It is passing strange that it escaped the attention of a statistician of Mr. Hoffman’s sagacity that, even granting the accuracy of the eleventh census, the natural increase of the Negro race was greater than that of the whites during the last decade. The number of immigrants who came to this country between 1880 and 1890 was 5,246,613. I am informed by the census bureau that this number does not include the immigrants who came from British North America and from Mexico after 1885. This number was estimated by the statistical bureau of the Treasury Department to be 540,000, making the total number of immigrants 5,787,613. If this number be subtracted from the increase of the white population during the last decade (11,589,920) their rate of increase will be reduced to 13.35 per cent as compared with 13.51 per cent for the blacks. Nor is this all. The immigrants were for the most part in the full maturity and vigor of their productive powers, being the most fecund element of our white population. If allowance be made for their natural increase from 1880 to 1890 the white race would show a decennial increase appreciably below that of the blacks. If the Negro, then, is threatened with extinction, the white race is in a still more pitiable plight.
The table on page 6 does indeed show plainly that the Negro does not hold his own as a numerical factor of our mixed population. Whereas he represented 19 per cent of the entire population in 1810 he now represents only 12 per cent. But the cause of this relative decline is apparent enough. It is due to white immigration and not to “race traits” as Mr. Hoffman would have us believe. It would be as legitimate to attribute the decline of the Yankee element as a numerical factor in the large New England centers to the race degeneracy of the Puritan, while ignoring the proper cause—the influx of the Celt.
Mr. Hoffman’s conclusions as to the Negro population are not generally accepted by students of social problems. Their position is more clearly stated in a recent notice of the work now under review. “Concerning the first of these chapters dealing with population he (Mr. Hoffman) reaches conclusions very different from those generally held by those who have discussed the subject on a priori grounds. The general impression has been that the colored population was increasing at a rate greater than that of the whites, owing both to the greater number of children born and also to the fact that all children of a mixed race were counted as blacks. From such a condition of affairs it would naturally be assumed that the race to which all half-breeds were credited would, especially if prolific, rapidly gain upon the other race.”[13]
On the appearance of each census since emancipation, there has been some hue and cry as to the destiny of the Negro population. Public opinion has been rhythmical with reference to its rise and fall above and below the mean line of truth. In 1870 it was extermination; in 1880 it was dreaded that the whole country would be Africanized because of the prolificness of a barbarous race; in 1890 the doctrine of extinction was preached once more; what will be the outcry in 1900 can only be divined at this stage, but we may rest assured that it will be something startling.
Negroes in Cities.
The author’s studies in the minor features of the Negro population form the most interesting and valuable work which has yet been undertaken on the subject. The urban drift, the tendency to concentration, and the migratory movements of the black population are treated with fullness and force. It is interesting to know that there are 13 cities in which the colored population exceeds 20,000, and 23 in which it exceeds 10,000, and that the rate of increase of the colored element in these centers is enormous—more than 30 per cent. The concentration of the colored population in certain sections of cities is quite suggestive. The following table will disclose some of the striking features which Mr. Hoffman has exhibited at length.[14]
| City. | Colored population. | No. Wards. | Colored population in wards. | ||||
| Chicago | 14,271 | 34 | 9,122 | in 3 wards. | |||
| Philadelphia | 39,371 | 34 | 8,891 | “ 1 “ | |||
| Boston | 8,125 | 25 | 2,547 | “ 1 “ | |||
| New York | 23,601 | 24 | 13,008 | “ 3 “ | |||
| Brooklyn | 10,287 | 26 | 3,100 | “ 2 “ | |||
This tendency to concentration in undesirable places is found to be greater in Northern than in Southern cities. Every large city has its white wards and its black wards, which the politician knows as well as the seaman knows the depths and shallows of the sea.
The evil of this tendency cannot be denied or gainsaid; but its cause is not far to seek nor hard to find.