The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-03-17

scholarly Northern religious organ. 1t
is gradually attaining unto wisdom in
the vexed, ~perplexing negro question.
1t has a clearer understanding Of the
past than we supposed it to possess.
We do not know how long it has been
as knowing" and keen Of vision as it
is lately. 1t begins to understand that
if slavery in the south was objection
able, deficient and bad, that it had
itorial it asks:
Wherever inferior races come in
close contact with civilization they
perish. Why has not the American ne
gro persisted? Evidently because, in
slavery he was held under firm re-
s~traint, a restraint that looked special
ly to the guardiance of his vitality"
1t sees now that diseases are at work
on the negro race and their growth is
less than the whites, although under
slavery they grew and multiplied very
rapidly. 1t goes to the Hampton (Va.)
Conference and finds that there is al
ready "a crisis upon the negro race.
1t copies what is said by DR.. F. j.
Shadd on "a Remedy for the Excess
sive Mortality of the Negro" 1t is
taken for granted that the Excessive
mortality is an established fact. DR..
Shadd stated among other things:
"Our profession has known for some
time the death rate of the negro is in
creasing, and in some places the death
exceeds the births"
This leads the Interior to write this
which is significant and well worthy Of
the attention of intelligent whites and
intelligent negroes:
From what we have said above it
Will be understood that the causes
which nave proved fatal to aboriginal
races in contact with civilization are
those which are undermining the life
of the American negro, as a race.
It's effects appear first in an Excess
sive mortality of negro children. Those
which survive are liable to the whole
brood of diseases which are core
lated, and which are either the direct
or the collateral results of the poison.
1t is a veritable Nemesis. It follows its
victim down to the second generation,
and if there be a third, it exterminates
it. & + y x y * The effect upon the
white race, stepped in such a popuIa-
ton, may we'll be regarded with fore
boding. 1t appears then that there is
something much more serious than race
prejudice influencing the white people.
We have said that a remnant will be
saved. 1t is to this rescue that Booker
Washington and our board of freed
men and those of other churches are
or should be addressing themselves.
AS a race they can only be saved by
fidelity to lawful marriage and by the
elevation in their minds of the sacred
ness of the family relation. The waste,
elevation in the minds of the sacred
in enormous quantity. or numbers, will
be swept away by disease, which in
another score of years will increase to
the destructiveness Of pestilence."
This able religious exponent fore
seeing decay and destruction await
ing the negro race unless a radical
change is wrought in their lives and
character and morality points to other
inferior races who have persisted or de-
cayed. 1t gives to it's readers this bit
of history:
THE Tasmanians persisted to the
last individual. The Hawaiians de-
clined in little more thai half a CEN
fury from half a million to forty thou
sand, and the survival of that emnan
is due to the missionaries. 1t appears
that the rise and decline of the Afri-
cans in America may prove to be the
monster tragedy of civilization"
The white man is to save the rem
nant" of which the Interior writes
pathetically, if it is to be preserved.
The moral and physical stamina will
not be maintained if the old ways are
pursued. A distinguished physician of
this city some eight years said TO
us: You have no idea of the great
inroads being made upon the negroes
by certain diseases, the outcome of
abuses and immoralities." We have
since seen estimates made of the grow
ing destruction falling upon the negro
ace in the south because of conduct
and habits. The Charlotte Presbyte-
rian Standard says:
Every consideration of humanity
and Christianity demands that the peo-
pie of the south arise to their respon-
sibilities to the negro in the same
spirit of pity n f~orebearance and
~helpfulness that characterized the old
relation of master and slave. 1t is not
an easy task nor an agreeable one"