CHAPTER II.
Subject. Vital Statistics.
Gist. “The vitality of the Negro may well be considered the most important phase of the so-called race problem, for it is a fact which can and will be demonstrated by indisputable evidence that of all races for which statistics are obtainable and which enter at all into the consideration of economic problems as factors the Negro shows the least power of resistance in the struggle for life.”[18]
Death Rate.
Statistics are collected from ten of the largest cities with the result that the death rate among the whites is 20.12 per 1000, and among the blacks 32.61. It is acknowledged that the great bulk of this excess in the colored death rate is due to infant mortality. This fact of itself would suggest that the real cause is condition rather than race traits. This truth shall be established out of the mouth of Mr. Hoffman’s own witness. “Fifty per cent of the (Negro) children who die never receive medical attention.”[19]
“The indifference to medical attendance in cases of illness of their children is due to ignorance.”[20] To the ordinary mind this would imply the most unfortunate condition.
Birth Rate.
But the death rate is only one factor in the vital equation. The birth rate is equally important. Mr. Hoffman concedes, with reluctant reservation, that the colored birth rate may be greater than that of the whites. “That the birth rate of the Negroes is in excess of that of the white population is probably true even at the present time, at least as compared with the native whites.”[21] This is indeed a very feeble admission of a very obvious fact. Mr. Hoffman contends that the death rate of the Negro race is much greater than that of the whites. It has already been shown that, leaving immigration out of account, the increase in the Negro population is greater than that of the white race. How can these two facts be accounted for except it be on the basis of a higher birth rate for the blacks? Mr. Hoffman will have either to alter his estimates or mend his logic.
Direct testimony on this subject must have been known to Mr. Hoffman. Of course no one is qualified to write on vital statistics in America who is not familiar with the investigation of Dr. Billings. Let the reader compare the following quotation as to the relative birth rate of the races, and, noting date of data upon which the conclusion is based, decide for himself as to the ingenuousness of Mr. Hoffman’s reluctant admission: “Dr. Billings, in his luminous report on the vital statistics of the United States (1886) shows that 1000 colored women (age from 15 to 49) give birth to 164 children, and 1000 white women to only 127, yearly; that is to say, three colored women have as many children as four white.”[22]
Is the Negro Threatened with Extinction.
Before Mr. Hoffman’s conclusion as to the threatening aspect of the high death rate of the Negro race can be accepted, several questions must be answered by him.
1. Is the death rate of the colored race higher than that of a corresponding class of whites subject to the same moral and social environment? The general opinion is that it is not; nor does the author attempt to prove the contrary. In discussing this question Dr. John S. Billings states: “If we could separate the vital statistics of the poor and ignorant whites, the tenement house population of our Northern cities, from those of the mass of the white population we should undoubtedly find a high rate of mortality in this class, and especially in infancy and childhood.”[23]
2. Is the high death rate for the cities sustained throughout the country at large? Luckily the census of 1880 gives a complete answer to this question. The death rate of the United States in 1880 was 15.09 per 1000; South Carolina 15.80; Alabama 14.20; Mississippi 12.89; Georgia 13.97; Massachusetts 18.59; New York 17.38; Pennsylvania 14.92; New Jersey 16.33. This shows plainly that the Southern states with the largest Negro contingent do not show any higher death rate than the Northern states where the Negro is not a considerable factor. There is no evidence, certainly none brought forward by the author, to show that the death rate of the Negro in the country at large is much in excess of that of the whites. “In the rural districts the mortality of the Negro is not excessive; it is in the cities and towns where he is brought into close contact with the evils and vices of civilization that he dies so rapidly.”[24]
3. Is the death rate, even in the cities, so great as to foreshadow extinction? Nothing is great or small except by comparison. The death rate among the Negroes in the large cities at present is not as great as it was among the whites forty years ago; that is, if we may rely upon the statistics which Mr. Hoffman himself has presented.
Mortality among Whites in Southern Cities.[25]
| City. | Period. | Death rate. | ||
| Mobile, Ala. | 1852-1855 | 54.39 | ||
| Charleston, S. C. | 1851-1860 | 29.79 | ||
| Savannah, Ga. | 1856-1860 | 37.19 | ||
| New Orleans, La. | 1849-1860 | 59.60 |
Under improved sanitary regulations these rates have been lowered until at present they are not at all alarming. May not the same improvement in his environment effect similar changes in the death rate of the Negro?
Let us compare the death rate of the Negro race with that of the Germans as presented in the census of 1880.
| City. | Colored death rate. | City. | Death rate. | |||
| Washington | 32.60 | Konigsberg | 31.50 | |||
| Baltimore | 32.81 | Munich | 33.40 | |||
| Richmond | 28.48 | Breslau | 31.60 | |||
| Louisville | 30.73 | Cologne | 27.00 | |||
| New Orleans | 30.42 | Strasburg | 29.60 |
This high death rate of the American Negro does not exceed that of the white race in other parts of the civilized globe. If race traits are playing such havoc with the Negroes in America, what direful agent of death, may we ask the author, is at work in the cities of his own fatherland?
