“We have no trustworthy data by which to measure the wealth of those residing in the North, though it is known to have been considerable;
but in the South, where separate racial statistics were kept, the value of property owned by free Negroes was between $35,000,000 and $40,000,000.”
In 1860, there were in the neighborhood of 250,000 free Negroes in the South and around 225,000 in the North. Then, if the free Negroes of the South had nearly $40,000,000 it would seem a fair estimate that in both sections the free Negroes had at least $60,000,000. Taking this for granted, as money at six per cent compounded, annually, doubles every twelve and one-half years, the $60,000,000 at interest until the present (1917) would have amounted to about $960,000,000. If the 10,000,000 Negroes of the country at present had as large amount of property in proportion, as the less than 500,000 free Negroes of 1860, they would be worth more than $1,200,000,000.
However, in 1903, it was estimated by a committee of the American Economic Association that all the taxable property in the United States owned by Negroes in 1900 amounted to only $300,000,000. The $60,000,000 at six per cent would have amounted to about $400,000,000 by that time.
In 1913, in an address before the Negro Business
League which met in Philadelphia, Booker T. Washington said that Negroes pay taxes on $700,000,000 worth of property. Many other students of the Negro question both black and white have placed about the same estimate upon Negro holdings. Even if true, the amount would be about $200,000,000 less than the $60,000,000 at interest to the same time.
Now, assuming that Negroes actually owned $700,000,000 worth of property in 1913, what does it signify? The value of all property in the United States is now estimated at almost $250,000,000,000. Now, suppose that it was $210,000,000,000 in 1913, this would be just three hundred times the estimated value of Negro property at the time. In other words, 10,000,000 negroes owned one three-hundredth as much as 90,000,000 whites. Thus one white man on an average would have as much as thirty-two Negroes.
Even were it true that the Negro race began with nothing after the War, likely thousands of white men who became millionaires had just such a start. One such white man, especially, is, no doubt, worth as much as the 10,000,000 Negroes claim to be, even though he has given to charity almost half as much more.
Indeed, the $700,000,000 in question is but little
more than two-thirds as much as the whites in the United States, according to the Chicago Tribune,[128:5] gave to charity during 1916. Again, the $700,000,000 lacks nearly $200,000,000 of being equal to the taxable basis of Baltimore. It would be difficult to secure statistics in reference to the matter, but there could be little doubt that the first immigrants to the United States after the Civil War, including the descendents of such to the number of 10,000,000,—immigrants who came with practically nothing, no money in the majority of instances and ignorant,—now are worth many times $700,000,000.