RACE PROBLEMS IN THE WEST INDIES o8V 



question of weeks or months. It may be a simple mala- 

 ria] fever, a pernicious malarial fever, or the dreaded "yel- 

 low Jack." 



White men wenl to the Wesl [ndies long before these 

 lays of modern sanitation, ami lived to old age, and 

 others can now do the same. It is bu1 fair to say that 

 the presenl population, both white and black, has only 

 been established at a tremendous cosl of life. The Eng- 

 lish have reduced the death-rate in Jamaica from 100 

 to 19 per 1000, and the Americans will reduce that of 

 Cuba; but even with all that science has done ami is 

 doing, acclimation will for many years remain a costly 

 process, which will always require sacrifice of strength, 

 if not of life 



In tic Wesl Indies there arc hut two or possibly three 

 islands in which there is room for further I ;* n -:t -in n 

 colonization Cuba, Santo Domingo, and possibly Ja- 

 maica. Porto Rico is already crowded, while the Lesser 

 Antilles, owing to their remoteness from markets, offer 

 no inducement at present to white immigration. It is 

 only to the business man and developer of large enter- 

 prises that these islands offer opportunities. With the 

 exception of Cuba and Porto Rico, they are overwhelm- 

 ingly populated by the black races. These people, consti- 

 tuting the laboring element, are there t< stay, for better 

 or for worse, and their future advancement or degenera- 

 tion depends upou the treatment they receive from, and 

 the example that is sel them by, the governing class s. 

 Some of the islands are ><> densely populated that they 

 -cm incapable of supporting another human being, while 

 others possess room for future black populations. 



Every thoughtful reader must ask if this large propor- 

 tion of blacks is not a menace to our civilization. I have 

 tried from time to time to show that the West Indian 

 negroes are of many varieties, bul that they are a harm- 

 less ami useful race, thai they .-ire the only people who 

 can do hard manual labor in the tropics, and thai they 



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