ITS PRESENT CONDITION AND ASPECT, AS SHOWN BY STATISTICS
Having in the two previous papers undertaken to show the relation
between the whites of the South and the Negroes at the time of the
abolition of slavery, and having traced the change in that relation
and pointed out the mistakes which, in the writer’s opinion, were
mainly responsible for whatever trouble has since arisen between
them, it now remains to see what the present condition is; how far it
is attributable to those causes, and what promise the future holds of
amendment.
Thirty-eight years have passed since the Negro was set free and
became his own master. By sentimentalists and Negro writers and
orators, most of the Negro’s shortcomings are usually charged to
slavery, and undoubtedly slavery leaves certain traits which the
student can readily detect. But most of the class of writers referred
to ignore the fact that the Negro at the close of slavery was in a
higher condition of civilization than when he came a savage from the
wilds of Africa. Of slavery it may be said that it was the greatest
evil that ever befell this country. It kept the sections divided and
finally plunged the nation into a devastating civil war. This is
indictment enough. But to the Negro it was far from an unmixed evil.
This very period of slavery in America had given to him the only
semblance of civilization which the Negro race has possessed since
the dawn of history.
Whatever evils slavery may have entailed upon the Negro, this much
may unquestionably be predicted of it: it left him a trained laborer
and in good physical condition. He started in on a new era with a
large share of friendliness on the part of the South and with the
enthusiastic good-will of the North. He had little property, and not
more than two or three per cent. were able to read; but he commanded
the entire field of labor in the South, while a certain percentage,
composed of house-servants, had the knowledge which comes from
holding positions of responsibility and from constant association
with educated people.
When the war closed, among the four millions of Negroes who then
inhabited the South, there was, with the exception of the invalids,
the cripples, and the superannuated, scarcely an adult who was not
a trained laborer or a skilled artisan. In the cotton section they
knew how to raise and prepare cotton; in the sugar belt they knew
how to grow and grind sugar; in the tobacco, corn, wheat, and hay
belts they knew how to raise and prepare for market those crops.
They were the shepherds, cattle-men, horse-trainers and raisers. The
entire industrial work of the South was performed by them. They were
the trained domestic servants—laundresses, nurses, and midwives.
They were the carpenters, smiths, coopers, sawyers, wheelwrights,
bricklayers, and boatmen. They were the tanners and shoemakers,
miners and stonecutters, tailors and knitters, spinners and weavers.
Nearly all the houses in the South were built by them. They
manufactured most of the articles that were manufactured in the South.
No exact statistics of the race at that time may be obtained, but
a reasonably approximate estimate may be made, based on the known
facts, as to the number of slave-holders, and the general relation
of house-servants, mechanics, etc., to the entire population. It
is known, for instance, that the slave-holder, whether he owned few
or many, invariably had his best slaves as domestic servants. It is
equally well known that the large plantations hired the services of
those on the larger estates.
In 1860 there were in the Southern States between five and six
hundred thousand slave-owners and slave hirers, and there were
four million and a quarter slaves, or about eight slaves to each
owner.[26] Of these slave-owners, perhaps, every one had at least
one house-servant, and most of them had several. Striking a mean
between the smaller slave-owner and the larger, it would probably
be found that the proportion of mechanics and artisans to the
entire population was about the same that it is in any agricultural
community, or, as the slave is known to be generally not as
industrious and efficient as the free workman, the percentage was
possibly higher than it is to-day in the West or in the agricultural
parts of the South. It is not pretended that this is more than
a conjecture, but it is a conjecture based upon what appears a
conservative estimate.
Since that time, according to the census of 1900, over $109,000,000
had been expended by the South on the Negro’s education, besides what
has been expended by private charity, which is estimated to amount to
$30,000,000.
The South has faithfully applied itself during all these years to
giving the Negroes all the opportunities possible for attaining
an education, and it is one of the most creditable pages in her
history that in face of the horror of Negro-domination during the
Reconstruction period; of the disappointment at the small results;
in face of the fact that the education of the Negroes has appeared
to be used by them only as a weapon with which to oppose the white
race, the latter should have persistently given so largely of its
store to provide this misused education. Of the $109,000,000 which
the Southern States have, since the war, applied to the education
of the Negro by voluntary taxation, over $100,000,000 was raised by
the votes of the whites from taxation on the property of the whites.
