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The American Negro Academy.
Occasional Papers, No. 1.
A REVIEW
of
HOFFMAN'S RACE TRAITS AND TENDENCIES
OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO,
BY
KELLY MILLER.
Price, Twenty-five Cents.
WASHINGTON, D. C.
PUBLISHED BY THE ACADEMY.
1897.
OCCASIONAL PAPERS.
No. 1.--A REVIEW OF HOFFMAN'S RACE TRAITS AND TENDENCIES OF THE
AMERICAN NEGRO.--Kelly Miller 25 Cts.
No. 2.--THE CONSERVATION OF RACES.--W. E. Burghard Du Bois 15 Cts.
Orders may be sent to John H. Wills, 506 Eleventh Street N. W.,
Washington, D. C.
A REVIEW OF HOFFMAN'S RACE TRAITS AND TENDENCIES OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO.
In August, 1896, there was published, under the auspices of the American
Economic Association, a work entitled "Race Traits and Tendencies of the
American Negro," by Frederick L. Hoffman, F. S. S., statistician to the
Prudential Insurance Company of America. This work presents by far the
most thorough and comprehensive treatment of the Negro problem, from a
statistical standpoint, which has yet appeared. In fact, it may be
regarded as the most important utterance on the subject since the
publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin;" for the interest which the famous
novel aroused in the domain of sentiment and generous feelings, the
present work seems destined to awaken in the field of science and exact
inquiry.
Mr. Hoffman has spent ten years in painful and laborious investigation
of the subject, during which time he has been in touch with the fullest
sources of information, and has had the advice and assistance of the
highest living authorities in statistics and social science. The temper
of mind which he brought to this study may be judged from his own words:
"Being of foreign birth, a German, I was fortunately free from a personal
bias which might have made an impartial treatment of the subject
difficult."[1] There are other assurances that the author possesses no
personal animosity or repugnance against the Negro as such. But, freedom
from conscious personal bias does not relieve the author from the
imputation of partiality to his own opinions beyond the warrant of the
facts which he has presented. Indeed, it would seem that his conclusion
was reached from _a priori_ considerations and that facts have been
collected in order to justify it.
The main conclusion of the work is that the Negro race in America is
deteriorating physically and morally in such manner as to point to
ulterior extinction, and that this decline is due to "race traits"
rather than to conditions and circumstances of life. Not only do we find
this conclusion expressly set forth in connection with every chapter,
but it is also easily discernible in foot notes and quotations, in the
general drift of cited references, and between the lines. In order to
give the clearest possible statement of the author's position his own
words will be used.
"The conditions of life therefore ... would seem to be of less
importance than race and heredity."[2]
"It is not the _conditions of life_ but in _the race traits and
tendencies_ that we find the causes of the excessive mortality."[3]
"For the root of the evil lies in the fact of an immense amount of
immorality, which is a race trait."[4]
"A combination of these traits and tendencies must in the end cause the
extinction of the race."[5]
"It is not in the conditions of life but in race and heredity that we
find the explanation."[6]
"The mixture of the African with the white race has been shown to have
seriously affected the longevity of the former and left as a heritage to
future generations the poison of scrofula, tuberculosis, and most of
all, of syphilis."[7]
If the reader will keep constantly in mind the key suggested by these
quotations, he will peruse the book itself as well as this review with
greater ease and facility.
CHAPTER I.
_Subject._ Population.
_Gist._ "For some generations the colored element may continue to make
decennial gains, but it is very probable that the next thirty years will
be the last to show total gains, and then the decrease will be slow but
sure until final disappearance."[8]
I have taken this quotation from another work by the same author as it
represents more clearly than any other condensed statement the substance
of the present chapter. This proposition is a most important one, and
therefore its establishment needs to be inquired into with the greatest
particularity. If a race does not possess the requisite physical
stamina, it is impossible for it to maintain a high degree of moral and
intellectual culture or compete with its more vigorous rivals in the
race of civilization.
"All the elements of society are conserved in its physical basis, the
social population."[9]
Since the author relies mainly upon the eleventh census for facts to
establish his conclusion, and since the accuracy of this census is
widely controverted, we may fairly call upon him to prove his document
before it can be admitted in evidence.
The following quotation from Senator Mills reflects the opinion of many
eminent students of public problems as to the accuracy of this
enumeration: "The announcement that our population is only 62,662,250
was a genuine surprise, not only to those who looked for the dark side
of the picture, but also to those whose faith in the administration and
its census bureau had never for a moment wavered. The census of 1880
gave 50,155,783. The present returns give an increase of 12,466,476,
which is at the rate of 24.86 per cent. That this number is not even
approximately correct may be seen by comparing the increase in this
decade with the gain in others which have preceded it. Any alleged fact
that is without the pale of probability stands impeached at the very
threshold of the inquiry, and must be verified by competent evidence."
