CHAPTER VIII.

STATISTICS OF THE NEGRO IN THE UNITED STATES.

We will now turn to the latest census statistics, Bulletin 8, of the United States Census Bureau, Washington, D. C., and see how freedom, educational advantages, and association with the Anglo-Saxon race has affected the negro.

A glance at this table shows us that the negro is pre-eminently a servant, and the increase in porters, 147.8 per cent, janitors 94.0 per cent, general laborers 56.0 per cent, and nurses 272.0 per cent, between 1890 and 1900, as against the smaller per cent of increase in other lines of work, indicates progress along manual labor rather than intellectual lines.

The majority of those who attend the previously mentioned schools and colleges obtain more or less knowledge, which, when rightly applied, is of considerable service to them. The few who really become edu

cated are materially improved by it. Unfortunately, however, the masses of the negroes of the South have hardly been influenced by education.

A large per cent of almost every other nationality that comes to America are thrifty, and thousands of instances could be cited where they have come here with less than a hundred dollars, and are to-day either millionaires or at least wealthy.

Nothing of this kind can be said of the negro.

In the entire negro population of the Continental United States, 8,333,994, there are only 757,822 farmers, planters and overseers com. bined. Of the remaining 7,576,172, only 3,234,515 are engaged in gainful occupations. This leaves 4,341,657 unemployed. Of these there are 2,418,413 children, and 261,403 negroes over 65 years old. Eliminating these, we have 1,661,841 unemployed. Of those who have employment, 1,159,900 are unemployed a part of each year.

Where the negro does engage in farming for himself he is preeminently a small farmer, cultivating 50 acres where the white farmer

has 160.

There is some evidence of a slight separation between the two races in the South since 1890, the center of population for southern negroes being 79 miles from that for southern whites in 1890 and 94 miles in 1900.

The rate of increase of negroes declined steadily through the nineteenth century.

In the southern states the increase of the negroes in each decade between 1800 and 1840 was more rapid than that of the whites; since 1840 it has been less rapid. Between 1860 and 1900 southern negroes increased 93.4 per cent and southern whites 134.9 per cent. In the country districts of the South, excluding the population of the 242 cities which had at least 2,500 inhabitants, both in 1890 and in 1900, the negroes increased, 1890 to 1900, 16.4 per cent; in the 242 southern cities, as a whole, they increased 21.7 per cent. Their increase in the country districts was about two-thirds as rapid as that of the whites in the same area; their increase in southern cities was nearly fivesixths as fast as that of the whites in the same cities.

In the largest southern cities, that is the five having at least 100,000 inhabitants, in 1900, the negro population increased 25.8 per cent, 1890 to 1900; the white population of the same cities increased only 20.8 per cent. This is the only group of southern cities in which the rate of increase of negro population exceeded that of the whites. In the 38 cities of this class in Continental United States the per cent of increase, 1890 to 1900, was 38 for negroes and 32.7 for whites.

Illiteracy among negroes is about seven times as common as among whites, and this ratio between the races has not altered materially in the last ten years.

Illiteracy among southern negroes is more than four times that among southern whites, and much more prevalent in rural districts than in cities. Thus in the southern states nearly one-half (49.8 per cent) of the negroes at least 10 years of age living outside cities having 25,000 or more inhabitants are illiterate. In the cities, however, less than onethird (31.5 per cent) of the negroes are illiterate. Here they come in closer contact with the whites.

The per cent of negro children who attend high schools in cities, especially northern cities, is much larger than it is in rural districts of the south.

The prevalence of illiteracy in the two races is shown in the following tables:

When we consider that there are included in these tables the thousands of illiterate foreign whites who migrate to the United States every year, and bear in mind that there are as many schools for negroes as for whites in the south in proportion to their population, and that the schools of the northern and western states admit the negro on an equal basis with the whites, we can readily see that to maintain their standard the whites have a much greater proportion of illiteracy to overcome than do the negroes.

The following table will show the per cent of increase of criminals in the United States for both races: