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:

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:

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):

In Eastern Europe, says Rubin, the birth rate varied from 450 to 470 for a century (1800 to 1900); but in Western Europe, since 1870, it fell from 342 to 313 (1900).

The determination of this rate in the United States cannot be made with certainty or confidence, owing to the imperfection of the data. Our census reports yield such results as these for the last decade, for the whole United States, according to the analyses of the census:

Average annual excess of births per myriad, 177; average annual number of deaths per myriad, 174; hence, average annual number of births per myriad, 351.

On this result we may perhaps rely so far as to say that the rate lies somewhere between 330 and 370.

Similar analysis yields the following average annual excess of births for native Whites, foreign Whites, and the Coloured (i.e. practically Negroes) in the United States, and in the four grand divisions: Northeastern, Central and Northern, Southern, and Western.

Here the more rapid multiplication of the Caucasian is indicated under all conditions, with the single startling exception of New England. In the West, the Coloured are mostly Indians.

Not less impressive are these same excesses arranged by States:

To be sure, these results are greatly complicated and deeply obscured by immigration and emigration. None of them state the case correctly; but they can not all err the same way, and collectively they exhibit clearly that the Negro is losing ground everywhere in the race for numbers. But these rates furnish us no independent evidence concerning the birth rate. Such, however, we find in the number of births in the census years 1890 and 1900. The returns are certainly incorrect, certainly incomplete; they yield a mean birth rate of only 272—surely too small, leaving a deficiency of 79 or of 28½ per cent. That the enumeration of births should be defective is not at all surprising; but there is no reason to suppose the returns for 1890 less imperfect, and a comparison of the two cannot fail to be instructive:

These data are inexact; they are bound up with the errors of enumeration, particularly in 1890, but they confirm in general the high fecundity of the American Caucasian everywhere, save in the Northeast. The high rate indicated in the South cannot be due to the Negro. In West Virginia the coloured element is insignificant, yet the return is very large—332; in Kentucky the Negro hardly holds his own in numbers, yet the whole birth rate is 306. In the Carolinas the native Whites have far outrun the Blacks in increase, and the birth numbers are 337,343; whence it seems clear that nothing points to a Negro rate higher than 351—higher than the general average for the Union. But is the Black rate really so high? Despite the prevailing crude opinion, we feel sure that it is sensibly lower and is steadily falling. There is nothing in the history of the Negro to suggest great fecundity. He has never populated his fatherland densely and poured over into the territory of his neighbours. In the West Indies, where birth tables have been kept with some care, there is no token of great fertility. In Alabama, the records since 1888 point to a birth rate among Whites thrice as high, among Blacks only twice as high, as the death rate. In 1890 the births recorded were: Whites 13,631; Blacks 9,955—the highest in six years but one (9,961 in 1893). In this year the populations were as 100 to 83, but the births as 100 to 73. You say that the Black births were not all recorded. Very true, but neither were the White. The excess of deficiency in the Blacks must have been 14 per cent. of the whole, in order to make their rate equal to the Whites'. Maybe these records are not worth the paper they were written on; but can the same be said of the New England records? In Rhode Island, from 1861 to 1893, the excess of deaths over births, among the Negroes, was 18; in Connecticut from 1881 to 1893 the same excess was 272; in Massachusetts in 1888 it was 68. "... we must conclude, however reluctantly (sic!), that the race is not self-sustaining in this latitude" (Dr. Fisher, Registrar of Vital Statistics, Rhode Island, quoted by Hoffman). Similarly Dr. Snow, Registrar of Providence; similarly Appolino, Registrar of Boston (both quoted by Hoffman). We could go on massing such evidence, but it may all be scouted as irrelevant, since the question is not about the Negro in the North, but in the South. However, it is precisely in the North, especially the Northeast, that his numbers are increasing, of course by immigration, faster and faster; if, then, he "is doomed to extinction" there, his numbers elsewhere must suffer corresponding depletion.

There is yet another and more satisfactory way of attacking this problem of the birth rate—not a direct, but an indirect one. Says the great statistician, Marcus Rubin, in his paper on "Population and Birth Rate," read before the British Association at Bradford, September, 1900: "Quite generally it may be remarked that a large birth rate will crowd the age-groups corresponding to childhood comparatively to what would result from a small birth rate. It is also clear that, when the adults produce a numerous offspring, the latter will, other things being equal, constitute a larger proportion of the whole population than if it were less numerous."

