is not so. We do not mean that the inferior should be treated unjustly, unkindly, inhumanly. Far from it. Let equity be dealt with an even hand. We have never given either voice or vote for any form of injustice, however specious, or plausible, or grandfatherly. The processes we have in view lie deeper than any legislation; they are inwoven in the living garment of the Godhead.

But may we not check or arrest them? May not the strong Caucasian lend a helping hand to his weaker African brother and lift him up, and the two walk along hand in hand through the centuries? This is a very idyllic picture. "Behold, how good and how pleasant for brethren to dwell together in unity." But a moment's reflection must show how inadequate and unreal this dew of Hermon. It is not hard for altruism to run suicidally mad, if one lets go the check-rein of egoism. The first and highest and unescapable duty of a race is to its self—to realize its own personality, to put forth all its powers and potencies, to unfold the full flower of its own being. It must neither be unjust nor ungenerous in its treatment of others, but neither must it attempt self-immolation—especially, as that sacrifice would be idle and unanswered. The most, the best that one race can effect for another is merely some extra-organic amelioration of condition. The organic destiny of that other, written in blood and bone and cell and plasma, lies beyond the reach of the helping hand. We must dismiss, then, this vision of a higher race stooping down with arms of love and lifting up the lower to its altitude, as merely a pious imagination. The higher race may indeed stoop down; it has often done so; but never to rise again; instantly there falls upon it the Davidic curse: "Bow down their back alway."

The fate that awaits the backward race in the presence of the advanced should appear more vividly, one would think, to no other eyes than to those of New England. "Across the ocean came a pilgrim bark, bearing the seeds of life and of death. The former were sown for you; the latter sprang up in the path of the simple native." Nor in this process of extermination, in these "centuries of dishonour," has it really been a question of fairness or unfairness, of righteousness or unrighteousness. No kind or degree of gentleness or justice could have long delayed the departure of the Indian. When North-Europeans landed on his shores, for him the clock of destiny had struck. While we may properly applaud or condemn individual and communal acts by standards of individual or communal ethics, it is not possible to judge the race by any such feeble sense. Nature is neither moral nor immoral, but supermoral. Her æonian processes are not to be measured by our rules nor defined by our categories; they tower above good and bad; they reach beyond right and wrong. Should Roman legions have conquered Greece and girdled the Mediterranean with her civilization? Ought Babylonian empire to have lifted up its lion wings over Western Asia? We perceive at once the emptiness of such questions.

But even if it were possible for us to turn back the tide of time, to stay or slacken the rolling of the wheel of birth, would it be well or wise to do so? We venture to question it most seriously. There is a personal and even a social morality that may easily become racially immoral. There are diseases whose evolutionary function is to weed out the weak, and so preserve the future for the strong. The sufferers cannot be treated with too careful attention, too loving gentleness, too tender sympathy. It is the glory of our humanity to cherish these frail flowers, to water them with dew, to shield them from the sun, and not to suffer even the winds of summer to visit them too roughly. But not to gather from them the seed for generations to come! Let theirs be the present, but not the future. He who should discover some serum and apply it greatly to prolong their lives and give them equal chance with the vigorous in the matter of offspring, whatever thanks he might win from individuals or the community, would deserve and receive the execration of his race as its deadliest and most insidious foe. So, too, we hold it to be certain that all forms of humanitarianism that tend to give the organically inferior an equal chance with the superior in the propagation of the species, are radically mistaken; to the individual and to society they would sacrifice the race. Their error may be very amiable, but it is none the less mortal. The hope of humanity lies not in strengthening the weak, but in perfecting the strong.

Herewith, then, we close this discussion. The mistake of our opponents is here exposed in its deepest root, its inmost core. It is seen to be a mistake in philosophy, in cosmology, in the scientific interpretation of the process of nature. But what a weird light is now cast upon the War between the States, its cause, and its ultimate result! Aside from questions of political theory, the North sought to free the Negro, the South to hold him in bondage. As a slave he had led a protected, indeed a hothouse, existence and had flourished marvellously. His high-hearted champions shed torrents of blood and treasure to shatter the walls of his prison-house, to dispel the pent-up, stifling gloom of his dungeon, and to pour in upon him the free air and light of heaven. But the sun of liberty is no sooner arisen with burning breath than, lo! smitten by the breeze and the beam, he withers and dies!

CHAPTER SIX

THE ARGUMENT FROM NUMBERS

In the foregoing chapters it is only by way of exception that there has been made any formal use of statistical data, or any reference to scientific authorities;—in fact, there has been a studied avoidance of the sympathetic literature of the subject. But it seems wise and, above all, just to the reader, to guard well every salient position, to throw round every argumentative assertion a bulwark of mathematical evidence—a task that presents little difficulty, since in general the facts in the case are well ascertained and the testimony unanimous. At only a few points, and those of rather minor importance, do the depositions go wide apart. In casting up these circumvallations, we shall be at pains to cite only witnesses against whom no exceptions can lie; many very valuable ones shall be excluded, merely for geographical reasons; we do not ask the reader to heed even a scientific word that might be tinged with prejudice.

Next to the United States Census Reports, which must of course be our main source, we shall use, in discussing anthropometry, the great work of Frederick L. Hoffman, F. S. S., statistician to the Prudential Insurance Company of America, entitled "Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro," published as Vol. XI., Nos. 1, 2, and 3, of the publications of the American Economic Association, by the Macmillan Company, August, 1896,—the result of ten years' careful investigation—a book almost beyond praise. Among his more recent supplementary studies may be mentioned his "Race and Mortality," October, 1902.

