A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro / The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1

by Kelly Miller

CHAPTER V.

Subject: Social Conditions.

Gist: “Immorality is a race trait.”[48]

Religion and Education.

Under the sub-heads of religion and education statistics are presented showing the progress of the race along these lines. A total church membership of 2,673,977 shows that there is one communicant to every 2.79 of the Negro population, against one in every 3.04 for the whites. There were 1,288,736 pupils in the common schools and 34,129 in the higher schools, colleges, and universities. Ordinarily these facts are regarded as the most wonderful evidences of progress which the world has ever witnessed on the part of a backward people. But not so with Mr. Hoffman; the necessities of his theories compel him to explain away every apparent advantage in favor of the Negro. The author announces with an implied negative response to the suppressed question: “It remains to be shown whether the educational process which the race has undergone during the past quarter of a century and the additional efforts and opportunities for religious instruction have materially raised the race from its low social and economic condition at the time of emancipation.”[49]

This statement needs no refutation, for it will fall beneath the ponderous weight of its own absurdity.

Criminal Record.

The following table, if unexplained, tells a startling tale of the Negro’s criminal propensity:

Prisoners in the United States, 1890.[50]

		Total.		Male.		Female.
White		58,052		53,519		4,433
Colored		24,277		22,305		1,972
				Male, per cent.		Female, per cent.
Proportion of Negro criminals to total (over 15)				29.38		30.79
Proportion of Negro population to total (over 15)				10.20		11.09

The Negro element, which constitutes only 12 per cent of the population, commits 30 per cent of the crimes. Before concluding that this preponderance of crime is due to “race traits,” let us examine more closely into the circumstances of the case. The discrepancy in the administration of the law in the South has undoubtedly some effect upon this relative showing. In order to escape the charge of slander, I will use the words of a distinguished Virginian who boasts of “my southern ancestry, birth, rearing, residence and interest.”

“And is not the law the same for all, and does it make any distinction between rich and poor, white and black? Literally, the law is the same for all. Then what more can be desired? The trouble is not that the laws are partial, through some of its enactments, namely, the whipping-post, chain-gang, and poll-tax laws, were aimed principally against the Negro; but the trouble is with the interpretation of the laws by the juries, who merely voice the public sentiment, which is superior to the law itself. The average jury is a whimsical creature, subject to all kinds of influences, though mostly of a sentimental character. In criminal matters where whites are concerned, it seems ever to lean to the defense; and the strongest arguments of the prosecution are easily offset and upset by appeals on behalf of youth, family, station, respectability, etc.; or, perhaps the whole family, weeping, is placed in full view of the jury, and the susceptible jury, sure at least in such cases to weep with them that weep, speedily brings in a verdict of acquittal where guilt is clearly manifest; or it says jail where it ought to say penitentiary; or one year where it ought to say ten; and ten years where it ought to pronounce death. But the Negro has none of these sentimental advantages. Too poor to employ competent counsel, his liberty and life are necessarily committed to incompetent hands, when the proverb of ‘poor pay, poor preach’ becomes reality ... But are Negroes treated unfairly by juries and public opinion? Yes, and the experience and observation of every fair-minded man will confirm the assertion. One cardinal proof is that a white man seldom receives punishment for assault, however brutal, however unprovoked, however cowardly, be it maiming, homicide, or murder upon a Negro unless, forsooth, the assailant be some degraded creature, disowned by his own caste. Of the numberless instances—running into the thousands—during the past twenty-three years, of homicide and murder of blacks by whites, there is no single instance of capital punishment, and few, very few, instances of imprisonment beyond a few months in jail, or a slight fine. The fact is the juries, which are the sole judges of the evidence, will accept testimony against a Negro that they would reject in the case of whites; and on the other hand they will frequently reject, or at least discredit, testimony of the Negro against the white man, however well supported it may be. But to compound for sins we are inclined to by damning those we have no mind to, in case of any difficulty between white and black, and the former is injured or loses his life, lucky is the latter if the homicide is not declared murder—when courts of justice, though sure to inflict the highest penalty in his case, are found to be too slow, and he is dragged forth and slain, unshrived and unshriven, as if he were a monstrous wild beast of whose presence earth could not be rid too quickly.”[51]

The social degradation of the Negro is the greatest factor contributive to this high criminal record. We naturally associate poverty, ignorance, and crime as being indissolubly connected. The Negroes represent the stratum of society which commits the bulk of crime the world over. If we exchange places the same story would be narrated of the whites. The census records nowhere show that there is any connection between crime and race, but between crime and condition.

