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In August, 1896, there was published, under the auspices of the American Economic Association, a work entitled “Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro,” by Frederick L. Hoffman, F. S. S., statistician to the Prudential Insurance Company of America. This work presents by far the most thorough and comprehensive treatment of the Negro problem, from a statistical standpoint, which has yet appeared. In fact, it may be regarded as the most important utterance on the subject since the publica

Subject. Population. Gist. “For some generations the colored element may continue to make decennial gains, but it is very probable that the next thirty years will be the last to show total gains, and then the decrease will be slow but sure until final disappearance.” [8] I have taken this quotation from another work by the same author as it represents more clearly than any other condensed statement the substance of the present chapter. This proposition is a most important one, and therefore its

Subject. Vital Statistics. Gist. “The vitality of the Negro may well be considered the most important phase of the so-called race problem, for it is a fact which can and will be demonstrated by indisputable evidence that of all races for which statistics are obtainable and which enter at all into the consideration of economic problems as factors the Negro shows the least power of resistance in the struggle for life.” [18]   Statistics are collected from ten of the largest cities with the result

Subject. Anthropometry. Gist. “In vital capacity, the most important of all physiological characteristics, the tendency of the race has been downward.” [36] Ample statistics are presented to show that in proportion to structure the Negro is heavier than the white man. This fact, the author tells us, is ordinarily considered favorable to a healthy development and freedom from pulmonary weakness. “The elaborate investigations of the medical department of the New York Mutual Life, in 1874, of the W

Subject. Amalgamation. Gist. “The crossing of the Negro race with the white has been detrimental to its true progress and has contributed more than anything else to the excessive and increasing rate of mortality from the most fatal disease, as well as to its consequent inferior social efficiency and diminishing power as a force in American national life.” [40] The importance of this proposition is apparent when we consider that the Negroes in this country are a thoroughly mixed people. The pure

Subject: Social Conditions. Gist: “Immorality is a race trait.” [48] Under the sub-heads of religion and education statistics are presented showing the progress of the race along these lines. A total church membership of 2,673,977 shows that there is one communicant to every 2.79 of the Negro population, against one in every 3.04 for the whites. There were 1,288,736 pupils in the common schools and 34,129 in the higher schools, colleges, and universities. Ordinarily these facts are regarded as t

Subject: Economic Conditions. Gist: “As a general conclusion it may be said that the Negro has not yet learned the first element of Anglo-Saxon thrift.” [55] Attempt is made to show that the Negro has deteriorated as a farm laborer, and that as an industrial factor he has not held his own in the development of the resources of the South. With a process of reasoning with which we are fully familiar by this time, these assertions are sought to be upheld. The decline in agricultural interests throu

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 excess