The author is a German and without race prejudice. For him the problem of race pathology exists as a purely practical one: At what rates can the Negro be insured? No emotion can enter here; it is a mere question of dollars and cents, and for insurance companies a vital one. To our opponents, his judgements may sometimes sound harsh; but they are scarcely harsher than the facts, which he seldom forces, but interprets fairly. His conclusions have, of course, been passionately assailed, as by Professor Kelly Miller; but in no important particulars have they been seriously shaken.

In the following statistical tables, we shall frequently use the myriad as the unit. Thereby the data are made easier to understand and to remember; there is a great economy of space and of attention, and no appreciable sacrifice of accuracy. For in case of such immense numbers it is idle to hope for correctness in the fourth figure; errors will almost surely reach up into the thousands, if not above. Besides, we shall use these data for purely argumentative purposes, and no argument is in the least affected by a change in the thousands. Thus, the population of New Orleans is given at 287,104. No one can deny that it may have been nearer 286,000 or 288,000. We shall indicate it by twenty-nine (myriads), by which we mean merely that it is between 285,000 and 295,000. So, when we speak of a mortality of 234, we mean 234 yearly per myriad. So we shall put a recent death-rate of Chicago at 145 (per 10,000) rather than at 14.49 (per 1,000). The last digit can lay no claim to correctness.

INCREASE OF THE NEGRO POPULATION

The grand totals of the population in the Continental United States, as given by the census reports, are:

W. N. W. N. W. N.

(Gains, per 1000)

1900 6,681 883

1,171 135 212 180

1890 5,510 749

1,170 91 267 138

1880 4,340 658

981 170 292 349

1870 3,359 488

667 44 248 99

1860 2,693 444

737 80 377 221

1850 1,955 364

It needs no ghost from the tomb to tell us that some of these census returns are wrong, and widely wrong. An increase of 221 per thousand during a decade (1850-60) of universal and extraordinary prosperity, under singularly favourable conditions, seems every way likely and calls for no remark. But the following decade (1860-70), while it wrought ruin upon the Whites, brought freedom to the Blacks and in no way worked them any hardship. That their rate of increase should have fallen off from 221 to ninety-nine seems, then, quite incredible. Again, the next decade (1870-80) marked the end of the riot of Africanism in the South, and its second half saw white supremacy restored and the Blacks forcibly repressed. On the whole, then, it could hardly have been so favourable to the Negroes as the preceding, and yet their numbers leap up nearly two millions, at the astounding rate of 349 per thousand. Their conditions were certainly no worse during the next decade (1880-90), yet they grow only half as much, and at a rate little over one-third as fast—only 138 per thousand. There is no visible sign of improvement in conditions during the next decade, yet they multiply measurably faster—at the rate of 180 per thousand. When the results for 1880 were announced, it was felt that the game was lost for the white man. Accordingly, in 1883, Professor C. A. Gardiner, of Brooklyn, N.Y., could forecast that in thirty years the Southern Negro would outstrip the Southern White in wealth, intelligence, and numbers, and within a century would absorb that White completely!—a prediction only less buoyant and highly coloured than Gen. Pope's of July 14, 1867, that "five years will have transferred intelligence and education, so far as the masses are concerned, to the colored people of this district" (Alabama, Georgia, Florida). At such a rate the Negroes in 1900 would have numbered about fourteen millions, and in 1910 about twenty millions, in 1920 nearly thirty millions; in 1950 they would have surpassed eighty millions, the present population of our Union, and in 1990 they would have reached 320 millions. So that the practically complete Africanization of the United States would be only a question of this century. The census of 1890 showed an immense falling off in this rate (from 349 to 138) and so allayed such fears. The last census shows, apparently, a slight rise in the Negro increase (from 138 to 180)—which, however, remains notably behind that of the Whites (212), by about 15 per cent.

However, since these returns involve manifest absurdities, it is hard to ground any argument upon them. Presumably, the last census is more nearly correct. It is generally admitted that the census of 1870 was grossly defective. In our judgement, both those of 1880 and especially of 1890 were far below the mark; but it would be hard to prove this rigorously. It seems that the rate from 1850 to 1860 is, on its face, the most reasonable. As the Negroes were then slaves, their numbers were very probably returned correctly by the owners. As there was no motive against and every motive for their rapid multiplication, and as their death rate was certainly much lower than after emancipation, it seems certain that 221 per thousand (say 22 per cent.) represents their maximum natural increase per decade. This would have given about 542 myriads for 1870, about 661 for 1880, about 806 for 1890, about 980 for 1900. This would indicate, then, that the census of 1880 is also nearly correct, while that of 1870 is most sadly defective, and that of 1890 seriously so. Still, this latter can hardly have erred by fifty myriads—perhaps by twenty or thirty; so that the number in 1890 should possibly be 770 myriads. In that case, the numbers since 1850 would be given, nearly enough for memory, by the hundred thousand, thus:

1860 1870 1880 1890 1900

44 55 66 77 88, instead of

44 49 66 75 88

Of course, these numbers are not exact; but they are, on the average, more nearly so than those of the census reports given in the line below, which disprove themselves.

At any rate, the Negro numbers have been nearly doubled in forty years. This is an average rate of almost exactly 20 per cent. per decade. Since the earlier rate was certainly more than twenty, the latter must have been certainly less; in fact, even according to the census, there is a falling off from 221 to 180, and this latter figure should probably be reduced to 160. It must be reduced, unless the census of 1890 was as perfect as that of 1900, which is most unlikely. While we consider positively necessary some such amendment of the census returns as we have suggested, yet we ground no argument thereon; we rest on the certainty that the rate of increase of the Negro has fallen off at least 16 per cent. since the days of his slavery. His absolute increase has been about maintained, so that the next census (1910) will give him, perhaps, slightly under ten millions.