The Negro has a higher criminal record than the Caucasian, it is true, but so has the foreigner a greater average than the native whites. The strongest possible argument in this connection rests upon the fact that the presence of a large number of Negroes in any community does not increase its total criminal average. The North Atlantic division, including the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, has a criminal record of 833.1 to the million, while the South Atlantic division, including the states of the Southern Atlantic coast shows a record of 831.7. The Western division has an average of 1300. The section that has the fewest Negroes has the highest average, and the states that have the largest quota of blacks show the lowest criminal rates. If we compare state with state the same interesting results are revealed. The criminal record of New York (million basis) is 1369, of South Carolina 702.6, of California 1703, of Alabama 720.1.

But, says the objector, a difference in the rigidity of the enforcement of the law may account in some measure for this disparity. Let us then take the city of Washington, one-third of whose population are Negroes, and compare its police reports with those of Boston, whose Negro element is a negligible fraction. It will be conceded, I think, that the enforcement of law in both cities is rigid. The major of police for the District of Columbia, in his last report remarks: “Those familiar with the conduct of police affairs in this country generally contend that there is a constant increase of crime; that it keeps pace with the growing population. While such may be true of the principal cities of the United States, facts and figures support the claim of this department that in this respect the District of Columbia occupies a distinct standing of its own. Its comprehensive moral status is above that of most communities. Were it not for the depredations chargeable to theft, there would be comparatively little crime to chronicle. This offense must always exist here, unless through some unexpected agency a complete change should be effected in the social conditions which prevail. The abiding place of a large class of idle, illiterate, and consequently vicious persons, it is but reasonable that the respectable element should be preyed upon to a considerable extent.”[52]

The percentage of arrests for Boston during 1896 was 9.37, whereas for Washington it was only 8 and a fraction. These facts would seem to furnish sufficient evidence that crime adheres to circumstances and condition and not to race and color.

But, says the author, in the North (where legal processes are acknowledgly fair so far as the Negro is concerned) the race shows a criminal record which is out of all proportion to its numerical strength. In Pennsylvania 2.23 per cent of its population commit 16.16 per cent of the crimes; in Chicago 1.30 of the population are responsible for 9.84 of the offenses, and so for other Northern communities. The Negro’s criminal status is from six to eight times greater than his numerical weight. It has been shown in another place that from a social and economic standpoint the Northern Negro is completely submerged. The criminal outbreak under the circumstances is only natural.

It is also true that where numbers are small proportions are high. The startling criminal showing of the Northern Negro can be accounted for largely on this principle. Suppose that there were but one Chinaman in a community, and coming, as he naturally would, into hostile contact with a wide area, he should be arrested and convicted. The criminal records of that community would show that one hundred per cent of the Chinese population belonged to the criminal class.

I append the following table, extracted from the census of 1880, to establish this principle. The Negro in the country at large shows a much higher criminal rate than the foreign whites, but if we limit our inquiry to those states where the foreign population is small, the conditions will be reversed.

Number of prisoners in several southern states (to the million of population.)

State.		Foreign white.		Colored.
Florida		2,624		1,797
Georgia		2,272		2,181
Louisiana		1,810		1,728
Mississippi		2,498		1,783

If, on the other hand, we select those states in which the Negro element is small and the foreign element large the result is very decidedly to the disadvantage of the Negro.

The Northern Negro has a criminal record which is not only out of all proportion to his numerical strength, but is two or three times as great as that of his black brothers in the South. It is hard to see how “race traits” could account for this discrepancy.

Rape and Lynching.

The attempts at rape and the consequent lynchings are also offered in evidence of the evil propensity of the race. It is undoubtedly true that the alleged assaults upon white women by colored men have done more than all other causes combined to give the race an evil reputation and make it loathsome in the eyes of mankind. “It throws over every colored man a mantle of odium and sets upon him a mark for popular hate more distressing than the mark set upon the first murderer ... It has cooled our friends and heated our enemies.”[53]

The alleged culprit in such cases, especially if he be a colored man and the victim a white woman, is almost certain to die without due process of law. The native, savage furor of human nature asserts itself in the presence of such dastardly outrages, and neither legal enactments nor moral codes nor religious sanction can restrain it. The perpetrators cannot be defended or pitied. It is a waste of sympathy to wail over the deep damnation of their taking off. And yet we must remember that when the two races are concerned rape has a larger definition than is set down in the dictionaries. There can be no doubt that there have been many lynchings chargeable to rape, when the true cause should be designated by a different, though an ugly name.

