The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1903-03-03

I'll IL Is now from 20 to 800 per cent
higher han that OF the whites. The
most serious diseases are consumption,
pneumonia, typhoid fever and syphilis.
all of which are still on the increase.
Professor Harris, a negro OF Fisk
University. Tennessee, has correctly in
terpreted the cause OF this high NOR
tality. He says:
Il am convinced that the sine qua
nor Of a change for the better in the
negro's condition is a higher social mo-
rality. I do not believe that his power
ty or his relation to the white peop'e
presents any real impeachment to his
health and physical development. For
the causes of the black ans low Vi
tally. his susceptibility to disease. and
his enormou death rate. we must look
to those social conditions which he
creates for himself.
MTHER'S BURDEN TOO GREAT.
Il nave already referred to the social
causes of our excessive infant mortal
ity, namely: the frequency with which
the partial or the entire maintenance OF
the household devolves upon the
mother and especially the impaired
chance for life which a d~ebauched and
immoral ~parentage bequeaths to child
hood"
In the next place, the criminality of
the negro has very much increased
since the emancipation. Negro crime
increased in the south 26 per cent from
1880 to 1890, and the educated negro is
more criminal than the ill~iterate.
Industrially the greatest drawback to
the negro is a disposition to work only
long enough to exc out a bare subsis-
tence. He works with i~rregularity and
in a s~lip-shop amer. Notwithstanding
the accumulation of a few of the better
class, the negro per capita wealth is
only about SIS, and the race as a whole
is far from self-supporting.
For Illustration, in Virginia the white
people pay out for negro education,
crime and lunatics about $500, 900 more
than the entire negro taxes paid to the
state. Many occupations formerly pen
to negroes are now closed. This is
chiefly because of his inefficiency. in
stability, dishonesty and uncleanliness.
The condition of the negro in the
north and west, where we should eX-
pect it to be the best, Is, in fact, even
worse. In the north the death rate of
the negro is higher than the birth rate,
and, but for immigration, the black
man would disappear from that section.
This is partly due to the climate, part
ly to more intense competition, and
partly to more degraded family life.
The negro is about three times more
criminal in the north than in the
south, and about three and a half
! times more criminal in the west.
In Chicago the negro is more crimi-
nal than in any other city, and his
crime in that city has increased three
cola ~ ~ 1o1+ +--o~+, G,,o ,1 TLz
race prejudice which operates against
the negroes in the south also operates
against them in Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, Chicago, Indianapolis and
wherever they exist in considerable
numbers. This prejudice c~onsigns them
to the slums, where their family life is
worse, and where the temptations to
vice and crime are the greatest.
In New York city there are few
houses that a negro can rent. The
maxim "once a negro house always a
negro house is familiar to all real es-
ate meu. Jacob Riis tells US that the
landlord draws the color line n docs
it with an absence of pretense, a frank
ness of disposition that is nothing but
brutal. Where he permits them to live
they go; where he shuts the door they
stay out"
The New York Sun says that white
Americans won't work with a black
man; neither will foreign Iaborers. If
a negro happens to go into a saloon he
has to pay 25 cents for a 10 cent drink,
a device which works almost as we'll as
the forbidden one of refusing to serve
a negro" In restaurants, too, the
walters say, w are busy and the
negro may look at his empty plate, If
he will, from 6 o'clock until midnight,
and the excuse will be the same.
Professor Du Bots (himself a negro),
I'm his book on the Negroes of Phila-
delphia," states that wherever there
is a trade, where good negro workmen
are comparatively scarce. each union
steadfastly refuses to admit negroes
and relies on color prejudice to keeL
up the barrier"
Professor Du Bots recites many in
stances showing how the negro IS dis.
eliminated against in the matter o.
house rent, forcing him to live in tn
slums and charging him a higher price
for the same house than is charged tn
white man; how he is discriminate
against in the trades, in the schools
charities and other lines. He show
J also that a less per cent of negroes nov
| o"I pIOpeIly III IlllduSlplld ludI Ue
: fore the war.
In Chicago the economic condition O
the negro is worse than in any othe
part of the country. So the race pre-
JUDGE is not confined to the south
: Booker Washington said in the Allan
t tic Monthly hat when 1t comes t
: earning money instead of spending it
' the negro is better treated in the sout'
! DR.. Parkhurst admits, with admirabI
? ~frankness, that the north does not Xix
: the negro any better han the south
. People who live on the outer circle o
negro populations are too apt to as
sumo an air Of superiority and Sc
themselves up 10 preach sermons to 9th
/ er people. If we could eliminate section
t alism from this problem 1t 0 b
much easier of solution.
2 But the question is, what should b
\ done with reference to the conditions
I have described? According to tn