Meantime the total white population has advanced from 1,955 to 6,681 myriads; or, since 1860, from 2,692 to 6,681—not quite two and one-half times. But we must remember the desolating war that ravaged the North, and particularly the South, of its Caucasian bloom for four years, and left the latter utterly prostrate. This is shown in the fearful descent in gain from 377 to 248. The gain in that decade should have been about 900 instead of 667, which would have given the Whites about 8,100 myriads in 1900—almost exactly tripling the return of 1860. By natural increase, then, the white population about triples itself in forty years, while the black about doubles. Hence, the latter must form an ever-diminishing fraction of the whole population. In fact, the number of Negroes per thousand of the whole population, since 1790, is as follows:

1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900

193 189 190 184 182 168 157 141 127 131 119 116

We have seen that the estimate for 1870 is certainly much too low, as also extremely probably that for 1890. In any case, it is hereby proved that the black is rapidly falling in ratio to the white population. Such a descent, pursued for a few centuries, would bring it to comparative insignificance.

To be sure, it must not be forgotten that the White increase is due largely to immigration. But there seems to be no reason why this immigration should not be continued indefinitely; at present it is particularly heavy and will weigh very perceptibly in the census of 1910.

Again, it must not be disguised that the birth rate among the older New England stock of native white Americans has fallen lamentably low—even beneath the point of bare race maintenance. A thousand such couples rear only about 950 couples. This race decay seems, surely, the most alarming symptom in our national life—a tendency which it seems exceedingly hard to combat. However, there are yet vigorous and prolific Caucasian tribes in great abundance on the face of the earth; and if the native white American prefers to die out, why, let him die—no one can help it. The white foreigner will certainly step in and fill his place more virilely, if not more worthily. There is nothing, then, in this phenomenon, humiliating though it is, to shake the conclusions already stated.

But an even more interesting matter than the relation of the Negro to the Union at large is his relation to special sections. The grand divisions in the census reports are North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Central, South Central, and Western. In only two of these, the South Atlantic and the South Central, is the Negro really a problem. In the others, he is a vanishing quantity. Thus, in the North Atlantic and the North Central, his myriads are only:

1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900

North Atlantic 15 16 18 23 27 39

North Central 14 18 27 39 43 50

This increase has been rapid—much more rapid than elsewhere; but he remains, and must always remain, insignificant. The increase has been due to immigration, for it is conceded that his natural rate of increase in the North will not even maintain his numbers. Left to himself there, he would certainly die out. This immigration will certainly continue and will actually contribute to the destruction of the race, as it were by steadily lopping off the extreme boughs of the tree.

Of the West, nothing need be said. For the South Atlantic and South Central, the record is as follows:

1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900

S. A., W. 282 331 364 466 560 671

N. 186 206 222 294 326 373

S. C., W. 281 373 423 590 749 982

N. 149 204 220 [36] 301 350 [37] 419

Here we perceive, at once, that the situation on the Atlantic is unequivocal. The Black tinge is fading away; that population has exactly doubled itself only in fifty years, while in the South Central it has doubled in forty years. Compare now the White record in the same (South Atlantic) regions. Owing to the Civil War, the growth during the decade 1860-70 was under thirty-five myriads—less than half of the normal growth; nevertheless, the White population has more than doubled itself in thirty-five years, from 1865 to 1900. In 1850 there were 397 Blacks to every thousand, in 1900 only 356. The next half century will see a still further reduction. The White increase, in the last decade, was 20 per cent.; the Black was only 14.

Coming to the South Central, we find the case equally clear. Here again, the civil strife amerced the Whites of at least half a decade; the increase from 1860 to 1870 was only fifty myriads, whereas it should have been over 100, since it was ninety-two from 1850 to 1860. Nevertheless, we find that the White number has doubled in twenty-five years (from 1875 to 1900), but the black in forty (from 1860 to 1900). From 1850 to 1860 the Black gain was over 40 per cent., the White was under 34 per cent.; but, for the last decade (1890 to 1900), the Black gain was 20 per cent., the White about 30 per cent. In the whole half century, the Blacks have gained 181 per cent.; but the Whites, in spite of their numerous losses in four years' war, have gained over 249 per cent. In 1850, of every thousand, 347 were Black; but, in 1900, only 299.

It is demonstrated, then, that in these two focal regions of African strength not only is that strength relatively decreasing, but it is decreasing faster and faster. The hour cometh when neither by the ocean nor by the gulf will it signify more than it does now in Philadelphia or New York.

If now we turn to the statistics of the states, we shall, of course, find this general average result unevenly distributed. Only the states included in the following table can have any interest for us:

1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900

Alabama {W. 43 53 52 66 83 100

{N. 35 44 48 60 69 83

Arkansas {W. 16 32 36 59 82 94

{N. 5 11 12 21 31 37

Dist. of Columbia {W. 3.8 6.1 8.8 12 15 19

{N. 1.4 1.4 4.3 6 8 9

Florida {W. 4.7 7.8 9.6 14 22 30

{N. 4.0 6.3 9.2 13 17 23

Georgia {W. 52 59 64 82 98 118

{N. 38 47 55 73 86 103

Kentucky {W. 76 92 110 138 159 186

{N. 22 24 22 27 27 28

Louisiana {W. 26 36 36 45 56 73

{N. 26 35 36 48 56 65

Maryland {W. 42 52 61 72 83 95

{N. 17 17 18 21 22 24

Mississippi {W. 30 36 38 48 54 64

{N. 31 44 44 65 74 91

Missouri {W. 59 106 160 202 253 294

{N. 9 12 12 15 15 16

North Carolina {W. 55 63 68 87 106 126

{N. 32 36 39 53 56 62

South Carolina {W. 27 29 29 39 46 56

{N. 39 41 42 60 69 78

Tennessee {W. 76 83 94 114 134 154

{N. 25 28 32 40 43 48

Texas {W. 15 42 56 120 175 243

{N. 6 18 25 39 49 62

Virginia {W. 89 105 114 147 175 211

{N. 53 55 53 66 67 70

In spite of the fact that the gross defects of the ninth enumeration (1870), and in less degree of the eleventh (1890), greatly obscure these figures, their import and their implications are entirely unmistakable. Three movements deserve especial notice: the movement in the first decade, in the last decade, and during the whole half century. Looking then at Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Virginia, we see that the Negro has increased in numbers in fifty years by only 29 per cent., 42 per cent., 79 per cent., 34 per cent. The general conditions have been certainly not unfavourable, and there has been no immigration that could appreciably affect these percentages. Meantime the Whites have risen in numbers by 145 per cent., 128 per cent., 397 per cent., 136 per cent.—aided, except in Missouri, not very greatly by immigration. That they are crowding out the Blacks very rapidly, is too plain for argument.

But not only is the Negro yielding—he is yielding faster and faster. In the first decade (1850-60) his gains were 7 per cent. (not quite), 4 per cent., 32 per cent., 4 per cent.; whereas in twenty years (1880-1900), the gains have been only 5 per cent., 12 per cent., 11 per cent., 7 per cent. The total percentage of gain has been actually less in the two decades than in the one. In these states, then, the doom of the Black is sealed.

In Louisiana, the course of fate is not less sure. In 1850 the Blacks were slightly preponderant—262,271 against 255,491; in 1870, "by reason of slaughterous war," they had increased their lead decidedly, and very greatly in 1880 (483,655 against 454,954); but in 1900 they have fallen far behind—only 650,804 against 729,612. Of this state, then, the redemption is sure and in rapid progress.

Not less manifest is the bleaching of North Carolina. There the coloured population has not doubled itself in fifty years, whereas the White has far more than doubled and, but for the plague of war, would certainly have trebled itself. In the first decade (1850-1860), the Whites and Blacks increased each by not quite 15 per cent.; but in the double decade (1880-1900) the Whites increased by 46 per cent., the Blacks by not quite 18 per cent.

There is quite a similar tale to be told of Tennessee. The great empire of Texas shows a much better record; there the Negro has, indeed, ten-folded himself—largely, of course, by immigration; but the Whites have been multiplied by nearly sixteen. In the first decade the Whites increased by 173 per cent., the Blacks by 312 per cent.; in the last decade the former increased by 39 per cent., the latter by little over 27 per cent. Surely, ambiguity here is quite out of the question.

South Carolina has long had the unenviable distinction of being by far the darkest state in the Union. In 1850 the ratio was twenty-seven to thirty-nine. She suffered ruinously for her secession folly, and for nearly twenty years her White population was practically stationary; in 1870 she had only twenty-nine myriads, and even in 1880 only thirty-nine against sixty of Blacks. But, at last, the tide has begun to turn. The introduction of manufactures promises redemption to the Palmetto State. From 1880 to 1900 the Negroes increased by nearly 30 per cent., but the Whites by 43 per cent. The hue of the state is now almost precisely the same as at the firing on Fort Sumter; she has at last made good the losses of the war.

Georgia is the watermelon paradise of the Black folk. In the first decade they gained greatly on the Whites, advancing their ratio from thirty-eight to fifty-two up to forty-seven to fifty-nine; they still further increased their gain in the next twenty years, till in 1880 the ratio stood seventy-three to eighty-two. But this was the high-water mark; since then it has sunk back slightly to 103 to 118; the Whites are now gaining slowly. This \example is very instructive and very encouraging; for it shows that even a steady gain of the Black over the White continued through a whole generation may yet be turned into a loss in the next generation.

A similar case is presented by Alabama. Here the Negro's increase in the first decade was 27 per cent., the Caucasian's only 23 per cent. The state suffered frightfully during the war, and in 1870 the White population had actually fallen from 526,271 (in 1860) back to 521,384. The Black population was then returned at 475,510, but it was almost certainly over 500,000; for in the preceding decade it rose from 345,109 to 437,770; it must (in 1870) have exceeded or at least equalled the White. But now the Caucasian begins once more to demonstrate his superior life-powers; in the next three decades he nearly doubles his numbers (521,384 to 1,001,152), while the Negro rises only to 827,307. With the establishment of industries in iron, the triumph of the White in Alabama has been assured.

There remain only Arkansas, Florida, and Mississippi. In the hot and moist alluvial lands of these states, the Negro seems likely to make his most stubborn stand against the encroachment of the Caucasian. In these three, he is still multiplying faster than his competitors; in one he is already far ahead in numbers. Must he not, then, ultimately make them completely his own? At first sight it would seem we should answer yes, but closer inspection reveals tendencies that must finally reverse the present conditions. In Arkansas, the White rate has gained rapidly on the Black. In 1850-60 these rates were: White 100 per cent., Black 133 per cent.—one-third more; but in 1890-1900, White 15.4, Negro 18.7, and for the double decade, 1880-1900, they were: White 59, Negro 74. From having been one-third greater, the Negro rate has become about one-fifth greater.

In Florida and Mississippi, the complexion, though still very dusky, is lighter than half a century ago. In the former, the white excess in 1880 was hardly thirteen per hundred Negroes; in 1900 it had risen to twenty-nine. In the great cotton state, the darkest spot on the continent, the Blacks have long been in a seemingly hopeless majority. This amounted to 15,000 in 1850; in 1860 it had risen to 84,000; in 1900 to 266,000. During the last decade the Black increase per thousand was 222, the White only 177. So the situation would seem to be growing steadily worse. However, there is still a ray of hope. The Blacks are still gaining, but at a decreasing rate. From 1850 to 1860 their gain per thousand was 408, but from 1880 to 1900 it was hardly 396; they gained not nearly half so fast. Meantime, the White gain from 1850 to 1860 was only 196 per thousand, whereas from 1880 to 1900 it was 337; while the Black gain fell from 408 to 396, the White rose from 196 to 337. At this rate the White must surely overtake and pass the Black, and another half century will almost certainly see the white numbers greatly preponderant.