Rubin has Denmark in mind, and western Europe;—he is not dreaming of the Gulf States. Let us apply this common-sense principle to the case in hand. Here is a table of the per thousands of the population at various ages, native White and Black. We take the native White, since immigrants are generally of full age, and we are now concerned with the general fertility of Caucasian natives and not of foreigners; of the latter, it is confessedly very high.

Here the situation is revealed with great clearness. We see that both in White and in Black the race is aging; extreme youth is becoming less and less conspicuous. But the diversities are broadly marked. In babes, the Blacks fall behind by two per thousand of their total; in children from one to four years, they again fall behind, but only one per thousand; in children from five to nine they excel by three per thousand; in the grand total of children under ten, they exactly equal the native Whites. This record of itself clearly indicates a failing fecundity in the Blacks; the younger, the fewer, comparatively.

Still more clearly is this seen, on comparing the earlier record of 1880. Then the Black youth surpassed the White relatively at all ages—by one, by eight, by ten, and in the grand total by nineteen. All this superiority has been lost in twenty years. It seems hard to imagine a more impressive record. High mortality among infants will not explain this, especially it will not explain the loss in the score of years, nor the relative scarcity of the very young. [39]

But another fact is illuminative. The chief statistician, William C. Hunt, remarks (Population, Part II., p. lviii.): "The decrease in the relative proportion of children among the negro element is due for the most part to the greater infant mortality of the negro race as compared with the native white population, although it may be due in part to the decrease in the proportion of negro women who are or have been married, for each age-group except that from 15 to 19 years, as shown by the statistics of conjugal condition for 1890 and 1900." We have just observed that the first explanation does not explain. "Greater infant mortality" might cause a smaller "relative proportion of children among the Negro element," both in 1880 and in 1900; but it could not cause a "decrease in the relative proportion" from 1890 to 1900, unless that mortality was not only great, but actually becoming greater. But such is not the fact; if it were, it would mean ruin to the Negro race. On the contrary, it is precisely in these years of infancy that the mortality has been reduced. Nor could even a huge mortality, extending up to the tenth year, of itself bring about the relatively small number of babes under one year. It is the second fact, which we have italicized, that throws light on the situation. Except very young girls, whose marriages are largely transient or nominal, the Negro women are beginning to shun marriage. This is a part of the general moral and social declension, which no unbiased observer of the race can fail to notice. Here are the numbers per thousand, male and female, of the single and married and widowed, of those over fifteen years of age, in 1890 and 1900:

The fall from 546 to 537 is not large—only 9; but it must be increased by the increase 7 of those returning themselves as "widows," of which the number, 154, is excessive, and by the excess (3) of divorcees, making altogether an increase of about 2 per cent. of the female population, who decline to produce their kind legitimately. It is impossible to interpret this otherwise than as a sign of moral and social deterioration, which Nature cannot fail to punish promptly by a diminishing birth rate.

It is also seen that the White ratio of the married women has fallen slightly, from 582 to 577—about half as fast as the Black, the number of the single increasing from 306 to 310. Undoubtedly, the growing determination of the White woman to be a man—to compete with a man in all forms of activity—has sensibly reduced the marriage rate, and therewith the birth rate of the Caucasian, and will yet further reduce it—a result we must deplore; but there is here no sign of deterioration, as in case of the Black woman. In her case it is attested freely by the more respectable Negroes themselves. Ask such a one to recommend some "nice coloured girl" as a domestic, and she will probably reply frankly that she knows of none, that they are altogether become unprofitable, that they are scandalously and outrageously unchaste, that there is none that doeth good—no, not one. At this point we speak from personal knowledge. In such statements, there is no doubt considerable exaggeration; but they are largely and increasingly correct. Even Professor Dubois, the ablest of Afro-Americans, confesses that about one-fifth of the Negro families belong to the lowest class—"below the line of respectability, living in loose sexual relationship," and so on. "Laziness and promiscuous sexual intercourse are their besetting sins." He is reporting on the Negroes of Farmville, Va. (Department of Labour Bulletin, January, 1898, p. 37.)