Several times of late years propositions have been made in various
legislatures in the South to devote the money raised by taxation of
the property of each race exclusively to the education of that race,
but in every case, to their credit be it said, the propositions have
been overwhelmingly defeated.[27] The total expenditure for public
schools in the South in the year 1898-1899 was $32,849,892, of which
$6,569,978 was to sustain Negro schools.
Inspection of the records will reveal something of the fruits of the
$140,000,000 expended on the education of the Negroes at the South,
and the rest must be learned from those who have studied the subject
at first hand.
It seems to the writer that one of the fundamental errors which have
inhered in all the discussion which has taken place on the Negro
question is in considering the Negroes as absolutely of one class.
A brief consideration of the matter will show on the contrary that
the colored population of the South, though they were, with the
exception of a few Arabs, all of Negro blood, were, when they came to
this country, of different tribes; and there were, even during the
time of slavery, and are yet more markedly now, grades among them:
grades of intellect, of character, and of ability, which point to,
if not varying racial, at least varying tribal forces. And however
they may all appear to herd together and look at most matters not
from an individual and rational, but from a racial standpoint, a
careful study will disclose certain distinctions which have the mark
of tribal distinctions, while others will show the elements of class
distinctions. These class distinctions, though still elementary, are
beginning to make themselves apparent.
The line of cleavage unhappily does not follow that of conduct or
good manners, much less that of character, but, perhaps, it may
approximate them more closely in time, and the upper class will learn
and cause it to be understood that conduct, character, and good
manners are the key to admission.
It is the intention of the writer in this discussion to recognize
this distinction, and, when he speaks of “the Negroes,” he desires
generally to be understood as referring to the great body of the
race, and not as including what may be termed the upper fraction—that
is, those who, by reason of intellect, education, and character,
form so clearly an exception that they must be considered as a
separate class.
The Negroes, indeed, may be divided into three classes.
The first is a small class, comparatively speaking, who are more or
less educated, some being well educated and well conducted; others,
with a semblance of education and none too well behaved. The former
constitute what may be termed the upper fraction; the latter possess
only a counterfeit culture and lack the essential elements of
character and even moral perception.
The second class is composed of a respectable, well-behaved,
self-respecting element; sensible, though with little or no
education, and, except when under the domination of passion, good
citizens. This class embraces most of the more intelligent of the
older generation who were trained in slavery, and a considerable
element of the intelligent middle-aged, conservative workers of the
race who were trained by that generation. The two together may be
called the backbone of the race.
The third class is composed of those who are wholly ignorant, or in
whom, though they have what they call education, this so-called
education is unaccompanied by any of the fruits of character which
education is supposed to produce. Among these are many who esteem
themselves in the first class, and, because of a veneer of education,
are not infrequently confounded with them.
The first two classes may easily be reckoned with. They contain the
elements which make good citizens and which should enable them to
secure all proper recognition and respect. They need no weapon but
that which they possess—good citizenship.
Unfortunately, the great body of the race, and a vast percentage of
the growing generation, belong to the third class. It is this class
which has to be reckoned with.
It is like a vast sluggish mass of uncooled lava over a large section
of the country, burying some portions and affecting the whole. It is
apparently harmless, but beneath its surface smoulder fires which
may at any time burst forth unexpectedly and spread desolation all
around. It is this mass, increasing from beneath, not from above,
which constitutes the Negro question.
In the discussion that takes place in the periodical press and in
conventions relating to the progress of the colored race, a great
deal is made of the advance of the race since the abolition of
slavery. It is asserted that the race has accumulated many hundreds
of millions of dollars. Just how much, it is difficult to say.
Authorities differ widely. The last Negro member of Congress,[28] in
a speech delivered in the House of Representatives on January 29,
1901, undertook to give the advance of his race in the thirty-two
preceding years. “Since that time,” he says, “we have reduced the
illiteracy of the race at least 45 per cent. We have written and
published nearly 500 books. We have nearly 300 newspapers, three of
which are dailies. We have now in practice over 2,000 lawyers and a
corresponding number of doctors. We have accumulated over $12,000,000
worth of school property and about $40,000,000 of church property. We
have about 140,000 farms and homes valued at in the neighborhood of
$750,000,000, and personal property valued at about $170,000,000....
