ASSESSED VALUE OF TOTAL PROPERTY OWNED BY NEGROES OF GEORGIA, 1874 TO 1900.
| Year. | Assessed Value. | Year. | Assessed Value. |
| 1874 | $6,157,798 | 1888 | $9,631,271 |
| 1875 | 5,393,885 | 1889 | 10,415,330 |
| 1876 | 5,488,867 | 1890 | 12,322,003 |
| 1877 | 5,430,844 | 1891 | 14,196,735 |
| 1878 | 5,124,875 | 1892 | 14,869,575 |
| 1879 | 5,182,398 | 1893 | 14,960,675 |
| 1880 | 5,764,293 | 1894 | 14,387,730 |
| 1881 | 6,478,951 | 1895 | 12,941,230 |
| 1882 | 6,589,876 | 1896 | 13,292,816 |
| 1883 | 7,582,395 | 1897 | 13,619,690 |
| 1884 | 8,021,525 | 1898 | 13,719,200 |
| 1885 | 8,153,390 | 1899 | 13,447,423 |
| 1886 | 8,655,298 | 1900 | 14,118,720 |
| 1887 | 8,963,479 |
From this table it will be found that the taxable values of all the property owned by Negroes in Georgia in the year 1874 were $6,157,798. In 1890 the Negro population was 858,815. In 1892 the property valuation has risen to $14,869,575, and in 1900, when the population was 1,034,813, it was only $14,118,720, or an actual falling off, though the Negroes appear to have increased 23.9 per cent. in this time.[33]
Such is the showing of statistics as to the advance marked by the accumulation of property. It fails to bear out the claim that the Negro race has shown remarkable progress along this line. It must be further observed that in reporting the property holdings no account is taken of the mortgages and other indebtedness of the property owners.
But under this economic presentation lies a deeper question. What have the thousands of churches and schools and colleges, maintained at the cost of more than a hundred and fifty million dollars, produced? What kind of men and women have they turned out? What fruits have they brought forth, of moral stamina; of character; of purity of life; of loftiness or even correctness of ideals? These are the true tests of progress.
To reach a correct answer to these questions, we may inquire first: Has the percentage of crime decreased in the race generally? Has the wage-earning capacity of the race generally increased in proportion to the rise of wages? Has the race generally improved, morally and mentally? Is the relative position of the race to that of the white race higher than it was?
Unquestionably, a certain proportion of the Negro race has risen notably since the era of emancipation. A proportion of the colored population—that is, the upper fraction—have not only accumulated property but have, mainly in the cities and towns, attained a higher standing, based partly on property, partly on character, and partly on intellectual advance. But, unless the universal testimony of the white people of the South is unreliable, this rise is confined largely to those regions where the Negroes have had the aid, sympathy, and encouragement of the whites. And it appears to the writer that this element is not as large as is generally assumed, and that this very advance has separated them all the more widely from the great body of the colored race. Study of the question, moreover, discloses the fact that almost all of the intellectual advance in the Negro race is confined to this upper fraction of the race; that, perhaps, nine-tenths of the property accumulated has been accumulated by this class and by the other fraction which belongs to the second class who were trained in slavery, and that, measured by the ordinary standards of character, intellect, and civic standing, the other nine-tenths of the race, so far from advancing in any way, have either stood stagnant or have retrograded.
According to the United States Census of 1890, the native white criminals in the United States numbered 40,471; the native whites whose parents were also native-born numbered 21,037; the Negro criminals (whose parents were native) numbered 24,277.[34]
A comparison of the rural colored population will show that possibly over ninety per cent. of the property now owned by the Negroes has been accumulated by those who were either trained in slavery or grew up immediately after the war, so that they received the beneficial effects of the habits of industry in which their race was at that time trained. It will show in the next place that the proportion of convicts in the State penitentiaries in the Southern States from the Negroes is from 85 to 93 per cent. of the total number of convicts confined. In Louisiana the proportion is 85 per cent. of all State criminals. In Alabama it is 85.4 per cent. In Florida, 86.4 per cent. In Mississippi it is 91 per cent. In Georgia it is 90 per cent., and in South Carolina it is 93.2 per cent.[35] In the District of Columbia, where the Negroes are assumed to have had exceptional advantages and where possibly a certain element of them are as well off as anywhere in the country, they furnished, a year or two ago, 86 per cent. of the criminals. Of these convicts, more than nine-tenths have grown up since slavery was abolished.
Meantime, the Negro has retrograded as a workman until he has not only lost the field in which he once had no rival, but is in danger of losing even the ability to compete for its recovery. The superiority of the older farmhands to the younger generation is so universally asserted throughout the South that it must be given some of the validity of general reputation. And whereas, as has been shown, a generation ago all the mechanical work of the South was in the hands of the Negroes, only a small proportion of it is done by them to-day.