Then, supposing the Negroes to be concentrated in the black belts, as seems inevitable, will they necessarily be shut out from wholesome contact with civilization? Not at all. Just how far personal and servile contact can elevate the moral and manly tone of a people is not quite evident. But the result of indirect missionary contact is, perhaps, the surest way to lift a race into civilization. I point to Japan as a recent, striking illustration of this argument. The black belts will afford the richest field for missionary and philanthropic endeavor. No section of this country can remain long in an uncivilized state or relapse into barbarism that has in its midst a Hampton Institute or a Booker T. Washington.

CHAPTER II.

Subject. Vital Statistics.

Gist. “The vitality of the Negro may well be considered the most important phase of the so-called race problem, for it is a fact which can and will be demonstrated by indisputable evidence that of all races for which statistics are obtainable and which enter at all into the consideration of economic problems as factors the Negro shows the least power of resistance in the struggle for life.”[18]

Death Rate.

Statistics are collected from ten of the largest cities with the result that the death rate among the whites is 20.12 per 1000, and among the blacks 32.61. It is acknowledged that the great bulk of this excess in the colored death rate is due to infant mortality. This fact of itself would suggest that the real cause is condition rather than race traits. This truth shall be established out of the mouth of Mr. Hoffman’s own witness. “Fifty per cent of the (Negro) children who die never receive medical attention.”[19]

“The indifference to medical attendance in cases of illness of their children is due to ignorance.”[20] To the ordinary mind this would imply the most unfortunate condition.

Birth Rate.

But the death rate is only one factor in the vital equation. The birth rate is equally important. Mr. Hoffman concedes, with reluctant reservation, that the colored birth rate may be greater than that of the whites. “That the birth rate of the Negroes is in excess of that of the white population is probably true even at the present time, at least as compared with the native whites.”[21] This is indeed a very feeble admission of a very obvious fact. Mr. Hoffman contends that the death rate of the Negro race is much greater than that of the whites. It has already been shown that, leaving immigration out of account, the increase in the Negro population is greater than that of the white race. How can these two facts be accounted for except it be on the basis of a higher birth rate for the blacks? Mr. Hoffman will have either to alter his estimates or mend his logic.

Direct testimony on this subject must have been known to Mr. Hoffman. Of course no one is qualified to write on vital statistics in America who is not familiar with the investigation of Dr. Billings. Let the reader compare the following quotation as to the relative birth rate of the races, and, noting date of data upon which the conclusion is based, decide for himself as to the ingenuousness of Mr. Hoffman’s reluctant admission: “Dr. Billings, in his luminous report on the vital statistics of the United States (1886) shows that 1000 colored women (age from 15 to 49) give birth to 164 children, and 1000 white women to only 127, yearly; that is to say, three colored women have as many children as four white.”[22]

Is the Negro Threatened with Extinction.

Before Mr. Hoffman’s conclusion as to the threatening aspect of the high death rate of the Negro race can be accepted, several questions must be answered by him.

1. Is the death rate of the colored race higher than that of a corresponding class of whites subject to the same moral and social environment? The general opinion is that it is not; nor does the author attempt to prove the contrary. In discussing this question Dr. John S. Billings states: “If we could separate the vital statistics of the poor and ignorant whites, the tenement house population of our Northern cities, from those of the mass of the white population we should undoubtedly find a high rate of mortality in this class, and especially in infancy and childhood.”[23]

2. Is the high death rate for the cities sustained throughout the country at large? Luckily the census of 1880 gives a complete answer to this question. The death rate of the United States in 1880 was 15.09 per 1000; South Carolina 15.80; Alabama 14.20; Mississippi 12.89; Georgia 13.97; Massachusetts 18.59; New York 17.38; Pennsylvania 14.92; New Jersey 16.33. This shows plainly that the Southern states with the largest Negro contingent do not show any higher death rate than the Northern states where the Negro is not a considerable factor. There is no evidence, certainly none brought forward by the author, to show that the death rate of the Negro in the country at large is much in excess of that of the whites. “In the rural districts the mortality of the Negro is not excessive; it is in the cities and towns where he is brought into close contact with the evils and vices of civilization that he dies so rapidly.”[24]

3. Is the death rate, even in the cities, so great as to foreshadow extinction? Nothing is great or small except by comparison. The death rate among the Negroes in the large cities at present is not as great as it was among the whites forty years ago; that is, if we may rely upon the statistics which Mr. Hoffman himself has presented.

Mortality among Whites in Southern Cities.[25]