Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/159



URING the past few months the presence of the negro in the United States, his future, and his possible influence upon our social and political fabric, have become a fertile subject of discussion. Thus far the argument has tended entirely in one direction, all writers seeming to be agreed that the country is rapidly getting into a bad way, by reason of its millions of black laborers. Various remedies have been prescribed, all of them more or less difficult to apply.

It would appear that the wisest course to pursue would be to first study the case thoroughly, and make sure that the alleged patient is really ill, before pouring into him any nauseous draughts. It is possible that he is merely a hypochondriac.

In "The Popular Science Monthly" for February, 1883, there appeared an article by Professor E. W. Gilliam, entitled "The African in the United States," in which, by a free handling of the statistics of the last two censuses, the author attempted to prove that the colored race is increasing in this country at a much more rapid rate than the whites, and that consequently, unless some effectual preventive measure against this increase be taken at once, we are in imminent danger of becoming Africanized. He proposed, as the cure for the impending evils, a wholesale, forced migration of the colored people.

This article is reenforced by another from the same author, in the November number of the "North American," in which the same views are reiterated.

As these articles have attracted much attention, it is desirable to notice them in some detail. The argument upon which Professor Gilliam bases his conclusion that the negroes are increasing faster than