We have 32,000 teachers in the schools of the country. We have built,
with the aid of our friends, about 20,000 churches, and support 7
colleges, 17 academies, 50 high schools, 5 law schools, 5 medical
schools, and 25 theological seminaries. We have over 600,000 acres of
land in the South alone.”
It might be assumed that, as he was glorifying his race, this is
the outside estimate of what they have accomplished, had not other
colored leaders and teachers since that time asserted that these
figures are far too low. To the writer these estimates would appear
grossly exaggerated. Certainly the educational achievement of which
they boast cannot justly be attributed, in the main, to the Negro
race. The white race furnished 95 per cent. of the money for the
schools, and a yet larger proportion for the colleges.
It is stated that “before the war the South had a free Negro
population in excess of a quarter of a million souls,” and, according
to an estimate which has been made by one of the distinguished
members of the race, the value of property owned by free Negroes was
between $35,000,000 and $40,000,000.[29] Although the exact amount
must be based somewhat on conjecture, it is certain that there were
a considerable number of free Negroes in the country at that time
who owned considerable property. Some of those in the South were
land-owners and slave-owners, while of the 226,216 who lived outside
of the slave States, a fair proportion were well-to-do. According
to the report of a Commission appointed by Mr. Lincoln in 1863 to
“examine and report upon the condition of the newly emancipated
Freedmen of the United States,” the Commission ascertained that the
free colored people of Louisiana in the year 1860 paid taxes on
an assessment of thirteen millions.[30] To this sum must be added
the amount that was accumulated during the Reconstruction period,
by other means than those of honest thrift. The residue marks the
advance of the Negro race in material progress.
Unhappily for those who claim that the Negro race has shown
extraordinary thrift since its emancipation thirty-eight years ago,
the records, when examined, fail to bear out the contention.
On the 29th of June, 1903, Mr. Charles A. Gardiner, of the New York
bar, delivered a notable address at Albany, before the Convocation
of the University of the State of New York, on a “Constitutional and
Educational Solution of the Negro Problem,” in which he presented
some remarkable statements relating to the condition of the Negroes.
He showed that, in 1890, the real and personal property of the
fifteen old slave States was $13,380,517,311, of which the blacks
owned only 3.3 per cent., an average of $64.20 per capita. The six
Atlantic and Gulf States had $3,215,127,929, of which the blacks
owned only 3.5 per cent., an average of $28.60 each. The writer has
tried to obtain the later statistics, but has not been successful
in securing complete statistics, owing to the fact that the United
States Census Bureau has not yet completed its calculations touching
this subject, and because many of the States do not keep separately
the records of the property owned by the whites and Negroes. He has,
however, secured from the records of the States of Arkansas, Georgia,
North Carolina, and Virginia, where the records are kept separately,
the statistics showing the actual and relative amount of property
owned by the Negroes for the year 1902:
ASSESSED VALUE OF ALL PROPERTY OWNED BY NEGROES.
———————————————————+—————————————+————————————————
| Population. | Assessed Value.
———————————————————+—————————————+————————————————
Arkansas | 366,856 | $11,263,400[31]
Georgia | 1,034,813 | 15,188,069
North Carolina | 624,468 | 9,765,986
Virginia | 660,722 | 17,580,390
———————————————————+—————————————+————————————————
Total | 2,686,859 | $53,797,845
———————————————————+—————————————+————————————————
It is possible that the States of Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina,
and Virginia may be considered quite representative of the entire
South. The Negroes are believed to be as well off in these States as
in any others. The four States contain 2,686,859 Negroes, which is
30.39 per cent. of the entire Negro population of the whole United
States, and the statistics show that this 30.39 per cent. of the
entire Negro population own now, in real and personal property listed
for taxation, only $53,797,845, which is but $20.02 per capita. The
assessed value of property in the Southern States may be stated to
be generally, at least, three-quarters of the actual value.
In the interesting and valuable statistics as to “The Negro Farmer,”
compiled by Prof. W. E. B. Du Bois, of Atlanta University, we find a
great many interesting facts:
PROPORTION OF SLAVE OWNERS AND OF SLAVES IN THE POPULATION OF THE
SOUTH, 1850 AND 1860.
