New-York tribune., 1908-01-26
NEGRO IN THE NORTH.
Death Rate Far 4boue Birth Rate
Due to Unsanitdry Housing.
BY Ray Stannard Baker, in The American Magazine
February


how the negro fares in the North. Is he treated
better or worse? Is Boston a more favorable loca-
ton for him than Atlanta or New Orleans? COM
parison of the Southern attitude. and the North
attitude throws flood OF light upon the negro
as q national problem in this country.
So far as comfortable conditions Of life are con-
cerned where there is little friction or dscrimna-
ton and good opportunity for earning re-
spectacle livelihood. 1 have found no places any
where which seemed so favorable TO negroes as the
smaller towns and cities in the North and West,
where the coored population is not increasing Bur
the moment there is immigration from the
South the conditions TO be utopian-as shan
show.
The great cities of the North present wholly
different aspect; the increases of population are
there not short of extraordinary. In 1880 Chlcago
had only $3.50 colored people: at present IL mas
about 45OO0 an increase of some 6oo per cent The
census of 1900 gives the negro population of New
York as 60 66S. 1t is $500 probably not less
than 5000. Between 1890 and 1900 the negroes Oh
Philadelphia increased by 50 per cent While the
Caucasians added only % per cent, and the growth
since 1900 has been more rapid. the coioreo
population now exceeding $4,000. The city OF wash
tngton to-day has greater community or negroes
(some 100000 than were ever before gatheIeu To-
gether In one community in any part OF the world
SO far know.
In every large city both white and colored people
told me that race feeling and discrimination were
rapidly increasing: that new and more olincui'
problems were constantly arising. Generally speak
ing, the negroes the sharper the expression
OF prejudice
ono finds something unspeakably pathetic in the
sectacle of these untold thousands of negroes VINO
are coming North. To many of them, oppressed
with the limitations UP by the South it is In
deed the promised land. And what DO negroes
find when they reach the promised land?
In the first place they find the alley home and the
deadly tenement.
In the South the great mass Of negroes nave
lived with their doors open; freplaces have kept
their homes ventilated they could leave the matter
of sanitation to fresh air and sunshine. Ana the
negro's very lack of training for such an ENVIRON
rent as that OF the North causes him untold suilei
ing To have fuel and because he loves to be warm
and sociabIe he and his family and friends crown
into one close room, which is kept at fever tenn
nerature. not by a heaIthful fireplace but by a
tight stove This with the lack of proper sanitary
converieuces becomes a hothed Of disease
I know of nothing more tragic than the condition
of the sHarmng newer negro populations OF North
ern ctjes-the more tragic because the negro Is so
cheerful and patient about all. looked into'the
statistics closely in several of them, and in no IN
stance does the birth rate keep race with the death
rate They die off than they reproduce tner-
selves and If II not for the immigration con-
stantIy rolling upward from the South the negro
r,opulation in Northern cities would show falling
of Consumption and the diseases of vice ravage
their numbers.
Not only is the death rate high in the North. but
the negro is hampered by sickness TO much
greater degree tlan WIlte leoPlt- iiO"P-'e-4 -NO@
in Philadelphia show excess of negro patents
over whites according population. OF l15 per
cent. About five thousand negroes passed through
the hospitals of Philadelphia last year averaging
a confinement of three weeks each. Mr.. Warner
in American Charities" makes sickness the chief
cause of poverty aron~ -ptored people in New
York Boston New Haven and Baltimore The per
centage Of sickness was twice more as high as
that of Germans Irish or white Americans
one OF the first things that struck me when
,I-sy fh. Mort "
the position the better class of white people Win
regard TO the negro In the South every white man
and woman has a vigorous and vital OPINION on
the race question. You have only 10 apply the
match the explosion Is TO follow Il IS not SO
in rbe North 4 few of the older people still pre-
saa something of the war times sentiment for the
reero but The people one ordinarily meets don't
know anything about the negro, don't discuss MN
and don't care about him In Indianapolis. and IN
deed in other cities, the only white people couId
find who were much interested in the negroes were
few politicians, mostly of the lower sort. the
charity workers and the police. But that. OF
course is equally true Of the Russion Jews or the
Italians One of the first white men with whom l
talked (at Indianapolis) said TO me with some I'M
patience:
There are too many negroes up here; they hurt
the city"
Another told me of the increasing presence of ne
grces in the parks the streets and in the street
He said:
~ ~-0f'N
some of the restrictions of the South"
He said it without heat but a sort Of tentative
conclusion. He hadn't fully made up his mind
In Boston of all places, expected TO ind much
of the old sentiment. 1T does exist among some or
the older men and women, but l was surprised al
the general attitude which l encountered. II was
one of hesitation and withdrawal Summed up L
think the feeling OF the better class of people in
tsoston tand elsewhere in Northern cities) might
be thus stated:
We have helped the negro to liberty; have
stand on his own feet Now let's see what he can
do for himself After ALL he must survive perish
by his efforts
In short. they have "cast the banting the
rocks"
Accompanying this change of attitude this hesi-
tation and withdrawal of the better class of white
men, one finds crude sporadic outbreaks on the
part of the rougher element Of white men-yho
have merely different way OF expressing them
selves.
In fact the more I see of conditions North and
South the more 1 that human nature north
of Mason and Dxons line is not different from
human nature south OF the line
Different degrees Of prejudice, il is true,
apparent in the two sections In the South the
social and political prejudice the natural result
Of the memories of slavery and reconstruction, Of
the greater mass OF negro population and of the
backward economic development. is stronger. In
the North. the other hand. comparatively little
social and political prejudice is apparent; but the
negro has hard fight to get anything but the
most subservient place in the economic machine.
AN UNSELFISH HORSE.
doctor and a clergyman exercising their
horses one morning in a country lane when an
argument arose between them as to which of the
animals DISPOSITION