Much somberer colours must be used in depicting the conditions in larger towns. He found about 15 per cent. belonging to the higher class—a percentage that wider investigation would hardly maintain. In another connection the same stern prophet declares: "Unless we conquer our present vices, they will conquer us. We are diseased; we are developing criminal tendencies, and an alarmingly large percentage of our men and women are sexually impure."

Entirely confirmatory of our contentions are the results of the intensive studies of Professor Dubois. Thus he finds that the average Negro family in Philadelphia numbers 3.18, but little more than one child to the couple. The Mongrel record is even worse. Of thirty-three families (four White husbands, twenty-nine White wives), the average size was 2.9; there seem to have been thirty-five children in all. This painstaking sociologist admits: (1) "That a tendency to much later marriage than under the slave system is revolutionizing the Negro family and incidentally leading to much irregularity." (2) "There is, nevertheless, still the temptation for young men and women under forty to enter into matrimony before their economical condition warrants it." (3) "Among persons over forty, there is a marked tendency towards single life." (4) "The very large number of widowed and separated points to grave physical, economical, and moral disorder" (op. cit., p. 70).

Among college-bred Negroes, presumably by far the best class, Dubois finds 491 couples represented by 1,081 children, of whom 877 survive, 982 by 887. This number may yet be increased somewhat by more births; but it will also be decreased by deaths of the young, so that the total of the next propagative generation will very improbably reach the number of the parents, 982.

Once more, consider this table of the percentages in families of one, two to six, seven to ten, eleven and more in the United States in general, and in the Negro population of a number of cities, as Atlanta, Nashville, Cambridge:

It is seen that the small families (Negro) greatly preponderate. Of the 79.85 per cent., nearly one-fourth (19.17 per cent.) were families of only two (op. cit., p. 167).

"For several decades to come, the average size of the Negro family will decrease until economic well-being can keep pace with the demands of a rising standard of living" (op. cit., p. 166). We have italicized this sentence, for it pronounces the doom of the Negro.

As the standard of living rises, as competition sharpens, his economic "well-being" will find it harder and harder to "keep pace," his family will shrink more and more, his race will dwindle faster and faster into insignificance.

A striking corroboration of our results surprises the reader of Professor C. H. Crogman's work, "The Remarkable Advancement of the Afro-American," at Chapter XIII, on "Mortality." Therein Professor Harris, of Fisk University, reports an intensive study of the Nashville Negro, whose circumstances are at least comparatively favourable. In 145 families he found 649 persons, an average of not quite 4½; hence, he yields the contention that the Negro is "prolific." "The excessive mortality" he found "due largely and perhaps altogether, to constitutional diseases." "Pulmonary consumption is the 'destroying angel.'" "Thirteen suffer from scrofula." "More white people die from contagious diseases and local diseases than colored; while more colored people die from constitutional diseases than white." The "crimes of mothers," he found "also a fruitful reason of the slow rate of increase in the colored population. This state of affairs is not confined to Nashville. It is true of nearly all our large Southern cities; and whether we like it or not, the hard fact remains that the enormous death rate among us, together with our small birth rate, is one of the signs of the times that, unless our home life be radically changed, the Negro problem in America may be ultimately solved by the extinction of the Negro." And more to the same effect.

Such is the state of case, as attested by a professor in the best-known coloured university, among a populace that have dwelt for a whole generation in the shadow of this noted seminary. House-to-house investigation tells everywhere the same story. Thus, in 1901, as appears from the "concrete study" embodied in the Master's Dissertation of William Wilson Elwang, there were 34 births in a Negro population of 1,916 (Columbia, Mo.)—17 per thousand against a death rate of 24 per thousand. The small family average was almost precisely the same as in Nashville. There were only 161 children under 6 years of age, and 60 married couples were childless! The interpretation has already been suggested in the foregoing quotations.

