It appears from this table that in the most important vital organs and functions the Mulatto is inferior to both parent stocks. This [Pg 21]opinion is almost or quite universal among competent authorities upon this subject. And yet the last word of science has not been uttered on this question. There is no subject in all the domain of social science which offers a more interesting or more fruitful field for investigation. The Freedmen’s Hospital at Washington, and similar institutions elsewhere, by prosecuting accurate and scientific methods of inquiry can throw much light upon this subject.

[Pg 21]

2. The Mulatto is Morally Inferior to the Blacks.

The Mulatto is Morally Inferior to the Blacks.

This alleged inferiority is attributable to the fact as well as to the manner of generation. Strangely enough Mr. Hoffman does not employ the statistics which would seem to bear out his suggestion. The eleventh census shows that there were 10,377 pure and 3,218 mixed Negroes in penitentiaries in 1890. Supposing that uniform methods of race-tests were used throughout the census inquiry, this would show that while the mixed Negroes constitute only 16 per cent of the total Negro population, they furnished 30 percent of the penitentiary convicts. But these figures cannot be relied upon since the census bureau acknowledges that it has no definite method of determining the different shades of color and grades of mixture among Negroes.

It is also alleged in proof of this proposition that illicit intercourse between the races is carried on mainly with the Mulatto women. Can this not be explained on grounds other than native depravity? The light-colored Negro woman is made the victim of the lustful onslaught of the male element of both races. She is placed between the upper and nether stress of the vicious propensities of white and black men. And if her sins are greater, is it not because her temptations are greater also? The following quotation from a distinguished Southerner is significant; “There was little improper intercourse between white men and Negresses of the original type in the period before emancipation (after the creation of the Mulatto class).”[41] Every time a Negro woman is indicted on this score some white man is inculpated. The reproach hurled against colored women from such sources reminds us very much of the lines in Butler’s Hudibras:

The selfsame thing they will abhor, One way, and long another for.

[Pg 22]

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