Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-12-30

Icy, and especially III the enumeration
the Negroes.
The United States Marshals were mex
| in rank to himself, but not selected BY
him. In the Southern States they wert
selected with sole reference to party con
siderations.
The officials did not trouble themselve!
to seek and find the lost sheep in the
wilderness. The Negroes were suspicious
they feared they might be enrolled fol
slavery or for taxation.
The return, which, according to antici
patton, should have shown an increase o.
about 965 900 colored people, showed less
than 100000 of the expected increase
more was missing than found-440, ,00C
found, 1000 missing.
The mistaken census of 1870 is surely
bad enough, without the aid of loose cal.
culations.
The prophets of evil estimate the col
ored population as doubling every twenty
years after 1880, until 1880. Why not
pursue the estimate little further
Give the calculators rope, and look two
centuries ahead, instead OF one. 1t is a
short period in the life of nation. AT
their incredible rates pursue the calcula-
ton and see what these eight States
would then support. In the year 21OO
A. D. we should have in the eight States
a population of over eight billions of
colored people. In Georgia alone her
teeming millions of blacks would exceed
the present population of the wide, wide
world
While the slave trade continued, there
was enforced immigration, and the Ne
groes introduced, moreover, we're nearly
all adults, of the prolific age of life.
There were few old people or children
imported.
10 take ten census reports out of the
ten at our command is very unphilo-
sophical. If we reject eight and accept
two only, observe the result. In 1870
the estimates would have been the exact
reverse ofthose Of 1880. The increase in
1870 was less than 10 per cent. The
colored population in 1870 would have
been estimated at about 12,500, 900 in
stead Of nearly 200,000,000.
We need the light of all the census re-
ports of long experience to rectify tenn
porary errors and accidents.
In all our estimates we must remem-
ber how constantly new conditions arise
in human affairs. To look 100 years
ahead is looking beyond our ken. We
are not prophets, even with ten census
reports as basis, much less with two.
With increasing density of population,
for example, new conditions occur. The
Northwest and the Southwest will grad.
ually fill up and the South will become
the emigration ground of the world for
the North, East and West, and for
Europe. The immigration of whites to
the South will tend to check the increase
of the colored race and indeed to their
diffusion through the Union, as domes-
tic servants, hotel walters, agricultural
and general laborers, etc. Whenever
population begins to press on subsistence
the survival OF the fittest will begin to
tell on the weaker race.
AS the South advances from agricul-
tural to manufacturing pursuits, the
same conditions will occur which drove
the Negroes gradually from the Northern
States. They are unfit for the higher
processes of industry. The difficulty OF
making living will check increase.
In 1870 there were living in the United
States, including Georgia, 7l9, ,125 whites
born in Georgia; in 1880, 933, ,061--an
increase of 80 per cent. The enumera-
ton of the whites was more nearly cor
rect than that of the blacks. A like
comparison of the blacks shows $50, 929
in 1870, and 7S6, 1906 in 1980--an increase
OF 1874 per cent. Allowing for errors in
1870, their per cent increase would be
reduced to below that of the whites.
The South-the whole country-is
deeply interested in this question,
whether the country is to be Africanized.
No State has deeper interest in it than
Georgia, the center Of colored popula-
ton. But there is no such black out
look. The wild use of statistics raised
the apprehensions; the serious and sober
use dispels them. We may safely dis
miss these vain fears as unwarranted by
the facts.
The census Of 1870 was unreliable, and
it's errors aggravated at the South by
peculiar conditions. The worst errors
related to the black population, and
these were concentrated ON the southern
| tier of States, especially on South Car
olina, Mississippi and Louisiana.
Georgia herself was then Gn June, 187O)
under military rule.
The census Of 1880, on the contrary,
was the best ever taken-with improved
machinery and with the utmost care.
This very fact exaggerated the contrast
between it and the ninth census.
| instead of gloomy view, we think the
future full of hope and promise. This
fine country was not conquered from the
red man for the black; it will never
cease to be white mans country, un-
less all history is false, and the superior
race shall yield to the inferior. Other
principles will come into play when any
such result is seriously threatened.
! AS regards Georgia in particular, we
would as soon risk her to take care of
herself as any other state or people. She
has before her a future of growth and
development, of largely diversified
industry, increased agricultural diver
sity, united with immense increase in
manufacturing, mining and all other
forms of industry. Coal, iron, lumber,
water power, cotton, rice, sugar, climate,
soil, health, all these she has, and q
beautiful country, for a superior race.
The tide will turn this way, probably, in
a peculiar and desirable way, not so
much by direct immigration from abroad,
but rather from the North, overfowing
this way, population already assimi-
lated, and in the second generation
indistiuguishable from our own Alta.