From all of this it is clear, not only that the coloured birth rate is low and is falling, but why it is low, and why it is falling. It is almost impossible that it should long remain so much as thirty-five per thousand per annum, or even thirty-four or thirty-three. It seems certainly descending towards thirty—that is, 300 births per myriad yearly. But the present death rate is 296 per myriad; it fell only three, from 299 to 296, in the decade from 1890 to 1900; it actually rose from 308 to 313 in the cities of the non-registration area. Thus it appears certain that the birth and death rates of the Negro cannot continue very far apart, that they are steadily approaching, and that without some strange reversal of present tendencies, the birth rate must ere long fall below the death rate in all but a very few districts, and at no distant period even in them. In all likelihood these tendencies will be rather strengthened than weakened with advancing years, and there are those now living who will actually see the Afro-American moving rapidly towards extinction. But even at the present rate, he must shrink swiftly in importance; for the census analyst admits that even in the registration area the death rate of the Negro is about ten per thousand greater than that of the foreign White, and about thirteen per thousand greater than that of the native White. Since his birth rate can hardly, in the extremest cases, exceed the native White's, much less the foreigner's, it follows that both must gain and are gaining on him, at least ten per thousand yearly. Regard it, then, as you will, there is no escape from our general conclusion, which faces us from the whole circle of statistical fact.

RECORD OF CRIME

We pass now, formally, to the second grand cause of the Negro's race declension—namely, his vice. The general fact is a matter of the most common observation, but it is also witnessed unimpeachably by the records of the courts. Here is how the case stands in the census of 1890. The White population was then almost exactly seven and one-half times the Black. The prisoners in the United States, June 1, 1890 were: Whites 57,310, Blacks 24,277. In proportion to numbers, the Black prisoners should have been 7,642, but they were more than thrice as many; the Black appears more than thrice as criminal as the White. This, however, is not nearly the whole truth. The list of Caucasian crimes swells chiefly in the Northeast, where foreigners most and Negroes least abound. In the various grand divisions of the country, the record comes out far more clearly. Thus, in the North Atlantic, there were in prison: Whites 26,182, Blacks 2,037. Out of every myriad of population there were 155 Blacks; out of every myriad of prisoners there were 722 Blacks; his prison rate was nearly five times as high as the Caucasian—this, too, in a region of urban population, largely immigrant. In the North Central there were 2,738 Black prisoners and 17,027 White; the Negro furnished not 2 per cent. of the population, but nearly 14 per cent. of the crime; he was more than seven times as criminal as the White.

In the South Atlantic States, he furnished 8,863 prisoners against 2,544 Whites; not 37 per cent. of the population, but over 77 per cent. of the trespass; proportionally, he offended almost six times as often as the Whites. In the South Central the prison record stood: Whites 5,604, Blacks 10,381; the populations are as 6,828 to 3,171; the Black appears nearly four times as criminal as the White.

It is often urged that the comparative criminality of the Negro in the South is exaggerated. The White transgressor has friends, money, and social position and manages to evade the law; the Negro is poor, friendless, and outcast and falls an easy victim. In a measure, this may be true—we are ashamed to confess; but it cannot alter the general fact, only its degree. On the other hand, very many offences of Black against Black must go unchallenged by the law, both from apathy and from fear. These two considerations, very likely, about balance each other. It is thoroughly decisive, however, that the Negro appears a greater criminal in the North and East, where there is no prejudice against him than in the South, where the prejudice is supposed to be so strong. If we compare the states, we may see this even more clearly. In Massachusetts, the prisoners were: Whites 5,157, Blacks 161. Since the latter formed not 1 per cent. of the population, their criminality appears over three times as great as the White; yet they are, presumably, the very elect of the race—the best Negroes in the world. In New York, there were 10,745 White prisoners and 723 Black; but the latter numbered only 117 per myriad; hence, their criminality was six times as great as the White. In Pennsylvania there were 5,749 White prisoners and 738 Black; but the latter formed little over 2 per cent. of the population; hence, again, their criminality was six times that of the White. In West Virginia there were 320 Whites in prisons and 130 Blacks; these latter formed not 5 per cent. of the population; they were seven times as criminal as the White. Washington City is the Mecca of the Negro; there, if anywhere on earth, he should show himself at his best. What is the prison record? Whites 138, Blacks 358; yet he numbers only 328 per thousand—he is more than five times as criminal as the Whites. In Ohio there were 481 Black prisoners, representing only 247 per myriad of the population, and 2,415 Whites; again, an eightfold criminality. In Michigan there is no prejudice against the Negro, but rather for him, and how stands the court record? He numbers only 73 per myriad of the population, yet he furnishes 141 prisoners against 1,998 Whites—this time a criminality tenfold! In the South his record is seemingly better. In Louisiana the Blacks numbered one-half, but the population of the prisons was 367 Whites, 1,238 Blacks; the latter were not quite fourfold criminal. In Alabama the population-ratio was 5,516 to 4,484, but the prison-ratio was 422 to 2,096. On dividing the former by the latter, we find the crime-ratio of six to one. In Mississippi, the population-ratio was 4,342 to 5,658; the prison-ratio was 119 to 1,058; their quotient, the crime-ratio, was over six to one.

