J. W. Gilbert, A. M.
PROF. JOHN W. GILBERT, M. A.Prof. John Wesley Gilbert, A. B., A. M., was born at Hephzibah, Ga., July 6, 1864. Young Gilbert was left to the care of his widowed mother and his uncle John, for whom he had been named. He usually spent half the year on the farm and the other half in the public schools of the city of Augusta. After finishing the public grammar school course, he spent twelve months, all told, in the Atlanta Baptist College (then Seminary).In January, 1884, Paine College opened in Augusta. He attended this institution eighteen months and graduated from it in June, 1886. In September of the same year he entered the Junior Class of Brown University, Providence, R. I. He graduated from this historic institution with honor in June, 1888. For excellence in Greek a scholarship in the American College, Athens, Greece, was conferred upon him at the end of his Senior year. In the spring of 1889, he married Miss Osceola Pleasant of Augusta, Ga. He attended the American College, Athens, Greece, during 1890-91. Under his supervision the site of Ancient Eretria, now Nea Psara, on the island of Enbola, was excavated and in collaboration with Prof. John Pickard, the only extant map of this ancient city was made by him. All the places of classic note in Greece were visited and studied by him. His M. A. degree was conferred upon him by Brown University upon the presentation of his thesis, "The Demes of Attica." He also took one semester of lectures in the University of Berlin, in 1891. He is author of several archaeological productions and has contributed articles on this subject to theNew York Independentand other journals of like standing. He is at present a member of the Philological Association of America, and membership, which he accepts, in the Archaeological Institute, has also been tendered him. Ever since the fall of 1891, he has held the chair of Greek and German in Paine College, Augusta, Ga. Besides, he is a preacher of the order of Elder in the C. M. E. Church in America. As representative of that church, he was a delegate to the Ecumenical Conference, held in London, England, September, 1901. During the session he preached and lectured for a number of the largest and most intelligent audiences in England.
PROF. JOHN W. GILBERT, M. A.
Prof. John Wesley Gilbert, A. B., A. M., was born at Hephzibah, Ga., July 6, 1864. Young Gilbert was left to the care of his widowed mother and his uncle John, for whom he had been named. He usually spent half the year on the farm and the other half in the public schools of the city of Augusta. After finishing the public grammar school course, he spent twelve months, all told, in the Atlanta Baptist College (then Seminary).
In January, 1884, Paine College opened in Augusta. He attended this institution eighteen months and graduated from it in June, 1886. In September of the same year he entered the Junior Class of Brown University, Providence, R. I. He graduated from this historic institution with honor in June, 1888. For excellence in Greek a scholarship in the American College, Athens, Greece, was conferred upon him at the end of his Senior year. In the spring of 1889, he married Miss Osceola Pleasant of Augusta, Ga. He attended the American College, Athens, Greece, during 1890-91. Under his supervision the site of Ancient Eretria, now Nea Psara, on the island of Enbola, was excavated and in collaboration with Prof. John Pickard, the only extant map of this ancient city was made by him. All the places of classic note in Greece were visited and studied by him. His M. A. degree was conferred upon him by Brown University upon the presentation of his thesis, "The Demes of Attica." He also took one semester of lectures in the University of Berlin, in 1891. He is author of several archaeological productions and has contributed articles on this subject to theNew York Independentand other journals of like standing. He is at present a member of the Philological Association of America, and membership, which he accepts, in the Archaeological Institute, has also been tendered him. Ever since the fall of 1891, he has held the chair of Greek and German in Paine College, Augusta, Ga. Besides, he is a preacher of the order of Elder in the C. M. E. Church in America. As representative of that church, he was a delegate to the Ecumenical Conference, held in London, England, September, 1901. During the session he preached and lectured for a number of the largest and most intelligent audiences in England.
By proper education of the patrons, and merit on the part of Negro business enterprises and professional men, is a summary answer to the above question. It will be well for our present purposes to investigate this answer in detail. The natural inference therefrom—an inference whose justness is easily demonstrable—is that the education of the Negro race, so far and in such manner as it has already proceeded, is defective, when it comes to the question of training Negroes to support their own business enterprises and professional men. The very text books, not to mention the living teachers, in every department of education, whether professional or otherwise, are written by authors and for students other than Negroes. For every public, and well nigh every private educational institution of the land, the trustees of education have prescribed books which, besides suppressing whatever praiseworthy associations the race has had with the history and literature of our common country, never call the words of a Negro wise; nor his deeds noble. It is neither a sufficient nor true answer to the question, to say that Negroes have contributed nothing of educational or civic value to the literature or history of this country. Manifestly, then, our young people come out of school without confidence in the ability of their race to do what members of other races can do. This, I take it, is the reason why we find educated Negroes, as a rule, bestowing their patronage upon business enterprises and professional men of other races rather than upon their own representatives in the same vocation. This lack of confidence and race pride, characteristic of the educated as well as of the uneducated Negro, is the most destructive heritage bequeathed by slavery days to any once enslaved race in the history of the world. Hence, as a race, we need a thorough revision of our system of education which shall encourage the production of Negro authorship, on the one hand, and the confidence-and-pride-inspiring study of the worthfulness of the Negro's enviable record, on the other.
