“Lowdnes County with three Negroes to one white man, having 21,972 blacks and 7121 whites, requires 3.15 acres to make a bale of cotton, while James County, with three whites to one negro, having 13,156 whites and 4,670 blacks, requires 1.98 acres to make a bale. The farm lands of Jones county are valued in the census reports at $2.85 per acre and the farm lands of Lowdnes County at $9.83 an acre. Yet the poor lands of Jones County under intelligent cultivation produced nearly
twice as much per acre as the rich lands of Lowdnes County when cultivated mostly by Negroes . . . in every comparison made between a white county and a black one the black was the most fertile, yet the white was nearly twice as productive.”[158:9]
Such a poor showing for the Negro almost persuades one that he deserves to be supplanted by whites in farm work and in farming, even if he should not be. At present the South holds out unequaled attractions in the way of climate, rich soil, and cheap lands, to those of other sections of the country who may be seeking farm homes. And there can be little doubt that with the passing of the free public lands the tide of immigration in the near future will set in that direction, in spite of the presence of the Negro. Then what will become of the Negro when he shall have to compete with the thrifty hard-working Poles, Bohemians, and native Americans from the North and the West? Will he be simply pushed aside and left to gravitate to a still lower level? Nothing will save him unless he soon wonderfully changes in habits and disposition. So the Negro may as well look forward to the time when he will be
supplanted in these occupations to which he thinks himself so well adapted and in which he thinks himself so well fortified,—those of farm laborer and farmer.
Finally, may not the unquestioned physical deterioration of the Negro since his emancipation as shown by his susceptibility to disease together with his high death rate portend the ultimate practical extinction of the race in the United States? During slavery times the Negro was fairly well fed and usually worked according to set regulations. Evidently such food and training had no little to do with developing a sound body, and disciplined his mind to some extent as well.[159:10]
According to De Bow, the mortality of the free Negroes before the War was a hundred per cent greater than that of the slaves. It even appears that the death of the Negroes in the South at that time was less than that of the whites. In Charleston, S. C., the average death-rate from 1822 to 1861 was 25.98 a thousand for whites and 24.05
for Negroes. About the same was true of some other cities. From 1865 to 1894, however, the average death-rate at Charleston was 26.77 a thousand for whites and 43.29 for Negroes.[160:11] No doubt the slight increase of the death rate among the whites was due to the rapid increase among the Negroes as the whites necessarily came more or less in contact with the Negroes.
Indeed, very significant in this connection, is the statement made in the “Negro Year Book” (1914-15) that an average of 450,000 Negroes in the South are seriously ill all the time, and that 600,000 of the present population will die of tuberculosis.
The Census shows that both pneumonia and tuberculosis are diseases very fatal to Negroes. And strange as it may now seem, in slavery times Negroes were thought to be practically immune from tuberculosis. Indeed, it is said that, about 1882-3, there was exhibited at a clinic in Charleston, S. C., what was supposed to have been the second case of tuberculosis ever found among Negroes.[160:12] This is very remarkable, if true.
In each city of the following list of twelve is given the number of times more deaths that