The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1910-01-07

not survive 10 become SICK. MlScar-
riages precluded invalids, and the grave
yard excluded the hospital.
1.-THE march of medical science has
steadily decreased the white death-rate,
but can do nothing for the Negro, be-
cause the Negro will do nothing for
himself"
"They mate without ceremony and
separate without formality."
The race had no morals to start
with and has gained none by its
American experience"
Their teachers are not succeeding
in creating a moral sense"
"The result is everywhere the
same" etc., ETC., etc., are some of the
statements which he mixes with sta
tistics to prove the Negroes physical
weakness and moral obliquity, and to
reach the melancholy but effective So
luton" that "the American Negro is
on a toboggan slide skidding down to
DEATH" and will make his grave "be-
side the Maori, the Hawaiian, and the
North American Indian, among the
races of men who have persisted from
the earth"
There are some fundamental errors
in this article.
l.. Judging the whole race from the
lowest stratum, absolutely ignoring
the educated and l%aw-abiding.
2. Accepting statistics from cities
as applicable to the whole race and &C
oo0+;1r e+o+;c4ioo1 Foroooc+e oo &acfc ~
vitality. The Negro is not the only
one who has failed to meet the prognos-
tications of social prophets. What of
Nautilus and his conclusions? There
are three kinds of lies, plain lies,
damn lies and statistics" so some n
has said, and yet statistics are not all
against us. They indicate an improve
ment in the decade from 1890-1900 over
that from 1SS0-1S90. There Is nothing
to indicate that the forthcoming cen
sus will show retrogression. The Ne
groes are still increasing in numbers,
Notwithstanding all obstacles and the
w~ell-known social law of decreasing
intellectual and financial growth. Els
timating female chastity by statistics
Of bastardy is an uncertain procedure,
since there are no reliable figures of
abortions, and founding asylums do
not publish detailed accounts of their
business.
3. Unjust comparisons.
None of the banished races ever be-
came adapted to the white mans civil
lization as has the American Negro.
They never built churches, acquired
property, founded and maintained
schools, produced lawyers, dentists,
pharmacists, doctors and trained nurs-
es. The American Negro has done all
these things which they neglected.
Why should he follow them to extinc-
ton? But the Indian is not extinct,
but increasing (see note -, and the
three main causes of the enormous
~death-rate (see note 81 among Negroes
have reached their maximum and are
receding.
These causes are:-(a) Unsanitary
surroundings, (b) Poverty, Co Ignor-
ance. They act and react upon one
another in such way that it is hard
to seperate them.
/ The u%nsanitary conditions of the
%congested Negro districts Every much
like the slum jewellers of other ma
tionalities) are brought about primari-
ly by the poverty and ignorance of the
inhabitants, but made almost inevita-
BILE by race prejudice, and perpetuated
by the rapacity, cruelty and licenti-
BUSINESS of the ruling classes. A Ne.
gro scarcely rent or buy elsewhere.
Poverty is one of the consequences
of ignorance. The lamentation of the
Hebrew prophet three thousand years
ago holds good to-day: my people are
led into captivity because they have
no knowledge" The difficulty efficient
Negroes have in getting and holding
paying jobs may be mentioned in ex-
tenuation If not in explanation of this
poverty. (See note 2.)
Again poverty and disease will pro-
duce ignorance, and Of course If the
congested slums of great cities, either
North or South, were the sole reliance
for rae perpetuity, race prejudice
would undoubtedly fit the warp of ig-
norance and the wool of disease into
the loom of civic oppression in such
manner that time would weave the
winding-sheet of the Negro race in
America. The cityward movement is
a detriment to the race, and must be
checked.
:. Regarding frailties that are hui
mar and universal as peculiar Negro
vices-superstition, for instance. (E.
~ ITn1-r nnIIn-.- III -.