The Negro in America. 225 



the percentage of illegitimacy of the total number of coloured births 

 was 17.6 per cent., and for the whites 2.32 per cent. In 1894, 26.46 

 per cent, for the blacks, and for the whites 2.56 per cent. 



The negro women are the most discouraging part of the whole 

 negro problem. There are some who possess intelligence, nobility of 

 character, but they are the exceptions. The change which came 

 with the Civil War has been for the worse, and there are undoubtedly 

 signs of decadence of the women of the negro race. 



Let us turn to economic conditions and tendencies. The negro's 

 greatest sphere of usefulness is as an agricultural labourer. But he 

 rushes off to the overcrowded cities, and tries to get into the over- 

 crowded professions. The negro farm labourer, when good, is very 

 good. He is especially fit to labour in the cotton and corn fields, for 

 he can stand the fierce heat of the sun. His weak points are lack 

 of perseverance and unreliability. Many a Southern farmer has lost 

 heavily through the desertion of his negro labourers at a critical 

 moment. 



Even when he owns his land, as many do now, the negro cannot 

 be compared with the peasant owners of other countries, as France, 

 for instance. The negro's wants are limited. He has little ambition. 

 He cultivates just so much, and no more. If he has a farm of 20 

 acres, and he can eke out a livelihood from three acres, he allows 

 seventeen acres to remain fallow. Little benefit accrues to the 

 community from negro ownership of land. 



The fact seems to be that the South will lag behind the world 

 industrially in just so far as she depends entirely on negro labour. 

 Sad to relate, the huge sum of $800,000,000 spent on the education 

 of the negro since the Civil War, has done little to fit him for his 

 spheres of servant and peasant. In the South there are technical 

 schools exclusively for negroes. They are not servant-training 

 schools. The negroes there are taught to be masters. The majority 

 go out into the world determined to break loose from the white 

 man. 



On many of the plantations of Louisiana white labourers from 

 Southern Europe are employed instead of negroes. Perhaps this is 

 the beginning of a gradual replacement. What earthly chance will 

 the negro have if he lets the labour for which he is suited slip from 

 his hands? The educationalists teach him that, given the same 

 knowledge and training, he can compete with the white man in 

 any walk of life. This is a false, a pernicious doctrine, and 

 it is absolutely unjust to teach it to the black man. The greater part 

 of the education of the negro in America to-day is, in my opinion, 

 doing far more harm than good. There will be a whirlwind some 

 day ! 



Since the war the presence of the negro has been a clog, in one 

 sense, to the industrial advancement of the South. Labour has been 

 more or less despised by the white man. Every inducenient has 

 been offered the negro to carry on the rough work of the country. 

 Partially he has refused. The white man has been forced to take 



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