Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/393

NEGRO IN AMERICA. practice to let small holdings to negroes, in order that interest in the crop may diminish their migratory tendencies. According to the census of 1890, 549,642 ‘farms’ were occupied by negroes, of which only 22 per cent. were owned by their occupants. The tenant farmers sometimes pay a cash rental, but more frequently farm ‘on shares.’ The landowner furnishes machinery and draught animals, receiving one-half the crop. Frequently he advances food and other supplies to the tenant, recouping himself out of the tenant's share in the crop.

Whether as tenant or as independent landowner, the negro farmer has not as yet attained a high degree of prosperity. Negligence in the care of his stock and machinery and lack of foresight in the expenditure of his income prevent him from attaining economic independence. Recent educational movements (see ) aim to encourage the negro tenant to become a landowner, and to teach him how to utilize his land to the best advantage. The great mass of the negro farmers have not yet been affected by such influences.

In the North the negro manifests a tendency to concentrate in the cities, where his economic activities are chiefly confined to personal service and unskilled labor.

. When account is taken of the fact that the ancestors of the American negro were taken from a state of barbarism in which moral standards were quite wanting, and were subjected only to comparatively weak moral restraint under slavery, it does not appear surprising that the social and moral condition of the negro is unsatisfactory. The great mass of the negro children receive an inadequate home training, and are therefore left to pursue their own inclinations, with the result that they readily lapse into their ancestral vices. The rules of monogamic marriage are but loosely obeyed—the exchanging of wives, for example, being not uncommon on Southern plantations. Illegitimacy is common. The percentage of illegitimate births among negroes in the city of Washington increased from 17.6 per cent. in 1879 to 26.5 per cent. in 1894. Sexual promiscuity is common wherever large negro colonies exist. Whether conditions are improving or deteriorating in this respect it is impossible to prove. It is, however, the testimony of a large number of observers that wherever the negro withdraws from the presence of the white population, moral conditions deteriorate: hence the tendency toward segregation noted above is generally viewed with anxiety by thcise who are most deeply interested in the improvement of the negro race. Wherever the economic conditions of the negro are improving, on the other hand, family life and morals also show a tendency toward improvement. The poverty of the masses of the negroes at present results in the overcrowding of cabins and tenements, which is destructive of family life and morality. For this reason students of the race problem look to the technical education of the negro as the best method of elevating him morally.

Statistics of crime present another serious problem connected with the presence of the negro in the United States. In 1890 there were in the Southern States six white prisoners to every ten thousand whites, and twenty-nine negro prisoners to every ten thousand negroes. In the Northern

States there were twelve white prisoners to every ten thousand whites, sixty-nine negro prisoners to every ten thousand negroes. In the South negro prisoners increased 29 per cent. per ten thousand between 1880 and 1890, while white prisoners increased 8 per cent. per ten thousand. While it is no doubt true that a larger percentage of crimes against property committed by negroes is detected and punished, and hence the relative amount of negro criminality may be exaggerated, it is also true that a large number of negro crimes committed against members of their own race are not punished at all, and so do not appear in the statistics of criminality. Crimes of violence appear to be increasingly frequent where the negroes are least in contact with the whites.

The greatest improvement in the position of the negro appears in the statistics of education. At the close of the Civil War it is doubtful whether more than 5 per cent. could read and write. In 1900 the percentage of illiteracy had been reduced to 44.5 per cent. But it does not appear that such education as the mass of the negroes have received has perceptibly affected their material or moral conditions.

. After the close of the Civil War, the negroes, under the leadership of a certain class of whites, practically controlled the government of many of the Southern States. (See .) Their ignorance and lack of political training rendered them incapable of exercising political power wisely, and they were gradually excluded from power by the whites, at first by wholly illegal means, later by State laws and constitutional amendments. In 1890 the Constitution of Mississippi was amended so as to exclude from the suffrage any person unable to read any section of the Constitution, or understand it when read to him and give a reasonable interpretation of it. Payment of a poll tax was also required. The effect of this amendment was the exclusion of the greater part of the negro vote. In 1895 South Carolina amended its Constitution so as to exclude the votes of those unable to read or write any section of the Constitution, or to show that he owned and paid taxes on property assessed at $300 or more. In 1898 Louisiana passed a similar amendment, with the addition of the so-called ‘grandfather clause,’ excusing from the limitations of the amendment all descendants of men who voted previous to the war, thus admitting to the suffrage illiterate, propertyless whites. North Carolina took similar action in 1900, though no property qualification was required. In 1901 constitutional amendments were adopted in Virginia and Alabama practically disfranchising the negro.

For the solution of the various ‘negro problems,’ social, economic, and political, several plans have been brought to public attention. Repatriation of the negro in Africa was widely advocated, especially in the first two decades after the Civil War; but the plan has been generally abandoned as impracticable, since the negro manifests no desire to return to Africa, and could not be forced to emigrate against his will. From a moral point of view, the plan has been condemned on the ground that it would mean a reversion to barbarism of the greater part of the race. Economically its effects would be grave, since the Southern States must for a long time rely upon the negro for unskilled labor.

The plan which finds greatest favor at present