The case of Mississippi is especially interesting as showing the prospect of the Blacks at its brightest and of the Whites at its darkest. This state has no large city, but few towns of moderate size, and no manufactures. It is almost exclusively agricultural. Here, then, the conditions that make for the Whites are at their worst; those that make for the Blacks are at their best. Here, if anywhere on our continent, the odds are all for the Negro; and yet, even here, he makes a losing fight—he still has the advantage, but it is slipping from his hands.

We can think of only one objection likely to be raised against the foregoing statistical argument. Some one may say that we have made too little use of the decade 1890-1900, but have preferred the score of years 1880-1900. It is true that the last decade (1890-1900) shows better for the Negro than the preceding (1880-90)—which, indeed, indicated his over-rapid decadence throughout the South. But it seems hardly possible that this showing should not be deceptive. For there is not a single known circumstance that favoured him in his last decade rather than in the preceding. The explanation seems very simple; the coloured returns of the eleventh census were incomplete—not nearly so incomplete as those of the ninth, yet enough so in comparison with the tenth and the twelfth to make the showing for 1880 to 1890 too bad, and for 1890 to 1900 too good. The census reports of the Black population for 1850 and 1860 seem to have been substantially correct; for 1870, extremely incomplete; for 1880, greatly better; for 1890, not nearly so good; for 1900, much better again. For 1870 this is now conceded. Thus, in Mississippi the coloured population increased from 1850 to 1860 by 126,000; from 1870 to 1880 by 206,090; but from 1860 to 1870 by only 6,797 (impossible!). In Kentucky it actually lost (1860-70) 13,957, but gained (1870-80) 49,241; and once more lost (1880-90) 3,380. So, in South Carolina, the Negro gain was (1870-80) nearly 190,000, but (1860-70) only 3,500. So, in Missouri, a gain of 28,463 (1850-60) and of 27,279 (1870-80), but (1860-70) a loss of 432.

The indications of imperfection in the census of 1890 seem clear, though not so glaring as in that of 1870. Such, for instance, are the actual decreases in the Negro population of Kentucky and Missouri, and the extremely small gains (1880-90) of 5,500 (Maryland), 5,000 (Missouri), 4,000 (Virginia), against gains (1890-1900) of 19,500 (Maryland), 11,000 (Missouri), 25,000 (Virginia). Other imperfections, not so glaring, but quite as unmistakable, a careful eye may detect only too frequently. Thus, consider the following returns per 1,000,000 for the census years—

1860 1870 1880 1890

Insane 765 971 1,833 1,697

Feeble-minded 602 636 1,533 1,526

Deaf and Dumb 408 420 675 659

Blind 403 527 976 805

In all these classes a steady increase up to 1880, then a sudden falling off in 1890.

Once more, the death rate in the non-registration area in 1880 was 13.42 per thousand; in 1880 it was only 10.79. Such an improvement in health, especially in districts mainly rural, is quite incredible. The fact is that for many purposes of comparison the eleventh census is unavailable—a fact that greatly strengthens many of our contentions.

On its face, it is quite too improbable that the Blacks should gain only 138 per thousand in the decennium 1880-90 and then, without any assignable cause, leap to 180 per thousand for the next decennium (1890-1900). Only two things could bring this about—increase of birth rate, decrease of death rate. The former is quite inexplicable and incredible; the latter is contradicted by the facts of the case. It would mean a fall of four in the annual mortality per thousand, and there has been nothing of the kind.

The defect in enumeration, certainly so great in 1870 and almost certainly present in less degree in 1890, is very easy to understand and antecedently probable. For the prejudice against "numbering the people" has been strong since the days of David and of Judas of Galilee, and the Negro flees from the census-taker as from a tax-gatherer, or vaccinator, or even a kodak fiend.

Be this as it may, it is generally admitted that, in all arguments from statistics, the larger the numbers and the longer the space of time, the more trustworthy the indications; in any case then we are more than justified in taking the double decennium (1880-1900) in comparison with the first decade (1850-60); since the census of 1870 is admittedly grossly in error, no other basis of comparison nearly so trustworthy is present.

Herewith then we close the argument. It seems hardly necessary to add that the higher percentage of Negro gain in the North Atlantic and North Central States signifies nothing except that small numbers have been greatly swollen by immigration. It is well known that in these regions the Negro, unfed by immigration, tends swiftly to extinction. Viewed thus from what point of the compass you will, the general movement of the life of the continent is towards the elimination of the African element. We admit that figures may be made to lie, but we have subjected them to no captious cross-examination; we have let them speak for themselves; we have neither forcibly repressed nor forcibly extorted any testimony; their voluntary witness is singularly consistent and unequivocal and wholly irresistible.

ANTHROPOMETRY

It has been proved by the foregoing statistical study, varied in every way and taking every significant fact into consideration, that the Negro is everywhere in the United States yielding and making place for the Caucasian. We might, indeed, have anticipated that such a result would follow infallibly upon exposing the two races to open competition. For the Negro has never voluntarily extended himself beyond his African home; he has never eagerly sought out new habitats, nor readily adapted himself to new environments; whereas the Caucasian has traversed and colonized the earth from the equator to either pole; he has plumbed every abyss; he has scaled every height; he has spied out every secret place: for him no sea has been too wide, no plains too broad, no mountains too high, no sands too hot, no snow too cold, no jungles too dark and deadly. He pits himself against Nature, he forges for himself Achillean armour, he grasps the shield, he shakes the spear, and rushes joyfully to the encounter. Nothing of all this, nothing in any way like aught of this, has the Negro ever done; naught, in our judgement, will he ever do. The massive facts, then, of the geographical distribution of the races give token unmistakable that, in any collision within any but the tropical regions, the Negro must go down before the Caucasian.

