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 aeonian 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
_Of all these things the judge is Time._
ARISTOTLE
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.
1900 6,681 883 (Gains, per 1000)
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
[36] More probably 260.
[37] More probably 365.
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.