Basing his estimates upon the school census, the Senator continues: "The
state of Texas is deprived, by the incorrect returns, of at least three
representatives in Congress. Alabama loses 240,000, Tennessee and North
Carolina 170,000 each, and Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana 100,000
each."[10] Whatever force there may be in the protest of the eloquent
Texas Senator, applies with special emphasis to the colored element; for
it goes without saying that errors in enumeration in the South would be
confined mainly to the Negro race, and since the bulk of the race is
confined to this section such errors would have a most disastrous effect
upon its rate of increase as shown by the census reports.
The following table exhibits the development of the colored population
for the last one hundred years, as well as its decennial rates of
increase and percentage of the total population.
_Colored Population of the United States._
Year. Colored Decennial Increase Per cent
Population. Increase. per cent in of total
10 years. population.
1790 757,208 ....... ..... 19.27
1800 1,002,037 244,829 32.33 18.88
1810 1,377,808 375,771 37.50 19.03
1820 1,771,656 393,848 28.50 18.39
1830 2,328,642 556,986 31.44 18.10
1840 2,873,648 545,006 23.44 16.84
1850 3,638,808 765,169 26.63 15.69
1860 4,441,830 803,022 22.07 14.13
1870[11] 5,391,000 949,170 21.37 13.84
1880 6,580,793 1,189,793 22.07 13.12
1890 7,470,040 889,247 13.51 11.93
If we begin with 1810, the first census year after the constitutional
suppression of the slave trade, we see from this table that the growth
of the Negro element followed the ordinary law of population, viz: a
gradual decline in the rate of increase. In 70 years the decennial rate
of increase declined from about 30 per cent to 22 per cent. But from
1880 to 1890 there was a _per saltum_ decrease from 22 to 13 per
cent--that is, the decline in ten years was equal to that of the
previous seventy. And all this has happened during an era of profound
peace and prosperity, when the Negro population was subject to no great
perturbing influences. When a number of observations follow with
reasonable uniformity a fixed law, but a single result deviates widely
from this law it is usual to suspect the accuracy of the discrepant
observation. The author nowhere assigns any adequate cause for this
sudden "slump" in the increase of the colored population. Instead of
attributing it, in part at least, to the probable imperfection of the
eleventh census, he relies wholly upon a blind force recently discovered
and named by him "race traits and tendencies." The capriciousness of
this new factor, in that it may suspend operation indefinitely or break
loose in a day, does not seem to have occurred to the author, at least
it does not seem to affect the confident assurance with which he relies
upon it. As has been shrewdly remarked by an able reviewer, "It would
seem incumbent on him (Mr. Hoffman) further to prove that these race
traits, after being held in abeyance for at least a century, first took
decisive action in the decade 1880 to 1890."[12]
In 1810 there were 1,377,808 Negroes in the United States. In 80 years
this number had swollen to at least 7,470,040, and that, too, without
reinforcement from outside immigration. It more than quintupled itself
in eight decades. Does it not require much fuller demonstration than the
author anywhere presents to convince the ordinary mind that a people
that has shown such physical vitality for so long a period, has all at
once, in a single decade, become comparatively infecund and threatened
with extinction?
It is passing strange that it escaped the attention of a statistician of
Mr. Hoffman's sagacity that, even granting the accuracy of the eleventh
census, the natural increase of the Negro race was greater than that of
the whites during the last decade. The number of immigrants who came to
this country between 1880 and 1890 was 5,246,613. I am informed by the
census bureau that this number does not include the immigrants who came
from British North America and from Mexico after 1885. This number was
estimated by the statistical bureau of the Treasury Department to be
540,000, making the total number of immigrants 5,787,613. If this number
be subtracted from the increase of the white population during the last
decade (11,589,920) their rate of increase will be reduced to 13.35 per
cent as compared with 13.51 per cent for the blacks. Nor is this all.
The immigrants were for the most part in the full maturity and vigor of
their productive powers, being the most fecund element of our white
population. If allowance be made for their natural increase from 1880 to
1890 the white race would show a decennial increase appreciably below
that of the blacks. If the Negro, then, is threatened with extinction,
the white race is in a still more pitiable plight.