The schools are, however, only one of the agencies of education in the broadest acceptation of that term. Equally potent with scholastictraining, if not more so, is the cultivation of social sentiment in the community. Sentiment is higher than law, and the endeavor of all honest legislation should be to make laws expressive of the mandates of the highest and best sentiment. Any given community can almost always be trusted to act upon the impulse of sentiment, whether this comports with the law or not. Whether expressed or unexpressed, the social sentiment among Negroes—and it is seemingly often innate—is not favorable to the support of their own enterprises and professional men. Were it otherwise, we should now have prosperous wholesale and retail merchants, successful factories, large real estate agencies, considerable banks, solid insurance companies, better institutions of learning, well-paid lawyers, physicians, dentists, etc., and the reaction on the whole race would have been to change our status in the nation from that of mendicant denizens, as at present, to that of influential well-to-do citizens. This mutual helping of each other is expected of us, if we are to judge from the evidences given us from time to time by our white fellow citizens. For example, the white undertakers in Augusta, Georgia, have given up to the colored undertakers all their Negro patronage. The best white physicians do not seek Negro patients. Although greed for "the almighty dollar" keeps most white business men seeking Negro patronage, they do not, as a rule, try to prevent Negroes from patronizing Negroes except by striving to make it to their pecuniary advantage to patronize white men. In a word, it is natural, they allow, for birds of a feather to flock together. And this is true of the Jew, the German, the Irishman, of all except the Negro. As it is, the average Negro chooses rather to be discourteously and carelessly treated by a white professional or business man, often of inferior ability, than to be properly treated by a man of superior ability of his own race. Hence, to induce Negro patronage of Negro enterprises and professional men, there must be cultivation of the social sentiment of the Negro community by all possible means.
From every view-point the pulpit is the strongest factor in the cultivation of social sentiment. Some few preachers occasionally "talkon this line," but unfortunately for the influence of their admonitions, they themselves purchase their groceries and drugs, employ their physician and undertaker from members of another race. "A house divided against itself cannot stand," like many another passage and teachingfromthe "Book of God and the god of books," might as applicably bepreached to a large number of Negro preachers as to their congregations. It is no "unholy compromise" of the gospel of saving grace to teach that the "Man of Galilee" came first unto his "own," and that to "follow after him" and his apostles in their doctrine of "first to the Jew," our religion should exemplify Christ by our acting on the principle, "first to the Negro." I would have this doctrine promulgated persistently, earnestly, constantly, from every Negro pulpit as the only hope of the Negro race, as such, and, therefore, of the perpetuity and progress of their churches. Nor should the publishing of the doctrine find place only in the congregations of the laity, but it should be proclaimed in the clerical conferences, conventions, associations, synods, assemblies, etc., for I recognize it as a case of "Physician, heal thyself."
This cultivation of sentiment in the purely religious bodies should be supplemented by similar efforts in the "thousand-and-one" societies of one sort and another among us. Let them incorporate it in their constitutions as a requirement for membership. It would not be amiss for our national race congresses and conventions to scatter broadcast and thickly over the whole land literature to this effect. Let that Negro individual or body be ostracized that does not subscribe to this doctrine, or fails to live in accord therewith.
To summarize, this training in the school room, preaching in the pulpit, proclaiming in social and civic organizations, promulgation from the rostrum, and broadcast distribution of literature, all tending toward the same end, it seems to me, would properly educate the popular mind and be productive of that social sentiment without which Negro enterprises and professional men are doomed either to utter failure, or, at most, to the eking out of a miserable death-in-life existence.
Now, as to those engaged in these enterprises and professions a few words may be befittingly said. In order to inspire the confidence and reasonably expect the patronage sought, there must be merit in the claims of the seeker. The business enterprise must present no appearance of hazard or mere adventure; for the mere matter of sameness of race does not warrant one in taking risks as a partner or patron in "wild-cat schemes." No man should expect or receive patronage solely because he is black; for your patron, besides generally being poor, is also black, and might as justly look for favors of you upon that score as you of him. The business, let us say of buying and selling, mustshow reason for its existence and firmness in its project. Besides capital, a common sense application of the economic laws of supply and demand, the principle of "low prices, quick sales," the proper estimates of the actual and prospective fluctuations of the market, these all must give evidences of yourraison d'etre, your firmness of business, and your claim upon public patronage. It goes without saying that the quality of your goods or services must be second to none at the same price. In the professions Negro practitioners, if there is to be any difference in point of ability between them and other professional men, must beexceedinglywell prepared for their chosen fields. This is imperative, because the presumption of the masses of Negroes, to say nothing of others, is that, on the average, the Negro professional man is not amply qualified for the pursuit of his profession. I would have Negro professional men spend much time in the study of their professions both before and after entrance thereupon. I should like to know that the average Negro preacher, physician, lawyer, etc., is better equipped for his work than the average professional man, whether white or black, who is now receiving the patronage of Negroes.
