evil suggests
the remedy. The author in a previous chapter points out the threatening
evil of crowding into the cities; a counter movement which would cause a
return to the country, or would at least stay the mad urban movement,
would not only improve the economic status of the race but would also
benefit its physical and moral health. Here is an open field for
practical philanthropy and wise Negro leadership.

The increase in consumption among Negroes is indeed a grave matter, but
it is possible to exaggerate its importance as sociological evidence. If
we listen to the alarmists and social agitators, we would find a hundred
causes, each of which would destroy the human race in a single
generation. The most encouraging evidence on this subject from the
Negro's point of view is afforded by the last report of the Surgeon
General of the United States Army. The statistics thus furnished are the
most valuable for comparative study, since they deal with the two races
on terms of equality, that is, the white and colored men are of about
the same ages and initial condition of health, they receive the same
treatment and are subject to the same diet, work, and social habits. "It
is to be noted, also," says the Surgeon General, "that during the past
two years the rates for consumption among the colored troops have fallen
so as to be much lower than those for the whites, whereas formerly they
were much higher."[34]

The following table prepared by Mr. Hershaw, shows plainly the gradual
decrease of the death rate from consumption in Southern cities for the
past fifteen years.

_Death rate per 1000 among Negroes from Consumption._[35]

City. Period. Rate. Period. Rate. Period. Rate.

Atlanta 1882-1885 50.20 1886-1890 45.88 1891-1895 43.48
Baltimore 1886 58.65 1887 55.42 1892 49.41
Charleston 1881-1884 72.20 1885-1889 68.08 1890-1894 57.66
Memphis 1882-1885 65.35 1886-1890 50.30 1891-1895 37.78
Richmond 1881-1885 54.93 1886-1890 41.63 1892-1895 34.74

It appears that the total death rate as well as that due to consumption
among Negroes reached the maximum about 1880 and has been on the gradual
decline ever since.

Consumption is only one of the contributing causes of the total death
rate. It has been shown that the death rate from all causes does not
necessarily point to the extinction of the race. This being so, there is
no