THERN NEGROES.

In further proof of the low vitality of the Negro race the author shows
at great length that the race cannot thrive in the North. For every
Northern community for which statistics are available it appears that
the death rate is in excess of the birth rate. It does not seem to have
occurred to the author that economic and social environment may lead to
this deplorable result. Dr. Walker, in a publication which has already
been referred to, states: "The industrial _raison d'etre_ of the Negro
is here (in the South) found at its maximum. In the Northern states this
_raison d'etre_ wholly disappears. There is nothing, aside from a few
kinds of personal service, which the Negro can do which the white man
cannot do as well or perhaps better."[30]

In the North the Negro race lives in industrial and social captivity;
not being in sufficient numbers to form an independent constituency,
they whine and pine over certain abstract principles of equality and
brotherhood, but which, alas, fade into impalpable air under the
application of a concrete test. They sit in the shadow of the tree of
liberty and boast of its protecting boughs, but must not aspire to
partake of the fruit thereof. The undershrubbery purchases shade and
protection at too dear a price when it sacrifices therefor the
opportunity of the glorious sunlight of heaven. No healthy, vigorous
breed can be produced in the shade. No wonder, then, that the productive
sensitiveness of the Northern Negro is affected by his industrial and
social isolation among an overshadowing people who regard him with a
feeling composed in equal parts of pity and contempt.

CONSUMPTION AMONG NEGROES.

The author enters into the causes of mortality and points out that in
addition to infant mortality, which has already been noticed,
consumption, pneumonia, and vicious taints of blood are the most
alarming ones. With gloomy forebodings we are reminded that: "Its (the
Negro race) extreme liability to consumption alone would suffice to seal
its fate as a race."[31]

The following citation will express the truth of the situation as
clearly as it is possible to do: "From close personal observation,
embracing a professional life of nearly forty years among the Negroes
and from data obtained from professional brethren in different sections
of the South, I have no hesitancy in declaring that insanity and
tuberculosis were rare diseases among the Negroes of the South prior to
em