In Virginia the ratio is over six, in South Carolina under six, in Indiana nearly five, in Georgia over eight, in Illinois nearly nine.

Thus it appears that the Negro everywhere, many times oftener than the White man, falls into prison; but in the North still oftener than in the South, and not only is he relatively more frequently criminal in the North—he is absolutely so. For, to judge from the court records, the South is in general more law-abiding than the North.

It may be useful here to give a table of the criminality of the five grand divisions in the census years 1880 and 1890, giving the number of prisoners per million of population, with the increase of each division in ten years;

Here the great North Central appears by far most law-abiding. The reason is, the criminality is raised by foreigners in the East, by the Negro in the South, by the adventurer in the West. On comparing the total number of prisoners North and South with the total populations, we find that there were in the South about six prisoners per myriad of Whites, and twenty-nine prisoners per myriad of Blacks; whereas in the North were twelve prisoners per myriad Whites, and sixty-nine prisoners per myriad Blacks. On going from South to North, we find the prison numbers exactly doubled among the Whites, but much more than doubled among the Blacks.

But our tables can teach us still more. The increase from 1880 to 1890 is worth attention. In the West and the North Central region, it was only slight—twenty-two and twenty-six per million; but both in the South Central and the South Atlantic, it was very great—216 and 245 per million. To whom was it due? To the Black, or to the White? In part to both, but far more to the former. The White increase was only seven per cent., the Black was twenty-seven per cent. Worse than this, however, in the North the White increase was hardly five per cent., but the Black increase was thirty-five per cent.—whence it appears that in criminality the Negro, especially the educated Northern Negro, is striding forward in seven-league boots.

Closely akin to this latter fact is still another—the still higher criminality of the Mulatto. In the whole United States, the pure Blacks outnumber the mixed breeds about six to one; in the North Atlantic division, about twenty to six, or three to one; in the South Atlantic, nearly seven to one; in the North Central, over two to one; in the South Central, about six to one; in the West, under two to one. Now we have already seen that precisely where the Mulattoes most abound, the Negro is most criminal. Still more definitely, we have these facts of the eleventh census (1890). Of Blacks there were in city prisons 898 pure, 170 mixed—five to one; in workhouses, 1,004 pure, 333 mixed—three to one; in juvenile reformatories, 1,418 pure, 512 mixed—three to one; leased out (not in penitentiaries), 1,700 pure, 295 mixed—five to one; altogether, in penitentiaries 10,884 pure, 3,383 mixed—only three to one; whence, it appears, that the pure Black exceeds the Mulatto more in numbers than in criminals—that is, the Mulatto is the greater offender. This result accords with the African proverb quoted by Livingstone: "A god made the white; who made the black I know not; but surely the devil made the mongrel."

