rate of the Negro race is much greater than that of the whites. It has already been shown that, leaving immigration out of account, the increase in the Negro population is greater than that of the white race. How can these two facts be accounted for except it be on the basis of a higher birth rate for the blacks? Mr. Hoffman will have either to alter his estimates or mend his logic.

Direct testimony on this subject must have been known to Mr. Hoffman. Of course no one is qualified to write on vital statistics in America who is not familiar with the investigation of Dr. Billings. Let the reader compare the following quotation as to the relative birth rate of the races, and, noting date of data upon which the conclusion is based, decide for himself as to the ingenuousness of Mr. Hoffman’s reluctant admission: “Dr. Billings, in his luminous report on the vital statistics of the United States (1886) shows that 1000 colored women (age from 15 to 49) give birth to 164 children,[Pg 12] and 1000 white women to only 127, yearly; that is to say, three colored women have as many children as four white.”[22]

[Pg 12]

 Is the Negro Threatened with Extinction.

Is the Negro Threatened with Extinction.

Before Mr. Hoffman’s conclusion as to the threatening aspect of the high death rate of the Negro race can be accepted, several questions must be answered by him.

1. Is the death rate of the colored race higher than that of a corresponding class of whites subject to the same moral and social environment? The general opinion is that it is not; nor does the author attempt to prove the contrary. In discussing this question Dr. John S. Billings states: “If we could separate the vital statistics of the poor and ignorant whites, the tenement house population of our Northern cities, from those of the mass of the white population we should undoubtedly find a high rate of mortality in this class, and especially in infancy and childhood.”[23]

2. Is the high death rate for the cities sustained throughout the country at large? Luckily the census of 1880 gives a complete answer to this question. The death rate of the United States in 1880 was 15.09 per 1000; South Carolina 15.80; Alabama 14.20; Mississippi 12.89; Georgia 13.97; Massachusetts 18.59; New York 17.38; Pennsylvania 14.92; New Jersey 16.33. This shows plainly that the Southern states with the largest Negro contingent do not show any higher death rate than the Northern states where the Negro is not a considerable factor. There is no 

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