Kelly Miller

“ The increase in consumption among Negroes is indeed a grave matter, but it is possible to exaggerate its importance as sociological evidence. If we listen to the alarmists and social agitators, we would find a hundred causes, each of which would destroy the human race in a single generation. The most encouraging evidence on this subject from the Negro’s point of view is afforded by the last report of the Surgeon General of the United States Army. ”

“ One cardinal proof is that a white man seldom receives punishment for assault, however brutal, however unprovoked, however cowardly, be it maiming, homicide, or murder upon a Negro unless, forsooth, the assailant be some degraded creature, disowned by his own caste. Of the numberless instances—running into the thousands—during the past twenty-three years, of homicide and murder of blacks by whites, there is no single instance of capital punishment, and few, very few, instances of imprisonment beyond a few months in jail, or a slight fine. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Attempt is made to show that the Negro has deteriorated as a farm laborer, and that as an industrial factor he has not held his own in the development of the resources of the South. With a process of reasoning with which we are fully familiar by this time, these assertions are sought to be upheld. The decline in agricultural interests throughout the country has had its effect upon the apparent efficiency of the farming class everywhere. The mad rush to the cities, with a vain hope of improvement in condition, has well nigh demoralized agricultural pursuits. ”

“ But to compound for sins we are inclined to by damning those we have no mind to, in case of any difficulty between white and black, and the former is injured or loses his life, lucky is the latter if the homicide is not declared murder—when courts of justice, though sure to inflict the highest penalty in his case, are found to be too slow, and he is dragged forth and slain, unshrived and unshriven, as if he were a monstrous wild beast of whose presence earth could not be rid too quickly. ”

“ The attempts at rape and the consequent lynchings are also offered in evidence of the evil propensity of the race. It is undoubtedly true that the alleged assaults upon white women by colored men have done more than all other causes combined to give the race an evil reputation and make it loathsome in the eyes of mankind. “It throws over every colored man a mantle of odium and sets upon him a mark for popular hate more distressing than the mark set upon the first murderer ... It has cooled our friends and heated our enemies.” ”

“ Just how far personal and servile contact can elevate the moral and manly tone of a people is not quite evident. But the result of indirect missionary contact is, perhaps, the surest way to lift a race into civilization. I point to Japan as a recent, striking illustration of this argument. The black belts will afford the richest field for missionary and philanthropic endeavor. No section of this country can remain long in an uncivilized state or relapse into barbarism that has in its midst a Hampton Institute or a Booker T. Washington. ”

“ Feelings of blood ties prompted many a slave holder to deal kindly by his slave descendants, and often to liberate them and give them a start in the race of life. That an infusion of white blood quickens the energy and enlivens the disposition of the progeny is probably true; but that it adds to the intellectual capacity is far from a self-evident proposition. The Negroes who have shown any unusual intellectual activity, in America at least, have usually been of the purer type. ”

“ If the alleged low industrial efficiency of the Negro is to be chargeable to race traits, it should be attributed to the domineering and intolerant race traits of the white workmen who are not disposed to give the colored man a fair chance. The fact that in almost every contention between white and colored workmen the employers take the side of the Negro, is an eloquent argument in behalf of the industrial merits of the latter ”

“ The native, savage furor of human nature asserts itself in the presence of such dastardly outrages, and neither legal enactments nor moral codes nor religious sanction can restrain it. The perpetrators cannot be defended or pitied. It is a waste of sympathy to wail over the deep damnation of their taking off. And yet we must remember that when the two races are concerned rape has a larger definition than is set down in the dictionaries. There can be no doubt that there have been many lynchings chargeable to rape, when the true cause should be designated by a different, though an ugly name. ”

“ If a race does not possess the requisite physical stamina, it is impossible for it to maintain a high degree of moral and intellectual culture or compete with its more vigorous rivals in the race of civilization.
“All the elements of society are conserved in its physical basis, the social population.” ”

“ If the Negro is inferior in vital function and power to the Caucasian, he will be a public benefactor who scientifically demonstrates the fact. But the colored race most stubbornly refuses to be argued out of existence on an insufficient induction of data and unwarranted conclusions deduced therefrom. ”

“ And yet out of the loins of this race have sprung the moral and spiritual law-givers of mankind. We should not be discouraged because the Negro does not make a bee-line from Egyptian bondage to the Promised Land beyond the Jordan. ”

“ The reviewer suggests that this increase in social immorality among the Negroes of Washington is due to the great rush of ignorant, purposeless colored people to the national capital, a condition of things which always leads, in its first effect, to social looseness and impurity. The very late marriages among the better element of the colored people also help to account for this awful state of things. But perhaps a greater than any cause yet assigned as leading to the social degradation of Negroes in cities is the excess of the female over the male element of the population. ”