4. Does the death rate among Negroes show a tendency to increase? In the District of Columbia there has been a gradual decline in the death rate of the Negro population from 40.78 in 1876 to 29.54 in 1896.[26]
Again, Mr. Hoffman’s statistics will show a steady improvement in Southern cities for the last twenty years.
Death rate among Negroes in Southern Cities.[27]
| City. | Periods. | Death rate. | Periods. | Death rate. | ||||
| Mobile, Ala. | 1876-1880 | 39.74 | 1891-1893 | 30.91 | ||||
| Charleston, S. C. | 1876-1885 | 43.83 | 1886-1894 | 44.06 | ||||
| Savannah, Ga. | 1876-1880 | 51.66 | 1891-1894 | 32.26 | ||||
| New Orleans, La. | 1880-1884 | 52.35 | 1890-1894 | 39.42 |
A recent report of the Labor Bureau throws much light on the subject.
Annual Death Rate of the Colored Race for three quinquennial periods.[28]
| City. | 1880-1885. | 1885-1890. | 1890-1895. | |||
| Atlanta | 37.96 | 33.41 | 32.76 | |||
| Baltimore | 36.15 | 30.52 | 32.47 | |||
| Charleston | 44.08 | 46.74 | 41.43 | |||
| Memphis | 43.01 | 29.35 | 21.11 | |||
| Richmond | 40.34 | 38.83 | 34.91 |
This table shows an unmistakable decrease in the death rate for the successive quinquennial periods.
All of which tends to prove that this high death rate is due to condition and is subject to sanitary check and control.
In further confirmation of the fact that the death rate among Negroes is on the decline, the Army records will afford valuable testimony.
Death rate of Colored Soldiers in the U. S. Army.[29]
| Average from 1883 to 1892 | 9.07 | |
| Average in 1894 | 6.26 | |
| Average in 1895 | 5.03 |
In 1895 it is lower than that of the white soldiers. The same general law of a gradually decreasing death rate is here revealed.
If the death rate of the Negro population in cities is not higher than that of corresponding classes of whites; if the records of the census for the country at large do not show it to be in excess of other classes; if the highest rates are not above those of the whites a half century ago, nor higher than those of other civilized communities of the Caucasian race at the present time; and if this rate is constantly decreasing under more favorable sanitary appliances—it is hard to justify the author’s position as to the low vital powers of the race, or to reach the conclusion that extinction will be its ultimate fate.
The Northern Negroes.
In further proof of the low vitality of the Negro race the author shows at great length that the race cannot thrive in the North. For every Northern community for which statistics are available it appears that the death rate is in excess of the birth rate. It does not seem to have occurred to the author that economic and social environment may lead to this deplorable result. Dr. Walker, in a publication which has already been referred to, states: “The industrial raison d’etre of the Negro is here (in the South) found at its maximum. In the Northern states this raison d’etre wholly disappears. There is nothing, aside from a few kinds of personal service, which the Negro can do which the white man cannot do as well or perhaps better.”[30]
In the North the Negro race lives in industrial and social captivity; not being in sufficient numbers to form an independent constituency, they whine and pine over certain abstract principles of equality and brotherhood, but which, alas, fade into impalpable air under the application of a concrete test. They sit in the shadow of the tree of liberty and boast of its protecting boughs, but must not aspire to partake of the fruit thereof. The undershrubbery purchases shade and protection at too dear a price when it sacrifices therefor the opportunity of the glorious sunlight of heaven. No healthy, vigorous breed can be produced in the shade. No wonder, then, that the productive sensitiveness of the Northern Negro is affected by his industrial and social isolation among an overshadowing people who regard him with a feeling composed in equal parts of pity and contempt.
Consumption among Negroes.
The author enters into the causes of mortality and points out that in addition to infant mortality, which has already been noticed, consumption, pneumonia, and vicious taints of blood are the most alarming ones. With gloomy forebodings we are reminded that: “Its (the Negro race) extreme liability to consumption alone would suffice to seal its fate as a race.”[31]
The following citation will express the truth of the situation as clearly as it is possible to do: “From close personal observation, embracing a professional life of nearly forty years among the Negroes and from data obtained from professional brethren in different sections of the South, I have no hesitancy in declaring that insanity and tuberculosis were rare diseases among the Negroes of the South prior to emancipation. Indeed, many intelligent people of observation and full acquaintance of the Negro have stated to me that they never saw a crazy or consumptive Negro of unmixed blood until these latter years. The fact of their comparative exemption from these ailments prior to emancipation is so well established...”[32]
“Man is an organized being, and is subject to certain laws which he cannot violate with impunity. These laws affect him in the air he breathes, the food he eats, the clothes he wears, and (in) every circumstance surrounding his habilitation. In the wholesale violation of these laws after the war, as previously stated, was laid the foundation of the degeneration of the physical and mental condition of the Negro. Licentiousness left its slimy trail of sometimes ineradicable disease upon his physical being, and neglected bronchitis, pneumonia, and pleurisy lent their helping hand toward lung degeneration.”[33]
It will be noticed that Dr. Miller accepts all the facts alleged by our author, but places the causes squarely upon the ground of conditions, habits and circumstances of life. He does not seem to be acquainted with Mr. Hoffman’s discovery of “race traits.” The fact that under the hygienic and dietary regime of slavery, consumption was comparatively unknown among Negroes, but that under the altered conditions of emancipation it has developed to a threatening degree, would persuade any except the man with a theory, that the cause is due to the radical changes in life which freedom imposed upon the blacks, rather than to some malignant, capricious “race trait” which is not amenable to the law of cause and effect, but which graciously suspended its operation for two hundred years, and has now mysteriously selected the closing decades of the nineteenth century in which to make a trial of its direful power.