This superior vigour, this aggressive vitality need not reveal itself to any mass-measurements; it might hide away in the cells and the finest tissue; it might be not anatomic, but histotomic only. The distinguished surgeon, Dr. Rudolph Matas, as the result of wide observation and careful inquiry, declares that pathological-anatomical peculiarities of the Negro are not recognizable chirurgically; Black and White are sensibly the same.

Nevertheless, broad distinctions are actually present and come to light wherever extensive observations have been made. It is jauntily declared by a great protagonist of the Black man that "physically, he is the equal of the white man; he is as tall and as strong," and such is perhaps the general opinion. There is a fine irony, however, in the fact that precisely these moments in which his equality is so incautiously affirmed are the ones in which he is distinctly inferior. He is in truth neither so tall nor so strong, though vertical inch for inch he is somewhat heavier. It seems needless to copy down table after table to prove these statements. We quote the words of Hoffman, summing up extensive comparisons: "The average stature of the negro is less than that of the white, and the difference, though slight, prevails at all ages." From Gould's "Military Statistics," pp. 461-465, we learn as distinctly as we can learn any such facts, that the Negro is not so strong as the Caucasian; that the mean lifting strength of the Black is very markedly below that of the White at all ages above seventeen, with the exceptions of thirty-one to thirty-four, where the Black excess is nearly five pounds, and of forty-five to forty-nine, where the Black average is 328.7, the White only 325.7—a Black excess of three pounds. Under seventeen the White average is only 250.4, the Black 258.9—another Black excess of 8.5, very considerable and noteworthy, and for seventeen the Black excess is 295-292.8 = 3.2. For all other ages, the White excesses are as follows:

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26.8 23.6 15 10 13.7 23.6 8.6 15.6

26 27 28 29 30 35-39 40-44 50-

24.1 6.9 13.5 9 1.4 26.8 10.4 24.2

Hence, it appears that up to seventeen the Negro is on the average stronger than the White; he is also stronger in the cases measured from thirty-one to thirty-four and from forty-five to forty-nine, though his advantage is not great; but everywhere else he is markedly not so strong. Of course, it is easy to except to such statistics—to say that the averages are untrustworthy; but it would be very strange if so many distinct and independent indications were all wrong. As the lowest age for soldiers is hardly below sixteen, we see that the Black excels, and only slightly, in only twelve years, the White in twenty-three years up to fifty and in all above, and on the whole very considerably, his excess rising twice to 26.8. The indication, then, is of a more tropical nature in the Black; he attains his maximum sooner, but he maintains it not so long nor so high; and this might certainly have been expected.

Similar is the indication of the respiration. In full vigour the average respiration per minute of Whites, Blacks, Mulattoes are 16.44, 17.75, 19.01; while with impaired vigour the average rates are for Whites 16.84, for Blacks and Mulattoes 20.71. Here this excessive frequency is found at every age, both in health and still more in disease, both for Blacks and still more for Mulattoes. It seems impossible, then, that the indications should be erroneous. On the other hand, the pulse of the White, in vigour and in ailment, is faster than the full Black's, but slower than the Mulatto's; Whites 74.84, 77.21; Blacks 74.02, 76.91; Mulattoes 76.97, 83.12. Here the differences are too slight for emphasis, and we do not know that there is any advantage in a somewhat slower pulse. But what is the meaning of the quicker respiration? It means the decidedly lower lung capacity of the Black. Since the Black weighs more per inch of height than the White, we are prepared to find his chest measurements greater after respiration. These measurements confirm each other. Of 315,620 White soldiers the average girth of chest was 33.42 inches, but of 25,828 coloured soldiers it was 33.69; and this difference in favour of the Blacks maintained itself for all statures. However, the lung capacity or mobility of chest (i.e. the difference between the girth at forced inspiration and forced expiration) is greater in the Whites; in 6,359 Whites the average was 3.24; in 377 Negroes it was 3.23. This difference is too small to be worth noting, but mark you! in the under-weights (100 to 120 pounds) the mobility was far greater in the Blacks (3.33 against 3.15), also in the overweights (180 and more) (3.38 against 3.27); but in the normal weights (120 to 180) it everywhere favoured the Whites. Moreover, these Whites were about an inch taller than the Blacks (67.30 against 66.39) at all ages; their chest girth was nearly half an inch less (32.49 against 32.84), and yet their lung capacity was greater. The indication of stronger lungs seems unmistakable.

At this point it seems necessary to point out that in this extremely important matter of chest mobility, the Negro is not maintaining himself but is perceptibly declining. In 1861-65 the excess favoured the Whites for the ages thirty to thirty-nine, and under twenty; for all other ages it favoured the Blacks, who fell behind only .01 on the general average (3.24 and 3.23). But in 1892-94 it favours the Whites at all ages; and the White excess has increased to .35 (2.93 and 2.58). (Reports of Provost-Marshal General, Vol. I., and of Surgeon General of U.S.A., 1893-95.) The indication is not in itself infallible, but it has great significance in connection with other corroborative evidence.

Lung capacity is not chest mobility, but the two are closely related. Gould's measurements indicate a very decidedly smaller number of cubic inches of air in case of the Negro, and this for all heights and weights. The White excess increases steadily from eight cubic inches (for under-heights, sixty inches) up to fifteen and one-half cubic inches for over-heights (seventy-one inches), but falls back to fourteen and one-half for six-footers. On the other hand, this White excess falls from twenty-five and one-half cubic inches for narrow chests (30 inches) down to two cubic inches for large girths (40 inches); but its uniform presence shows that the excess is a fact, whatever may be the varying size of the fact. Here again the indication is unambiguous that the Negro is short-winded, weak-lunged as compared with his White rival.