The champions of the oppressed will have much to say in avoidance of the foregoing—nothing, however, that is both forceful and relevant. They may urge that the offences of the Negro are mainly trivial, that he is not to be judged too harshly for his penchant towards henroosts; that such a little thing as a chicken must not be allowed to separate him from civilization and Christianity. But the facts look the other way. The great crimes are the ones that swell his list; his slight offences are mainly against his own kith and kin, and very frequently go unpunished. The court records, as in Alabama, [40] show that he aspires to the heights of felony. He is murderous, he excels in arson, he forges with a will. Of the crime of all crimes he enjoys almost the proud monopoly, and he plies it in spite of the swiftest, surest, savagest of all possible penalties. His defenders have here excogitated a most ingenious plea. This crime against woman is not a reversion to barbarism; it is not a yielding to ungovernable and brutal lust—oh, no! It is, they say, a deep-studied revenge; it is an attack by the oppressed on the race of the oppressor. In the person of his victim, the Black avenger would hurl defiance and desecration at the whole tribe of his persecutors. We are not concerned to refute such nonsense. He that can find satisfaction in thus swapping off bestiality for diabolism, let him find it. We merely note, in passing, that the North has recently shown itself as little tolerant as the South of such assaults on the integrity of the race. To be sure, there are many crimes, and many of appalling proportions, from which the Negro does greatly abstain. He does not corrupt legislatures, he does not thwart justice, he does not evade the Constitution, he does not defy the acts of Congress, he does not frame tariff schedules, he does not assume divine vice-gerency, he does not water stock and crush competition and servilize millions, he does not even buy and sell franchises, nor divide rake-offs, nor stuff ballot boxes, nor muzzle the press, nor indulge in other such venialities. But is there any one that does not know the reason? The Negro is not equal to these iniquities. There fail him both ability and opportunity. But if any one doubts for an instant that, according to the measure of his might, he has improved and will improve whatever stray chance may fall in his way, in fashion that would even make St. Louis blush, we would respectfully recommend to such a Nathanael a study of Presidential nominating conventions or any faithful history of Reconstruction.

But has not the last decade abated the "criminal tendencies" which Professor Dubois so deplores? On the contrary. Complete reports have not yet been issued, but the general facts lie open to view. The annual summaries of the Chicago Tribune show that the Negro maintains his lead easily. In 1902, there were judicial hangings 144: Negroes 85, Whites 56, Indians 2, Chinaman 1; for murder 133, for rape 9; South 101, North 43. There were lynchings, 96: Negroes 86, Whites 9, Indian 1; for murder 41, rape 30; South 87, North 9. The number of lynchings has, indeed, steadily decreased from 235 in 1892 to 96 in 1902—and not strangely. Atrocious as such forms of rudimentary justice undoubtedly are, and severely reprehensible, to be condemned always and without any reserve, it cannot be denied that they have a certain rough and horrible virtue. Great is the insult they wreak on the majesty of the law and brutalizing must be their effect upon human nature, yet they do strike a salutary terror into hearts which the slow and uncertain steps of the courts could hardly daunt. In witness stands the fact that lynch-lightning seldom strikes twice in the same district or community. Such frightful incidents tend to repeat themselves at wide intervals, both of time and of place.

Finally, the whole family of facts here assembled, especially those that establish the greater and faster growing criminality of the Northern Negro, show clearly that education is not the cure for his ills. Generation after generation of coddling and sympathy in the North has not effaced a single racial trait nor raised by a single notch the average character, moral or mental or physical, of hundreds of thousands of the pick of their race. Nearly forty years of devoted and enthusiastic effort to elevate and educate the Southern Negro lie stretched out behind us in a dead level of failure. We grant freely and gladly that there are exceptions, rare and remarkable enough. But that the average of the Negro, both moral and physical, has fallen and is falling measurably under all endeavours to lift him up, is a fact that shines out clear in the light of the foregoing statistics.

But not only is it a fact—it is precisely what might have been expected. A culture, a civilization, to be helpful and healthful, must proceed from within and not from without. It must be an internal evolution, not an external imposition. The impulse may, indeed, be given by contact; it may proceed from another; but it must strike upon a nature prepared, responsive, and kindred. It must release energies and potencies already present and in high tension—it cannot create them; it may be an occasion, it cannot be a cause. You may ignite a match by friction, but not a piece of chalk.

The civilization of any people is the slow and toilsome growth of centuries, an unfolding of the people's spirit itself. Its virtue, its essence lies in this very fact. How then shall such a product be imposed upon an alien and inferior race? They cannot receive it; they can put it on only as an outer garment; it can never become truly theirs, the efflorescence of their own souls. Moreover, in such foreign vesture they are clumsy and constrained; they cut but a sorry and even ridiculous figure, like David in the armour of Saul. Well for them if it prove not to be a shirt of Nessus.

These propositions we make no attempt to argue formally, for that would be remote from our present purpose. We rest our case on the facts and figures already submitted. But we must observe, in conclusion, that the doctrine just enounced is by no means a novelty. Nearly two thousand years ago, "The Apostle" addressing the Corinthians declared: "Even so the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God.... Now a man of soul receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he can not know them, because they are spiritually discerned."