No people who work all day in the open air of a mild climate and who sleep at night in huts and cabins where crack and crevice and skylight admit abundant ventilation, will be subject to pulmonary weakness. Now take the same people and transplant them to the large cities of a colder climate, subject them to pursuits which do not call for a high degree of bodily energy, crowd them into alley tenements where the windows are used only for ornament and to keep out the “night air,” and a single door must serve for entrance, exit, and ventilation, and lung degeneration is the inevitable result. The cause of the evil suggests the remedy. The author in a previous chapter points out the threatening evil of crowding into the cities; a counter movement which would cause a return to the country, or would at least stay the mad urban movement, would not only improve the economic status of the race but would also benefit its physical and moral health. Here is an open field for practical philanthropy and wise Negro leadership.
The increase in consumption among Negroes is indeed a grave matter, but it is possible to exaggerate its importance as sociological evidence. If we listen to the alarmists and social agitators, we would find a hundred causes, each of which would destroy the human race in a single generation. The most encouraging evidence on this subject from the Negro’s point of view is afforded by the last report of the Surgeon General of the United States Army. The statistics thus furnished are the most valuable for comparative study, since they deal with the two races on terms of equality, that is, the white and colored men are of about the same ages and initial condition of health, they receive the same treatment and are subject to the same diet, work, and social habits. “It is to be noted, also,” says the Surgeon General, “that during the past two years the rates for consumption among the colored troops have fallen so as to be much lower than those for the whites, whereas formerly they were much higher.”[34]
The following table prepared by Mr. Hershaw, shows plainly the gradual decrease of the death rate from consumption in Southern cities for the past fifteen years.
Death rate per 1000 among Negroes from Consumption.[35]
| City. | Period. | Rate. | Period. | Rate. | Period. | Rate. | ||||||
| Atlanta | 1882-1885 | 50.20 | 1886-1890 | 45.88 | 1891-1895 | 43.48 | ||||||
| Baltimore | 1886 | 58.65 | 1887 | 55.42 | 1892 | 49.41 | ||||||
| Charleston | 1881-1884 | 72.20 | 1885-1889 | 68.08 | 1890-1894 | 57.66 | ||||||
| Memphis | 1882-1885 | 65.35 | 1886-1890 | 50.30 | 1891-1895 | 37.78 | ||||||
| Richmond | 1881-1885 | 54.93 | 1886-1890 | 41.63 | 1892-1895 | 34.74 |
It appears that the total death rate as well as that due to consumption among Negroes reached the maximum about 1880 and has been on the gradual decline ever since.
Consumption is only one of the contributing causes of the total death rate. It has been shown that the death rate from all causes does not necessarily point to the extinction of the race. This being so, there is no need of unnecessary alarm over a single factor; for in sociology, as in mathematics, we cannot escape the fundamental truth that the whole is greater than any of its parts.
Vital Capacity and Economic Efficiency.
The author’s proposition as to the low vitality of the Negro and its effect upon his economic efficiency is contrary alike to the traditional and prevalent belief. The whole fabric of slavery rested upon the assumption that the Negro was better able to resist the trying condition of the southern climate than the white laborer. The industrial reconstruction of the South is building upon the same foundation. No one doubts that the Negro is able to resist certain miasmatic and febrific diseases which are so destructive to the white race in the tropical regions of the earth. Science and wise hygienic appliances have improved the condition of the white race in this respect, it is true, but will not the same appliances benefit the Negro in the same degree?
Dr. Daniel H. Williams, surgeon-in-chief of the Freedmen’s Hospital, at Washington, D. C., informs me that during his professional experience he has performed upward of 3000 surgical operations, one-fourth of which at least were upon white patients, and that he has found unmistakable evidence of higher vital power among the colored patients. I am also informed that this is the general opinion of the medical profession.
Although the author treats exhaustively the whole catalogue of diseases and the numerous ills which flesh is heir to, it can be safely claimed that he does not establish his main proposition set forth in the beginning of the chapter, and that at least a Scotch verdict is demanded: “not proven.”