“ Europe offers the best refutation of the statement that the proportions of the head mean anything intellectual.... In our study of the proportions of the head, therefore, we are measuring merely race, and not intelligence in any sense.... Equally unimportant to the anthropologist is the absolute size of the head. ”

“ 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 attempt to show that lynching and rape are coextensive is misleading and unjust.
So the effort to show that rapeful assaults are due to “race traits” can, I think, be clearly disproved. In a pamphlet which is certainly [Pg 31] not flattering to the Negro, a learned medical authority tells us: “I might remark in passing that, notwithstanding the horrible crimes perpetrated under the influence of the furor sexualis by the Negro, I believe that he compares quite favorably as regards sexual impulses—taking all abnormalities into consideration—with the white race. ”

“ These 8000 females, for whom marriage is impossible, be it remembered, are not restrained by the inhibitory influence of pride, station, and self-esteem. This is no doubt the greatest evil which threatens the social integrity of Negro life, and forms the most serious and perplexing of our city problems. ”

“ If the Negro, then, will conform his life to the moral and sanitary laws, may not the evil tendencies now observable be eradicated or overcome? The first effects of emancipation are always harmful to the moral and physical well-being of the liberated class. The removal of physical restraints, before moral restraints have grown strong enough to take their place, must always result in misconduct. The Jews in Egypt labored under circumstances remarkably similar to those of the American Negro. ”

“ The importance of this proposition is apparent when we consider that the Negroes in this country are a thoroughly mixed people. The pure African type has been well nigh obliterated. It is pointed out also that the mongrel progeny has been produced by illicit intercourse between the white male and the black female. The moral and conservative qualities of a race reside in its womanhood. The Negro people, then, have missed these transmitted qualities. ”

“ The cause of the evil suggests the remedy. The author in a previous chapter points out the threatening evil of crowding into the cities; a counter movement which would cause a return to the country, or would at least stay the mad urban movement, would not only improve the economic status of the race but would also benefit its physical and moral health. Here is an open field for practical philanthropy and wise Negro leadership. ”

“ They sit in the shadow of the tree of liberty and boast of its protecting boughs, but must not aspire to partake of the fruit thereof. The undershrubbery purchases shade and protection at too dear a price when it sacrifices therefor the opportunity of the glorious sunlight of heaven. ”

“ The question of the relative intellectual capacity of the different races is one of much speculative interest. I am giving the matter more attention than it would seem to warrant, because the author makes the supposed mental inferiority of the race the basis of the only practical suggestion which he has to offer, viz: that all of our educational and philanthropic endeavor so far has been based upon wrong principles, and a radical change in this regard is demanded so as to bring the treatment in harmony with the capabilities of the lower race. ”

“ To summarize the points of the argument, showing that rape is not peculiarly characteristic of the Negro:
1. Rape has been practiced among all races and nations.
2. The committal of rape by white men is by no means an infrequent occurrence. Two instances of white men committing heinous assaults upon white children occurred in Washington during the preparation of this article.
3. In Africa rape is so severely punished that it is comparatively unknown.
4. In the British Islands and in South America where the Negroes live in greatest relative abundance, the crime is unheard of. ”

“ As to his leading conclusion, the author is not only out of harmony with the general opinion prevalent among students of the Negro problem, but is also strangely inconsistent with his former self. The same author who in 1896, wrote: “It is not in the condition of life, but in the race traits and tendencies, that we find the cause of excessive mortality,” [57] in 1892 affirmed: “The colored [Pg 35] population is placed at many disadvantages which it cannot very well remove. ”

“ But the Negro has none of these sentimental advantages. Too poor to employ competent counsel, his liberty and life are necessarily committed to incompetent hands, when the proverb of ‘poor pay, poor preach’ becomes reality ... But are Negroes treated unfairly by juries and public opinion? Yes, and the experience and observation of every fair-minded man will confirm the assertion. ”

“ It may not be accounted scientific to take cognizance of any element which cannot be quantified, counted, weighed, or measured. But I do know that the wisest of our species have always believed that God is the controlling factor in human affairs. The Negro’s hopes and aspirations are built upon the foundation of this belief. ”

“ The fact is the juries, which are the sole judges of the evidence, will accept testimony against a Negro that they would reject in the case of whites; and on the other hand they will frequently reject, or at least discredit, testimony of the Negro against the white man, however well supported it may be. ”

“ 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 [Pg 9] cities is quite suggestive. The following table will disclose some of the striking features which Mr. Hoffman has exhibited at length. [14]
This tendency to concentration in undesirable places is found to be greater in Northern than in Southern cities. ”

“ By a series of measurements based, confessedly, upon insufficient data, it is concluded that the Negro has a smaller lung capacity, smaller chest expansion, and a higher rate of respiration than the white man, and that the Mulatto is inferior to both the parent races in these vital functions. ”

“ 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. ”