Of all these things the judge is Time.

Aristotle

In the foregoing chapters it is only by way of exception that there has been made any formal use of statistical data, or any reference to scientific authorities;—in fact, there has been a studied avoidance of the sympathetic literature of the subject. But it seems wise and, above all, just to the reader, to guard well every salient position, to throw round every argumentative assertion a bulwark of mathematical evidence—a task that presents little difficulty, since in general the facts in the case are well ascertained and the testimony unanimous. At only a few points, and those of rather minor importance, do the depositions go wide apart. In casting up these circumvallations, we shall be at pains to cite only witnesses against whom no exceptions can lie; many very valuable ones shall be excluded, merely for geographical reasons; we do not ask the reader to heed even a scientific word that might be tinged with prejudice.

Next to the United States Census Reports, which must of course be our main source, we shall use, in discussing anthropometry, the great work of Frederick L. Hoffman, F. S. S., statistician to the Prudential Insurance Company of America, entitled "Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro," published as Vol. XI., Nos. 1, 2, and 3, of the publications of the American Economic Association, by the Macmillan Company, August, 1896,—the result of ten years' careful investigation—a book almost beyond praise. Among his more recent supplementary studies may be mentioned his "Race and Mortality," October, 1902.

The author is a German and without race prejudice. For him the problem of race pathology exists as a purely practical one: At what rates can the Negro be insured? No emotion can enter here; it is a mere question of dollars and cents, and for insurance companies a vital one. To our opponents, his judgements may sometimes sound harsh; but they are scarcely harsher than the facts, which he seldom forces, but interprets fairly. His conclusions have, of course, been passionately assailed, as by Professor Kelly Miller; but in no important particulars have they been seriously shaken.

In the following statistical tables, we shall frequently use the myriad as the unit. Thereby the data are made easier to understand and to remember; there is a great economy of space and of attention, and no appreciable sacrifice of accuracy. For in case of such immense numbers it is idle to hope for correctness in the fourth figure; errors will almost surely reach up into the thousands, if not above. Besides, we shall use these data for purely argumentative purposes, and no argument is in the least affected by a change in the thousands. Thus, the population of New Orleans is given at 287,104. No one can deny that it may have been nearer 286,000 or 288,000. We shall indicate it by twenty-nine (myriads), by which we mean merely that it is between 285,000 and 295,000. So, when we speak of a mortality of 234, we mean 234 yearly per myriad. So we shall put a recent death-rate of Chicago at 145 (per 10,000) rather than at 14.49 (per 1,000). The last digit can lay no claim to correctness.

INCREASE OF THE NEGRO POPULATION

The grand totals of the population in the Continental United States, as given by the census reports, are:

W.N.W.N.W.N.
(Gains, per 1000)
19006,681883
1,171135212180
18905,510749
1,17091267138
18804,340658
981170292349
18703,359488
6674424899
18602,693444
73780377221
18501,955364

It needs no ghost from the tomb to tell us that some of these census returns are wrong, and widely wrong. An increase of 221 per thousand during a decade (1850-60) of universal and extraordinary prosperity, under singularly favourable conditions, seems every way likely and calls for no remark. But the following decade (1860-70), while it wrought ruin upon the Whites, brought freedom to the Blacks and in no way worked them any hardship. That their rate of increase should have fallen off from 221 to ninety-nine seems, then, quite incredible. Again, the next decade (1870-80) marked the end of the riot of Africanism in the South, and its second half saw white supremacy restored and the Blacks forcibly repressed. On the whole, then, it could hardly have been so favourable to the Negroes as the preceding, and yet their numbers leap up nearly two millions, at the astounding rate of 349 per thousand. Their conditions were certainly no worse during the next decade (1880-90), yet they grow only half as much, and at a rate little over one-third as fast—only 138 per thousand. There is no visible sign of improvement in conditions during the next decade, yet they multiply measurably faster—at the rate of 180 per thousand. When the results for 1880 were announced, it was felt that the game was lost for the white man. Accordingly, in 1883, Professor C. A. Gardiner, of Brooklyn, N.Y., could forecast that in thirty years the Southern Negro would outstrip the Southern White in wealth, intelligence, and numbers, and within a century would absorb that White completely!—a prediction only less buoyant and highly coloured than Gen. Pope's of July 14, 1867, that "five years will have transferred intelligence and education, so far as the masses are concerned, to the colored people of this district" (Alabama, Georgia, Florida). At such a rate the Negroes in 1900 would have numbered about fourteen millions, and in 1910 about twenty millions, in 1920 nearly thirty millions; in 1950 they would have surpassed eighty millions, the present population of our Union, and in 1990 they would have reached 320 millions. So that the practically complete Africanization of the United States would be only a question of this century. The census of 1890 showed an immense falling off in this rate (from 349 to 138) and so allayed such fears. The last census shows, apparently, a slight rise in the Negro increase (from 138 to 180)—which, however, remains notably behind that of the Whites (212), by about 15 per cent.