—————————————+———————————————————————+———————————+———————————
| Per Cent. Owners— | Per Cent. |
| Form of | Slaves— | Average
CENSUS YEAR. +———————————+———————————+ Form of |Number of
| Total | White | Total |Slaves per
|Population.|Population.|Population.| Owner.
—————————————+———————————————————————+———————————+———————————
1860 | 3.2 | 5.1 | 34.5 | 11
1850 | 3.7 | 5.8 | 34.7 | 9
—————————————+———————————————————————+———————————+———————————
“These figures show that the slaves formed about one-third of the
total population of that section, but that the owners of these slaves
formed only between 5 and 6 per cent. of the white population and
between 3 and 4 per cent. of the total population, the proportion
being even lower in 1860 than in 1850.
“In 1900 there were 187,799 farms owned by Negroes, which was 25.2
per cent. of all farms operated by Negroes. In 1900 Negro farmers
who owned all of the land they cultivated formed 83.3 per cent. of
all Negro owners.
“If an estimate of the probable total farm wealth of the Negro
farmers, June 1, 1900, be desired, the value of the live stock
on rented farms, of which a large share generally belongs to the
tenants, should be added. That value for the colored tenants was
$57,167,206. Adding this sum to the preceding total, it appears the
value, June 1, 1900, of the farm property belonging to Negroes was
approximately $200,000,000, or a little less than $300 for each Negro
farmer.
“This estimate, however, takes no account of property owned by
Negroes and rented out to either Negroes or whites.... Therefore, we
are probably justified in adding 15 per cent. to the above estimated
value of property owned by Negro farmers in continental United
States, thus bringing the total up to $230,000,000.
“The value of the land in farms of all colored owners in continental
United States in 1900—including the value of the supplementary land
rented, which, if we assume it to be of the same average value as the
rest, amounted to about $7,500,000—was $102,022,601. While some of
the land is very good, most of it is poor, being often practically
worn out or disadvantageously situated as regards a market.”[32]
Statistics relating to the number of farms, acreage, and value of all
farm property, including land, improvements, implements, machinery,
and livestock, may be found in the Twelfth Census and in the Census
Bulletin No. 8, relating to Negroes in the United States in 1900,
table 69, page 308.
In this table it is shown that the total number of farm-property
owners including Negro, Indian, and Mongolian farmers is 174,434,
owning land and improvements, implements, and machinery valued at
$150,557,251, and part owners, 30,501, owning $27,358,225.
Georgia has been not infrequently cited as a State in which the
Negro has thriven somewhat exceptionally. It contains more Negroes
than does any other State, having, by the census of 1900, 1,034,813
Negroes. In 1860 it contained 465,698, so that the Negroes have
since that time increased there at the rate of 142,279 every ten
years. The Bulletin of the Department of Labor, No. 35, July 1901,
contains a valuable paper by Prof. Du Bois on the Negro landholder
in Georgia, based on a close study of the conditions of the Negro
in that State. Among other matters he gives a table containing the
assessed value of all property owned by Negroes in Georgia from
1874 to 1900:
ASSESSED VALUE OF TOTAL PROPERTY OWNED BY NEGROES OF GEORGIA, 1874
TO 1900.
Year. Assessed Value.
1874 $6,157,798
1875 5,393,885
1876 5,488,867
1877 5,430,844
1878 5,124,875
1879 5,182,398
1880 5,764,293
1881 6,478,951
1882 6,589,876
1883 7,582,395
1884 8,021,525
1885 8,153,390
1886 8,655,298
1887 8,963,479
1888 9,631,271
1889 10,415,330
1890 12,322,003
1891 14,196,735
1892 14,869,575
1893 14,960,675
1894 14,387,730
1895 12,941,230
1896 13,292,816
1897 13,619,690
1898 13,719,200
1899 13,447,423
1900 14,118,720
From this table it will be found that the taxable values of all
the property owned by Negroes in Georgia in the year 1874 were
$6,157,798. In 1890 the Negro population was 858,815. In 1892 the
property valuation has risen to $14,869,575, and in 1900, when the
population was 1,034,813, it was only $14,118,720, or an actual
falling off, though the Negroes appear to have increased 23.9 per
cent. in this time.[33]
Such is the showing of statistics as to the advance marked by the
accumulation of property. It fails to bear out the claim that the
Negro race has shown remarkable progress along this line. It must be
further observed that in reporting the property holdings no account
is taken of the mortgages and other indebtedness of the property
owners.