This indication is immensely strengthened by combination with another exceedingly important fact. It has been said that the Negro is stouter than the White, at all ages and all statures, weighing more per inch of height. Now this extra weight per vertical inch is considered of all outward signs the best for lung strength and lung soundness. "Are you gaining in weight?" is the all-important question that the physician asks of his tuberculotic patient. The Negro has (or had) here very much outwardly in his favour; the lower height, the heavier build, the greater girth of chest; so important is the single item of weight that it is held on the basis of the broadest induction that even a very slight overplus in heaviness may suffice to counteract effectively a hereditary disposition towards tubercle, while actuaries are agreed that slightness in proportion to age and height greatly determines susceptibility to consumption.

And yet, in spite of all, he is the peculiar victim of tuberculosis, which attacks him not only with great and increasing frequency, but with especial malignance. Of his enormous death rate from lung affections, we have yet to speak. Here we would merely point out the obvious conclusion, that histologically the Negro thus appears inferior to the White man; not only do his tissues offer ready lodgement to the invading bacillus, but they offer far less stubborn and protracted resistance to such inroads when once in progress.

At this point, it seems well to quote the conclusions of Hoffman (pp. 170-171):

"First. The average weight of the colored male of military age, and of colored male and female children, is greater than that of whites of the same classes. This excess in weight prevails irrespective of age, stature, or circumference of the chest.

"Second. Already quoted. (p 217).

"Third. The greater weight and smaller stature of the negro as compared with the white are found to prevail practically the same to-day as thirty years ago. The race has therefore undergone no decided change in respect to these conditions of bodily structure.

"Fourth. The average girth of chest of the negro male of thirty years ago was slightly greater than that of the white, but at the present time the chest expansion of the colored male is less than that of the white. This decrease in the size of the living thorax in part explains the increase in the mortality from consumption and respiratory diseases.

"Fifth. The capacity of the lungs of the negro is considerably below that of the white. This fact coupled with the smaller weight of the lungs (4 oz.) is without question another powerful factor in the great mortality from diseases of the lungs.

"Sixth. The mean frequency of respiration is greater in the negro than in the white. As accelerated respiration indicates a tendency towards disease, the fact just stated fully supports those regarding inferior vital capacity and lesser degree of mobility of the chest.

"Seventh. The mean lifting strength of the white is in excess of that of the negro. The prevailing opinion that the negro is on the whole more capable of enduring physical exercise is therefore disproved." [H.'s "therefore" is quite unwarranted. There is no such necessary connection between strength to lift and strength to endure. However, his conclusion, although illogical, is nevertheless correct, as appears plainly from a large body of other evidence.] "This fully agrees with the facts regarding excessive mortality, which in itself is proof" [or at least indication] "of a lesser degree of physical strength.

"Eighth. The power of vision of the negro is inferior to that of the white, but he is less liable to diseases of the eye, especially color blindness."

In the light of these "conclusions," which accord so perfectly with the great facts of geographical distribution, how is it possible to speak of the Negro as physically equal to the Caucasian?

But not only is this comparative structural weakness clearly indicated, but it is becoming more and more apparent. The marked apparent decline in the chest expansion between 1863 and 1894 (from 3.23 to 2.58), the increasing mortality, the decreasing immunity, the vague but unvarying testimony of general observation—all tell one and the same unambiguous story.

VIABILITY.

It has been well said by Professor Willcox that the three great causes of race extinction are disease, vice, and profound discouragement. Are these formidable three at work against the American Negroid? It is mainly a matter of statistical evidence. We have indeed few statistics of discouragement, but of vice and disease they greatly abound. Of all statistics those of mortality and vitality are perhaps the most important, the most trustworthy, the most significant, the most suggestive, and the most weirdly fascinating. They fill two gigantic volumes of the twelfth census report, and to them we appeal in the prosecution of our inquiry.

Unfortunately these reports, as wholly trustworthy, do not cover the whole of the United States, but only a very wide registration area, including about 38 per cent. of the total population and about 86.7 per cent. of the urban population. For the rest only an inference, checked on this side and on that, is allowed. However, the general result is affected very little by this undetermined element; and our arguments and conclusions, since they deal with only the large features in the case, are not affected at all.

The first great fact that meets us, is this: The average death-rate of the Negro is not far from double that of the White. For the year 1890 the rates per myriad were: White 196, Coloured 299—a coloured excess of 55 per cent.; for the year 1900 they were: Whites 178, Coloured 296 [38]—a coloured excess of 66 per cent. The rates were almost exactly as five to three! Not only then is the Black dying faster than the White, but his rate exceeds the White rate more and more, having gained 14 per cent. in ten years. The White rate has fallen very markedly—eighteen per myriad in these ten years; the Negro, only three per myriad. Were the whole population considered, it is doubtful whether his rate has fallen at all. Indeed, in cities not in the registration states his rate has actually risen perceptibly, from 309 to 313, whereas the White rate has meanwhile fallen from 189 to 175.

