Walter F. Willcox

“ Should we not rather say that southern negroes are increasing at the present time only two-thirds as fast as southern whites, while from 1800 to 1840 they increased faster and from 1840 to 1880 nearly as fast, because they are not succeeding in entering new occupations or prospering as well in their old as the competing race is doing? ”

“ It may be that the increase among the negroes has been affected by the marked prosperity of the South in recent years and has been affected more conspicuously than the figures for the whites.
With reference to sex it may be noted that there is an excess of females among the negro population of the United States, while this is not true either of the Indians or of the native whites. Strangely enough, this excess of females is found even at the very earliest ages. It is a general rule that the number of male children born exceeds the number of female. ”

“ What is true of the inaccuracies in the field of age statistics is probably true of other sorts of inaccuracies. A larger proportion of the negro population than of the white is homeless and therefore likely to be omitted by enumerators instructed to visit every home in the country. In Maryland a careful recount of nearly 63,000 people was had a few months after the census day in the effort to detect suspected fraud. The recount showed that in the original count the omissions among negroes had been 3.7 per cent. and among whites 1.3 per cent. ”

“ While the future of the negro race in the United States seems to be essentially an industrial and economic question, turning upon their efficiency in comparison with classes of the population who compete with them in their staple occupations, the net results of these various and complex industrial changes can perhaps best be measured by the vital statistics of the race. The Census Bureau has no direct information regarding births or marriages. ”

“ There is no traceable tendency to a separation between negroes and whites in the South whereby the negro population is becoming more predominant in the rural districts and the white population in the cities. ”

“ Part of this greater prevalence of child labor and old man labor is due to the fact that the negroes are predominantly engaged in agriculture and that this industry affords greater opportunities than most others for the work of children and old men. Yet this fact only partly accounts for the difference.
The most important specific occupations for the negroes are those of agricultural laborers, farmers, planters and overseers, and laborers not specified. ”

“ In American countries to the south of the United States where race relations are as complex and as diverse as they are with us, the statistical method is imperfectly developed or of recent introduction. The main sources of statistical information, therefore, regarding race relations are the figures for the United States and those for several of the West Indian Islands. ”

“ But when the country is considered in sections separating the population of the South from that of the North, different results appear. Negroes, as a whole, have a larger proportion of living children than whites, but paradoxical as it may seem, it is also true that southern negroes have at present a smaller proportion of living children than southern whites, and northern negroes have a smaller proportion of living children than northern whites. ”

“ It can be easily proved that the errors in reporting ages among the immigrant white are about twice as numerous as among the native white and among the non-Caucasians about twice as numerous as among the immigrant white. Where age is stated erroneously it is usually stated at a round number as a multiple of 5. The excess in the reported number at these multiples of 5 over the estimated true number is thus a measure of the accuracy of the figures. This excess in 1900 among persons between twenty-eight and sixty-two years of age inclusive for the native whites was 12.4 per cent. ”

“ These figures show that since 1840 the increase of southern negroes has been less rapid than that of southern whites, that the increase from 1860 to 1880 was relatively more rapid than in the preceding or the following twenty-year period, suggesting that the period of war and of reconstruction affected the increase of the white race more than that of the negroes. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the southern negroes were increasing much faster than the southern whites. ”

“ They correspond closely with the statistics for southern whites, the main differences being that the race has a very much larger proportion of widowed and divorced persons and that in the last ten years there has been a decline in the proportion of adult negroes who were married, while among southern whites there has been an increase in the proportion who were married. ”

“ This fact accounts for about three-fourths of the entire difference between the negroes and the southern whites. An explanation of the remaining fourth is found in the fact that negro boys go to work earlier and negro men retire later than white men. In general it may be said that the lower the earning capacity of a productive class the greater the quantity of labor required for its support; the greater the prevalence, therefore, of female labor, of child labor and of the labor of old men. ”

“ Whether this means that the white population is betaking itself more to agriculture, it would be difficult to assert from the figures. The negro population is increasing in southern cities about one-third faster than in country districts. Or, the facts may be stated perhaps more intelligibly in this way. In the 242 southern cities for which the race figures are distinguished both for 1890 and for 1900, there were in 1890, 464 negroes to 1,000 whites ”

“ My interpretation of their meaning might be objected to on the ground that when the negroes are increasing more slowly than the whites, as they are at present in the South, it should not be expected that they would increase as fast as whites in the skilled occupations. ”

“ At the present time there are about nine and one-fifth million negroes under the United States flag, including those in Porto Rico, Alaska, and Hawaii, as well as the negroes of continental United States. ”