But under this economic presentation lies a deeper question. What
have the thousands of churches and schools and colleges, maintained
at the cost of more than a hundred and fifty million dollars,
produced? What kind of men and women have they turned out? What
fruits have they brought forth, of moral stamina; of character; of
purity of life; of loftiness or even correctness of ideals? These are
the true tests of progress.
To reach a correct answer to these questions, we may inquire first:
Has the percentage of crime decreased in the race generally? Has the
wage-earning capacity of the race generally increased in proportion
to the rise of wages? Has the race generally improved, morally and
mentally? Is the relative position of the race to that of the white
race higher than it was?
Unquestionably, a certain proportion of the Negro race has risen
notably since the era of emancipation. A proportion of the colored
population—that is, the upper fraction—have not only accumulated
property but have, mainly in the cities and towns, attained a higher
standing, based partly on property, partly on character, and partly
on intellectual advance. But, unless the universal testimony of
the white people of the South is unreliable, this rise is confined
largely to those regions where the Negroes have had the aid,
sympathy, and encouragement of the whites. And it appears to the
writer that this element is not as large as is generally assumed, and
that this very advance has separated them all the more widely from
the great body of the colored race. Study of the question, moreover,
discloses the fact that almost all of the intellectual advance in the
Negro race is confined to this upper fraction of the race; that,
perhaps, nine-tenths of the property accumulated has been accumulated
by this class and by the other fraction which belongs to the second
class who were trained in slavery, and that, measured by the ordinary
standards of character, intellect, and civic standing, the other
nine-tenths of the race, so far from advancing in any way, have
either stood stagnant or have retrograded.
According to the United States Census of 1890, the native white
criminals in the United States numbered 40,471; the native whites
whose parents were also native-born numbered 21,037; the Negro
criminals (whose parents were native) numbered 24,277.[34]
A comparison of the rural colored population will show that possibly
over ninety per cent. of the property now owned by the Negroes has
been accumulated by those who were either trained in slavery or grew
up immediately after the war, so that they received the beneficial
effects of the habits of industry in which their race was at that
time trained. It will show in the next place that the proportion of
convicts in the State penitentiaries in the Southern States from the
Negroes is from 85 to 93 per cent. of the total number of convicts
confined. In Louisiana the proportion is 85 per cent. of all State
criminals. In Alabama it is 85.4 per cent. In Florida, 86.4 per cent.
In Mississippi it is 91 per cent. In Georgia it is 90 per cent.,
and in South Carolina it is 93.2 per cent.[35] In the District of
Columbia, where the Negroes are assumed to have had exceptional
advantages and where possibly a certain element of them are as well
off as anywhere in the country, they furnished, a year or two ago, 86
per cent. of the criminals. Of these convicts, more than nine-tenths
have grown up since slavery was abolished.
Meantime, the Negro has retrograded as a workman until he has
not only lost the field in which he once had no rival, but is in
danger of losing even the ability to compete for its recovery. The
superiority of the older farmhands to the younger generation is so
universally asserted throughout the South that it must be given some
of the validity of general reputation. And whereas, as has been
shown, a generation ago all the mechanical work of the South was in
the hands of the Negroes, only a small proportion of it is done by
them to-day.
Fifteen years ago one of the suburbs of Richmond was largely built
up by a contractor whose foreman was a Negro. There was no question
raised about it. The foreman knew his business; had been raised among
the whites; knew how to get along with white men, and was respected
and esteemed by them. This was at that time not uncommon.
What is the situation now? The races are more widely divided than
ever before. White mechanics and Negro mechanics no longer work
together, generally, as of old. No contractor could do now what the
man who built “Barton Heights” did fifteen years ago. The number of
Negro carpenters and mechanics is greatly reduced; and the writer is
informed by intelligent Negroes that such work as they do is mainly
among their own people. The causes are not far to seek. It is partly
due to a failure of ability in the Negro to hold his place in the
struggle of competition, and partly to the changed relations between
him and the white. The old feeling of friendliness and amity has
waned, and in its room has come a cold indifference, if not actual
hostility. The new Negro has been taught that he is the equal of the
white, and he is always asserting it and trying to prove it by any
way but the right way—the equality of his work.