Let us not forget, also, that not more than one-third of the lynchings are even chargeable to rape. The causes include the whole catalogue of offenses, serious and trifling, from the committal of murder to jostling against a white man on the street. The attempt to show that lynching and rape are coextensive is misleading and unjust.

So the effort to show that rapeful assaults are due to “race traits” can, I think, be clearly disproved. In a pamphlet which is certainly not flattering to the Negro, a learned medical authority tells us: “I might remark in passing that, notwithstanding the horrible crimes perpetrated under the influence of the furor sexualis by the Negro, I believe that he compares quite favorably as regards sexual impulses—taking all abnormalities into consideration—with the white race. The more I see of white men in so-called refined society, the more contempt have I for quite a large proportion of male humanity.”[54]

To summarize the points of the argument, showing that rape is not peculiarly characteristic of the Negro:

1. Rape has been practiced among all races and nations.

2. The committal of rape by white men is by no means an infrequent occurrence. Two instances of white men committing heinous assaults upon white children occurred in Washington during the preparation of this article.

3. In Africa rape is so severely punished that it is comparatively unknown.

4. In the British Islands and in South America where the Negroes live in greatest relative abundance, the crime is unheard of.

5. When the care and safety of the white women of the South were entrusted to the keeping of the slaves, they returned inviolable all that had been entrusted to their hands.

6. Of the hundreds of lady missionaries of the North who have trusted their lives and virtue to the emancipated race whom they came to uplift, not a single case of violation has been reported to their friends at the North.

Social Morality.

The present state of social morality is mirrored in the number of illegitimate offsprings. The figures which show that the rate of illegitimacy among Negroes in Washington has increased from 17.60 per cent of total births in 1879 to 26.46 per cent in 1894 have been widely quoted and remarked upon. These are facts of record and cannot be gainsaid or denied. According to the opinion of medical men and others in positions to observe, these figures if anything fall short of the truth. It is also probable that the other large cities of the country, if as closely studied, would make as startling a showing. The only alarming feature of the situation is the constant increase in the illegitimate rates. That twenty-five per cent of the births among Negroes are illegitimate will not alarm anyone where it is considered that even this low moral status represents a gain of seventy-five per cent over the conditions prevailing under slavery.

Mr. Hoffman having on hand a theory, was spared the pains of inquiring further into the causes which led to this deplorable state of things. The reviewer suggests that this increase in social immorality among the Negroes of Washington is due to the great rush of ignorant, purposeless colored people to the national capital, a condition of things which always leads, in its first effect, to social looseness and impurity. The very late marriages among the better element of the colored people also help to account for this awful state of things. But perhaps a greater than any cause yet assigned as leading to the social degradation of Negroes in cities is the excess of the female over the male element of the population. On account of the importance of this subject, I append a table showing this excess for the cities whose colored population is over 20,000.

Colored population.

City.		Colored males.		Colored females.		Excess of females.		Number of females to every 100 males.
Baltimore		29,165		38,131		8,966		131
Richmond		14,216		18,138		3,922		128
Atlanta		12,400		15,717		3,317		127
Washington		33,831		41,866		8,035		123
New Orleans		28,936		35,727		6,791		123
Nashville		13,334		16,061		2,727		120
Charleston		14,187		16,849		2,662		119
Savannah		10,493		12,485		1,992		119
Memphis		13,333		15,396		2,063		115
Louisville		13,348		15,324		1,976		115
Philadelphia		18,960		21,414		2,454		113
St. Louis		13,247		13,819		572		104
New York		12,649		13,025		376		103
		———		———		———		——
Total		228,099		273,952		45,875		120

Such a disproportion between the sexes can forbode no good to society. In the West, where the male element predominates over the female among the white population, the evil effect on society is painfully apparent. If every colored man in Washington were married and every male minor had a mate selected for him, there would still be left Negro females enough to form a manless community larger than Annapolis, Md. Now, no one should wonder at the moral corruption under these circumstances. These 8000 females, for whom marriage is impossible, be it remembered, are not restrained by the inhibitory influence of pride, station, and self-esteem. This is no doubt the greatest evil which threatens the social integrity of Negro life, and forms the most serious and perplexing of our city problems.

As startling as the records of crime and immorality are, they are only the outgrowth of circumstances and conditions. Human nature at best is weak, and under fostering circumstances has always yielded to the power of sin and uncleanliness. The author tells us that immorality is a race trait. This is sadly too true, but it is a human race trait, and is limited to no particular variety thereof.

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