144 



The Journal of Heredity 



to the fact that in the registration area 

 in 1910 — an area including nearly three- 

 fifths of the whites and more than one- 

 fifth of the Negroes, and so a fair index 

 of conditions in the country at large — 

 the Negro death rate exceeded the white 

 by about two-thirds. If the fectmdity 

 of the darker race likewise exceeded that 

 of the whites by two-thirds, the differ- 

 ence in the death rates would not entail 

 a diflferent rate of natural increase. 

 Although no exact measure of fecundity 

 can be gained until there is an effective 

 registration of births, a rough substitute 

 for it has been found in the proportion 

 of living children under five years of 

 age to 1,000 women of child-bearing age. 



NEGRO FECUNDITY. 



Measured in this way, the fecundity 

 of the American Negro is and has been 

 for the 60 years since 1850 greater than 

 that of the white. During the 30 years 

 since 1880 — and those are just the years 

 within which the proportion of Negroes 

 in the South has been falling — the 

 excess in the proportion of Negro chil- 

 dren over white children in the country 

 has likewise been falling. The present 

 difference in fecundity between the races 

 is little more than one-fourth of that in 

 1880, and at present rates of change it 

 will have disappeared entirely before the 

 next census is taken. In the South the 

 proportions of children in the total 

 population and in each race are notably 

 above the corresijonding proportions in 

 the North. Indeed it is probable that 

 a main reason for the greater fecundity 

 of the Negro race is found in the fact 

 that this race, of which nearly nine- 

 tenths live in the South, has the high 

 fecundity characteristic of the vSovith, 

 and the white race, of which the majority 

 live in the North, has the lower fecun- 

 dity characteristic of the North. For 

 in the southern states the proportion of 

 children to women among whites already 

 exceeds that among Negroes by 10%. 



The evidence, then, points to a differ- 

 ential natural increase as an important 

 factor, a factor in my oi:)inion at least 

 as important as immigration, in deter- 

 mining the i)resent and future relati\-e 



proportions of the two main races in this 

 country. 



Among the whites, the main classes 

 whose differential fecundity has been 

 somewhat studied, are the native and 

 the foreign-born stock. This branch of 

 the inquiry is difficult not only because 

 of that lack of data which almost baffies 

 one in studying the differential fecun- 

 dity of white and Negro, but also because 

 the lines between the two classes are 

 fluid and variable. A son born of immi- 

 grant parents the day after their land- 

 ing is of the same stock as they, yet in 

 the statistical tables he stands as a 

 native American and they as foreign- 

 born or immigrant. Although efforts 

 have been made to measure the propor- 

 tion of the white population of the 

 United States at the end of the nine- 

 teenth century which sprang from the 

 whites who were in this country at its 

 beginning, and the proportion due to 

 immigration during the century, yet 

 none of the results seems to have won 

 or to be entitled to general acceptance, 

 and for that reason I must pass this 

 topic as still a happy hunting ground 

 for conjecture. 



CHANGES IN MASSACHUSETTS. 



A careful and illuminating study of 

 the comparative fecundity of the native 

 and foreign-born i)opulation of Massa- 

 chusetts and of the various strains of 

 the foreign-born in that state during 

 the 15 years, 1883-1897, was made in 

 1901 by Dr. R. R. Kuczynski.' The 

 proportion of married women who had 

 outlived the child-bearing age without 

 having borne any child was 99c among 

 the foreign-born, and 15% among the 

 native, indicating that the proportion 

 of sterile marriages is about two-thirds 

 greater among natives than anKMig 

 foreign-born. The average annual num- 

 ber of births among 1,000 immigrants 

 was more than three times as great as 

 among 1,000 natives of the United 

 States. But a large proportion of the 

 natives and a small ijro]jortion of immi- 

 grants are children, and for this reason 

 a fairer comi)arison of fecundity was 

 secured l)\- excludiiiL: the children b(>tli 



^In {.hv Quarterly Jnurual of Economics for NovciiiIkt, 1*>()1, and Ffhriiary, 1902. 