Washington City has ever since the time of emancipation appeared
a sort of Mecca to many of the Negro race. There, numbers of that
race have had opportunities which have been wanting to them in the
South, and there to-day may be found, perhaps, the best educated
element of the race to be found anywhere. Within the last year the
Negro organization known as the True Reformers built in that city a
handsome and expensive structure for the use of their race, and built
it wholly with Negro labor. When, however, the workmen competent to
do such work were sought, it was found necessary to go to the South
for them.
Yet even in the South the Negro artisan sufficiently trained to
compete now with his white rival is comparatively rare.
“The slave-disciplined mechanic has no successor in the ranks of the
freedmen....”[36]
So far, then, as statistics would indicate, the improvement that
exists among the Negroes is not shown by the race at large as is
usually alleged, but is shown, in the main, by the upper fraction.
This proposition is borne out also by the testimony of the great
majority of the Southern whites who live in constant touch with the
blacks; who have known them in every relation of life in a way that
no one who has not lived among them can know them. Universally, they
will tell you that while the old-time Negroes were industrious,
saving, and, when not misled, well-behaved, kindly, respectful, and
self-respecting, and while the remnant of them who remain still
retain generally these characteristics, the “new issue,” for the most
part, are lazy, thriftless, intemperate, insolent, dishonest, and
without the most rudimentary elements of morality.
They unite further in the opinion that education such as they receive
in the public schools, so far from appearing to uplift them, appears
to be without any appreciable beneficial effect upon their morals or
their standing as citizens. But more than this; universally, they
report a general depravity and retrogression of the Negroes at large
in sections in which they are left to themselves, closely resembling
a reversion to barbarism.
It is commonly assumed that progress, as applied to a class or a
race, signifies some advance in moral standing, or, at least, some
improvement in the elements of character on which morality is based.
It is unfortunate that the statistics in the field of morality cannot
be obtained; but in this field, as in others, the testimony of those
who have had the best opportunities for observation is all one way.
Southerners of every class and calling, without exception, bear
witness to the depressing fact that, leaving out the small upper
fraction, the Negro race has not advanced at all in morality.
Unhappily, the fountain is tainted at the source. The great body of
the race have scarcely any notion of the foundation principles of
pure family life. They appear not only to have no idea of morality,
but to lack any instinct upon which such an idea can be founded. It
is usually charged that slavery was responsible for the absence of
morality throughout the race. Some of the Negro writers even speak
of “the ancient African chastity” having been debauched by slavery.
Doubtless, during slavery there was a sufficient amount of immorality
to be the basis for almost any reasonable charge, yet study of the
question has convinced at least one investigator that the illicit
relations between the two races during the period of slavery have
probably been greatly exaggerated. He has come to believe further
that while illicit intercourse between the two races is less and,
perhaps, markedly less now than it was during the period of slavery,
the immorality of the great body of the Negro race has increased
since that time. That this immorality exists is the testimony not
only of the whites, but also of members of the race who have, with
an open mind, made a study of the conditions of their people.
Perhaps the most remarkable study of the Negro which has appeared
is the book entitled, “The American Negro,” by William Hannibal
Thomas, of Massachusetts. No inconsiderable part of its value is
owing to the fact that the author, a free colored man, has had both
the power to observe closely and the courage to record boldly the
results of his observations. In the chapter on “Moral Lapses,” the
author says: “All who know the Negro recognize, however, that the
chief and overpowering element in his make-up is an imperious sexual
impulse which, aroused at the slightest incentive, sweeps aside all
restraints in the pursuit of physical gratification. We may say now
that this element of Negro character constitutes the main incitement
to degeneracy of the race and is the chief hindrance to its social
uplifting....
“The Negro’s ethical code sternly reprobates dancing, theatre
attendance, and all social games of chance. It does not, however,
forbid lying, rum-drinking, or stealing. Furthermore, a man may trail
his loathsome form into the sanctity of private homes, seduce a wife,
sister, or daughter with impunity, and be the father of a score of
illegitimate children by as many mothers, and yet be a disciple of
holiness and honored with public confidence.”