The table on page 6 does indeed show plainly that the Negro does not
hold his own as a numerical factor of our mixed population. Whereas he
represented 19 per cent of the entire population in 1810 he now
represents only 12 per cent. But the cause of this relative decline is
apparent enough. It is due to white immigration and not to "race traits"
as Mr. Hoffman would have us believe. It would be as legitimate to
attribute the decline of the Yankee element as a numerical factor in the
large New England centers to the race degeneracy of the Puritan, while
ignoring the proper cause--the influx of the Celt.
Mr. Hoffman's conclusions as to the Negro population are not generally
accepted by students of social problems. Their position is more clearly
stated in a recent notice of the work now under review. "Concerning the
first of these chapters dealing with population he (Mr. Hoffman) reaches
conclusions very different from those generally held by those who have
discussed the subject on _a priori_ grounds. The general impression has
been that the colored population was increasing at a rate greater than
that of the whites, owing both to the greater number of children born
and also to the fact that all children of a mixed race were counted as
blacks. From such a condition of affairs it would naturally be assumed
that the race to which all half-breeds were credited would, especially
if prolific, rapidly gain upon the other race."[13]
On the appearance of each census since emancipation, there has been some
hue and cry as to the destiny of the Negro population. Public opinion
has been rhythmical with reference to its rise and fall above and below
the mean line of truth. In 1870 it was extermination; in 1880 it was
dreaded that the whole country would be Africanized because of the
prolificness of a barbarous race; in 1890 the doctrine of extinction was
preached once more; what will be the outcry in 1900 can only be divined
at this stage, but we may rest assured that it will be something
startling.
NEGROES IN CITIES.
The author's studies in the minor features of the Negro population form
the most interesting and valuable work which has yet been undertaken on
the subject. The urban drift, the tendency to concentration, and the
migratory movements of the black population are treated with fullness
and force. It is interesting to know that there are 13 cities in which
the colored population exceeds 20,000, and 23 in which it exceeds
10,000, and that the rate of increase of the colored element in these
centers is enormous--more than 30 per cent. The concentration of the
colored population in certain sections of cities is quite suggestive.
The following table will disclose some of the striking features which
Mr. Hoffman has exhibited at length.[14]
City. Colored No. Colored population
population. Wards. in wards.
Chicago 14,271 34 9,122 in 3 wards.
Philadelphia 39,371 34 8,891 " 1 "
Boston 8,125 25 2,547 " 1 "
New York 23,601 24 13,008 " 3 "
Brooklyn 10,287 26 3,100 " 2 "
This tendency to concentration in undesirable places is found to be
greater in Northern than in Southern cities. Every large city has its
white wards and its black wards, which the politician knows as well as
the seaman knows the depths and shallows of the sea.
The evil of this tendency cannot be denied or gainsaid; but its cause is
not far to seek nor hard to find.
BLACK BELTS.
The author also notes with alarm that the Negro population is congesting
in the black belts of the South. There are 70 counties in this section
with an aggregate area of over 50,000 square miles in which the colored
population outnumbers the white nearly three to one. The general
conviction is that the Negroes will be gathered into black settlements
scattered throughout the Gulf states. The superintendent of the tenth
census writes on this subject: "I entertain a strong conviction that the
further course of our (Negro) population will exhibit that tendency in a
continually growing force; that this element will be more and more
drained off from the higher and colder lands into the low, hot regions
bordering on the Gulf of Mexico."[15]
Commenting on this subject Mr. Hoffman says: "This tendency if persisted
in will probably in the end prove disastrous to the advancement of the
colored race, since there is but the slightest prospect that the race
will be lifted to a higher plane of civilization except by constant
contact with the white race."[16]
It is undoubtedly true that the Negro has not the initiative power of
civilization. What race has? Civilization is not an original process
with any race or nation known to history. The torch has been passed from
race to race and from age to age. Where else can the Negro go? The white
race at present has the light. This concession is no reproach to the
Negro race, nor is it due to any peculiar race trait or tendency.
There is a stretch of country extending from southern Pennsylvania to
northern Alabama, containing sections of Maryland, West Virginia,
Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky,
and Alabama, and embracing the Appalachian system of mountains. This
section contains a population of nearly 3,000,000 souls. They belong for
the most part to the most thrifty element of our complex population--an
element whose toughness of moral and mental fiber is proverbial. The
Scotch-Irish are famed the world over for their manly and moral vigor.
And yet this people have sunken to the lowest depth of poverty and
degradation--a depth from which, without the assistance of outside help,
they can be lifted nevermore.[17] Is this condition of depravity and
inability of self-initiative due to "race traits and tendencies?"
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.