When now we consider the causes of this astonishing mortality, its significance seems greatly enhanced. It was long believed, with more or less reason, that the Negro enjoyed a certain at least partial immunity from some of the most formidable diseases that assail the Caucasian. He was thought less exposed to consumption and malaria, far less to cancer and nervous disorders. But now listen to the tale of the census! In scarlet fever and diphtheria and cancer, the Caucasian still asserts his sad preëminence; his rates per myriad are 120, 459, 667, against the Negro's 26, 320, 480. But in all the others, he is far outstripped. Thus, the rates per million, for Whites and Blacks, are: consumption, 1735 and 4854; pneumonia, 1848 and 3553; diseases of the nervous system, 2137 and 3080; of the urinary system, 998 and 1573; heart diseases and dropsy, 1374 and 2211; typhoid fever, 324 and 675; malarial fever, 65 and 632! We note here especially the fearful prevalence of consumption, an almost infallible index of failing vitality. Still more astonishing is the mortality from nerve-diseases, where we should least expect them—a most interesting side-light on the question of "discouragement." Equally instructive are the numbers 998 and 1573; the sad tale they tell is confirmed by such facts as these: the deaths (in 1900) from diseases affecting female organs of generation were: Whites 2661, Coloured 592. From affections concerned with pregnancy they were: Whites 7816, Coloured 1883. Remember that the former outnumber the latter nearly eight to one; and you perceive that the Coloured death-rate is nearly double the White. Add to the foregoing that the deaths from venereal diseases were: Whites 1030, Coloured 561. At the White rate, this latter should have been 135 only—an excess of 316 per cent.; the Black death rate is over four times as great as the White. All this indicates the destructive prevalence, among the Blacks, of these race-ruining maladies from which they were so long supposed to be comparatively exempt. We observe also that cancer is rapidly marching to the front among the plagues of the Negro—indeed, it already attacks the womb of the Black more frequently than that of the White. Any one of these indications, or any two, or perhaps three, might be misleading; but not the general consensus of all. If evidence has any value at all, there can be no doubt whatever that these figures indicate both a low viability in the Black man and the appalling prevalence of the most race-destructive disorders.

We would not disguise the fact that the last census, while in general so exceedingly gloomy in its omens for the Negro, is yet traversed here and there by some brighter ray. Thus, the city death rate from consumption fell from 6,001 in 1890 to 4,710 in 1900, and the rural from 3,652 to 3,227; especially the first comparison seems very encouraging. But we must remember that in that decade science and art vied in desperate struggle against that disease, which could hardly fail to produce at least temporary notable results, especially in the earlier years of life, where the principal gain was made. During the same period the White urban rate fell from 2,851 to 1,978, or 31 per cent. against the Negro 21.5 per cent.; and the White rural rate from 1,777 to 1,316 or 26 per cent. against the Negro loss of 12 per cent. Meanwhile, also, the White rate for pneumonia has perceptibly fallen everywhere, while the Negro rate has scarcely changed in town (3,469 against 3,480) and has actually risen decidedly in the country (1,767 against 1,583), and in the registration area from 279 to 349!

There is no escape, then, from our conclusion. It is vain to allege excessive infant mortality, unhygienic conditions, and the like as explanations. The huge death rate faces the observer along the whole line and under all circumstances. Thus in the registration area, for 1900, the Negro rate for the various ages showed the following excesses over the White rate:

Ages 0-4 5-14 15-24 25-34 35-44 45-64 65-

Excess (per cent.) 137 139 164 96 89 71 26

While these excesses are greatest up to manhood, they remain very great even up to old age. The relative importance of infant mortality among the Negroes is commonly much exaggerated. In 1900 the number of deaths under five years, per 10,000 deaths at all ages, was: Whites, 3,022; Negroes, 3,422—a comparative excess of only about 13 per cent. It is from 10 to 25 that the Negro offers relatively the richest field to disease and death. The lowered death-rate observed in the cities is referable almost wholly to the earliest years. Thus, in New Orleans, the rates for White and Black for the triennium 1899-1901, as compared with 1889-1891, showed the following gains (unmarked) and losses (marked -) per myriad:

Ages 0-4 5-9 10-19 20-29 30-49 50-69 70-

White -172 -9 -1 -9 -26 -48 -69

Coloured -109 2 26 62 22 57 -635

Here the mortality (per 10,000 Whites) has decreased slightly along the whole line; among the Blacks it has decreased at the ends, but has increased everywhere else—a result extremely significant. Similarly for Washington and Charleston. Once more, the statistics of hospitals, as the Johns Hopkins (Baltimore) and the Charity (New Orleans), show an average death rate of the Blacks nearly double that of the Whites, except in surgical cases. Here the general conditions are practically the same for both races, the duration of treatment averages the same, and the far greater mortality is virtually decisive for the far less vitality of the Negro race.

The very strongest corroboration of our contention is furnished by Surgeon-General O'Reilly in his recent report for the fiscal year, ending June 30, 1903. The death rates of White and Coloured soldiers were 144 and 241 per myriad, respectively, almost exactly in the ratio of three to five—a coloured excess of over 67 per cent. Here the life conditions were sensibly the same; the far higher vitality of the Caucasian appears in the boldest relief.

The question of increase, already discussed, is very intimately connected with the death rate, but equally so with the far less accurately known birth rate; in fact, the rate of growth in numbers is the difference of these two. Evidently, a very high death rate may consist with a rapid increase in numbers, if only the birth rate be high enough; on the other hand, even a high birth rate would bring about little increase, if the death rate should be inordinately high. No one seriously questions the great mortality among the Negroes; but their champions think and hope that this may be made good by extreme fertility. Let us see what this latter would have to be. Since the former is nearly 300 per myriad, in order to maintain the very low rate of growth of 100 per myriad, the latter would have to reach 400. Is this rate a fact? And, if so, is it likely to continue to be a fact? We shall summon all the evidence accessible, both direct and indirect. While nothing like minute exactness is at present attainable, the general purport of the testimony can not, it seems, be mistaken.

The birth and death rates for certain European countries, for the last decade, are as follows (per myriad):

England and W. Scotland Ireland Denmark Norway Sweden

Births 301 307 230 303 304 272

Deaths 184 188 181 177 165 164

Increase 117 119 49 126 139 108