A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro Part 5

CHAPTER VII.

Conclusion.

The need of this chapter is hardly apparent, for the author's conclusion is as clearly set forth in the beginning as at the close of the treatise. As to his leading conclusion, the author is not only out of harmony with the general opinion prevalent among students of the Negro problem, but is also strangely inconsistent with his former self. The same author who in 1896, wrote: "It is not in the condition of life, but in the race traits and tendencies, that we find the cause of excessive mortality,"[57] in 1892 affirmed: "The colored population is placed at many disadvantages which it cannot very well remove. The unsanitary condition of their dwellings, their ignorance of the laws of health, and general poverty are the princ.i.p.al causes of their high mortality."[58]

The Frederick L. Hoffman of 1892, according to the general judgment, is much nearer the true a.n.a.lysis than the Frederick L. Hoffman of 1896.

The author's conclusion will not stand the philosophical tests of a sound theory.

1. It is based upon disputed data. The accuracy of the eleventh census is not acceptable either to the popular or the scientific mind.

2. It is not based upon a sufficient induction of data. The arguments at most apply to the Negroes in the large cities, who const.i.tute less than 12 per cent of the total population.

3. It does not account for the facts arranged under it as satisfactorily as can be done under a different hypothesis. The author fails to consider that the discouraging facts of observation may be due to the violent upheaval of emanc.i.p.ation and reconstruction, and are, therefore, only temporary in their duration.

I do not know whether the author believes in Providence as a determining factor in society or not. It may not be accounted scientific to take cognizance of any element which cannot be quantified, counted, weighed, or measured. But I do know that the wisest of our species have always believed that G.o.d is the controlling factor in human affairs. The Negro's hopes and aspirations are built upon the foundation of this belief. We are told in His word that he visits the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. If the Negro, then, will conform his life to the moral and sanitary laws, may not the evil tendencies now observable be eradicated or overcome? The first effects of emanc.i.p.ation are always harmful to the moral and physical well-being of the liberated cla.s.s. The removal of physical restraints, before moral restraints have grown strong enough to take their place, must always result in misconduct. The Jews in Egypt labored under circ.u.mstances remarkably similar to those of the American Negro. After their emanc.i.p.ation, it required them forty years to make the progress which the scientific process would have required them to make in forty days. Such was their moral and physical degeneracy, that only two persons of all the hosts who left the land of Egyptian bondage survived to reach the Promised Land forty years afterward. Luckily for the Hebrews, there were no statisticians in those days. Think of the future which an Egyptian philosopher would have predicted for this people! And yet out of the loins of this race have sprung the moral and spiritual law-givers of mankind. We should not be discouraged because the Negro does not make a bee-line from Egyptian bondage to the Promised Land beyond the Jordan. He, too, must tarry awhile in the wilderness before he enters upon the full enjoyment of the heritage of freedom.

To the Negro I would say, let him not be discouraged at the ugly facts which confront him. The sociologists are flas.h.i.+ng the searchlight of scientific inquiry upon him. His faults lie nearer the surface and are more easily detected than those of the white race. Let him not be overwhelmed when all his faults are observed, set in a note book, learned and conned by rote, to be cast into his teeth. If all the ugly facts about any people were brought to light they would furnish an unpleasant record. When the Savior told the woman of Samaria all that she ever did, a very unsavory career was disclosed. If all the misdeeds of any people or individual were brought to light, the best of the race would be injured and the rest would be ruined. The Negro should accept the facts with becoming humility, and strive to live in closer conformity with the requirements of human and divine law. He does not labor under a destiny of death from which there is no escape. It is a condition and not a theory that confronts him.

KELLY MILLER.

Footnotes:

[1] Author's preface.

[2] Page 51.

[3] Page 95.

[4] Page 95.

[5] Page 176.

[6] Page 312.

[7] Page 311.

[8] Frederick L. Hoffman, in the Arena, April, 1892.

[9] Giddings' "Principles of Sociology," page 79.

[10] Senator Roger Q. Mills, in the Forum, April, 1891.

[11] Estimated by General Francis A. Walker, Forum, July, 1891.

[12] W. E. B. Du Bois, Ph. D., in the American Academy of Political Science, January, 1897.

[13] Miles Menander Dawson, in the Quarterly Publications of the American Statistical a.s.sociation, September-December, 1896, page 142.

[14] Page 14.

[15] General Francis A. Walker, Forum, July, 1891.

[16] Page 20.

[17] See New York Evangelist, June, 1897.

[18] Page 37.

[19] The Health Officer of Savannah, quoted by Mr. Hoffman, page 62.

[20] Page 63.

[21] Page 33.

[22] M. G. Mulhall, F. S. S., in North American Review, July, 1897.

[23] Tenth Census, Vol. XI, p. x.x.xviii.

[24] Dr. John S. Billings' comments upon Vital Statistics of the Tenth Census, Vol. XI, p. x.x.xviii.

[25] Pages 53 and 54.

[26] Report of the Health Officer of the District of Columbia, 1896, page 7.

[27] Pages 53 and 55.

[28] Bulletin of the Department of Labor, No. 10, May, 1897, page 286.

[29] Surgeon General's Report, 1896, Table XII.

[30] Dr. Francis A. Walker, in the Forum, July, 1891.

[31] Page 148.

[32] "The Effects of Emanc.i.p.ation upon the Mental and Physical Health of the Negro," by Dr. J. F. Miller, Superintendent Eastern Hospital, Goldsboro, N. C., page 2.

[33] Ibid., page 6.

[34] Report of Surgeon General of the Army, August, 1896, page 89.

[35] L. M. Hershaw, Esq., in Atlanta University Bulletin, No. 2. page 16.

[36] Page 176.