His chapter on this subject will be, to those unfamiliar with it, a
terrible exposure of the depravity of the Negroes in their social
life, but it is only what those who have studied the subject know.
The curse of this frightful immorality is over the church and the
school, and gives no evidence of abatement.
“The simple truth,” admits the writer already quoted, “is that there
is going on side by side in the Negro people a minimum progress
with a maximum regress.” “It is, therefore,” he says,[37] “almost
impossible to find a person of either sex over fifteen years of age
who has not had carnal intercourse.” And again,[38] he declares:
“Marital immoralities, however, are not confined to the poor, the
ignorant, and the degraded among the freed people, but are equally
common among those who presume to be educated and refined.”
Unfortunately for the race, this depressing view is borne out by the
increase of crime among them; by the increase of superstition, with
its black trail of unnamable immorality and vice; by the homicides
and murders, and by the outbreak and growth of the brutal crime which
has chiefly brought about the frightful crime of lynching which
stains the good name of the South and has spread northward with the
spread of the Negro ravisher.
It is a fact, which no one will deny, that the crime of rape was
substantially unknown during the period of slavery, and was hardly
known during the first years of freedom: it is the fatal product
of new conditions. Twenty-five years ago women in the South went
unattended, with no more fear of attack than they have in New
England. To-day, no woman in the South goes alone upon the highway
out of sight of white men, except on necessity, and no man leaves his
women alone in his house if he can help it. Over 500 white women and
children have been assaulted in the South by Negroes within that time.
This is a terrible showing, and the most depressing part of it is the
failure of the Negroes generally to address themselves to the moral
improvement of their race.
None of this will affect the views of the politician or the
doctrinaire, but it should, at least, give food for thought among
the rest of our people, that these views are held almost universally
by the intelligent white people of the South, irrespective of their
different political or religious views; irrespective of their social
or their business standing; and further, that, substantially, these
views are held by nearly all outsiders who go and see enough of the
South to secure opportunities for close and general observation; and,
precisely as their experience is broad and their means of information
extensive, their views approximate those held by the white residents.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] In Georgia, for example, there were in 1860, 462,198 slaves,
owned by 41,084 owners.
[27] According to the Educational Report of the United States
Bureau of Education for 1898-1899, “the total enrolment in the
public schools of the South (the sixteen former slave-States and
the District of Columbia) for the year 1898-1899 was 5,662,259; the
number of white children being 4,150,641 and the number of negro
children 1,511,618.” Of the white school population (5,954,400),
69.71 per cent. were enrolled in the public schools, and of the negro
school population (2,912,910), 51.89 per cent.
[28] George H. White, of North Carolina.
[29] “The American Negro,” by William Hannibal Thomas, p. 74.
Macmillan & Co.
[30] Wrong of Slavery and Right of Emancipation: R. D. Owen,
Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1864.
[31] In Arkansas the total value of all property, including railroad
property of the State, is $225,276,681. The taxes assessed on the
property of the whites were $3,699,025, while the taxes assessed on
the property of the Negroes were $205,954. The value of the property
held by the Negroes was obtained by assigning to them an amount
proportionate to the taxes paid by them.
[32]
———————————————————+——————————+—————————————
|Number of |Value of Farm | Farms. | Property.
———————————————————+——————————+————————————— Owners | 174,434 |
$150,557,251 Part Owners | 30,501 | 27,358,225 Owners and Tenants
| 1,582 | 1,881,163 Managers | 1,824 | 9,777,377 Cash Tenants
| 274,663 | 178,300,242 Share Tenants | 284,760 | 178,849,250
———————————————————+——————————+—————————————
[33] The Comptroller-General of Georgia reports that the assessed
value of the property of the white taxpayers of Georgia for 1902
was $452,122,577. The property of the Negro taxpayers in the State
of Georgia for the same year was assessed at $15,188,069. This sum,
though considerably larger than that estimated by Professor Du Bois,
is only 3.25 per cent. of the total assessment of the State.
[34] _World_ Almanac, 1903.
[35] Address of Charles A. Gardiner, cited before.
[36] “The American Negro,” by William Hannibal Thomas, p. 68.
[37] Page 183.
[38] Page 184.