Finally, the business or professional man must be of the people and for the people, interested in their welfare of whatever sort, and promotive of the same as far as he is able. He must not be "seeking only what he may devour," but must give himself unreservedly to the people for their uplift in every good cause. I do not mean that there should be any "let-down" along moral lines, but I do mean to imply that a great many failures are due to the exclusive separation of not a few Negro professional men from the people unless when pecuniary gain is the sole purpose.
These principles have made others successful. They are but natural laws deducible from the philosophy of history. Therefore, if two and two make four, why should not an application of these laws induce, nay, compel Negroes to rally to the support of Negro enterprises and their own professional men?
THIRD PAPER.
HOW CAN THE NEGROES BE INDUCED TO RALLY MORE TO NEGRO ENTERPRISES AND TO THEIR PROFESSIONAL MEN?
BY J. R. PORTER, D. D. S.
Dr. J. R. Porter
J. R. PORTER, D. D. S.Dr. J. R. Porter was born and reared in Savannah, Ga., among very pleasant home influences. He is the son of the late Rev. James Porter, of that city, well remembered as educator and musician, as one who loved his fellow man, and was eager to serve his race in any capacity. The son has partaken of these better qualities, and is earnestly following the father's footsteps.J. R. Porter received his primary education in the West Broad Street Public School of his native city, and through assiduous application while a pupil of the public school, was enabled to enter Atlanta University on a two-year scholarship won in competitive examination. He graduated in 1886 with the degree of A. B., and after a year entered the Dental Department of Walden University, at that time Central Tennessee College. He received the degree of D. D. S. in 1889, and the following year was Professor of Operative Dentistry in his Alma Mater.But this field was too narrow for his ambition. An active practice was more to his liking, and he wanted to get in touch with the people. With this in view he selected Birmingham as his field of labor.The Doctor soon built up an excellent practice, and became indispensable both in public and religious affairs. He was the founder of the Alabama Penny Savings Bank of Birmingham, Ala., and the first Secretary of its Board of Directors. Whatever is of public interest has always appealed to him, and has had his hearty alliance.But at that time Birmingham was a place of a few industries, and their interdependence was so marked, that to tie up one was to tie up all. In the strike of '92 and '93, the Magic City slipped from under the influence of the magician's wand, and was like any other broken and beaten town. The strike had ruined it, and Dr. Porter, like others, sought a better country. He chose Atlanta, Ga. He came here in the spring of '93. By faithfully attending to business, he has built up an excellent dental practice, and has become one of our most popular leaders. He is genial, thoughtful and reliable, and all classes feel very kindly toward him, because of his deep interest in them and their affairs. He is very much concerned in the young men and their future, and is a prominent officer in the Y. M. C. A., established by the colored men of Atlanta. He is conservative and just on all public questions, and earnestly desires to give his best to his people, because he has great faith in the ultimate adjustment of the abnormal conditions that so fetter them.
J. R. PORTER, D. D. S.
Dr. J. R. Porter was born and reared in Savannah, Ga., among very pleasant home influences. He is the son of the late Rev. James Porter, of that city, well remembered as educator and musician, as one who loved his fellow man, and was eager to serve his race in any capacity. The son has partaken of these better qualities, and is earnestly following the father's footsteps.
J. R. Porter received his primary education in the West Broad Street Public School of his native city, and through assiduous application while a pupil of the public school, was enabled to enter Atlanta University on a two-year scholarship won in competitive examination. He graduated in 1886 with the degree of A. B., and after a year entered the Dental Department of Walden University, at that time Central Tennessee College. He received the degree of D. D. S. in 1889, and the following year was Professor of Operative Dentistry in his Alma Mater.
But this field was too narrow for his ambition. An active practice was more to his liking, and he wanted to get in touch with the people. With this in view he selected Birmingham as his field of labor.
The Doctor soon built up an excellent practice, and became indispensable both in public and religious affairs. He was the founder of the Alabama Penny Savings Bank of Birmingham, Ala., and the first Secretary of its Board of Directors. Whatever is of public interest has always appealed to him, and has had his hearty alliance.
But at that time Birmingham was a place of a few industries, and their interdependence was so marked, that to tie up one was to tie up all. In the strike of '92 and '93, the Magic City slipped from under the influence of the magician's wand, and was like any other broken and beaten town. The strike had ruined it, and Dr. Porter, like others, sought a better country. He chose Atlanta, Ga. He came here in the spring of '93. By faithfully attending to business, he has built up an excellent dental practice, and has become one of our most popular leaders. He is genial, thoughtful and reliable, and all classes feel very kindly toward him, because of his deep interest in them and their affairs. He is very much concerned in the young men and their future, and is a prominent officer in the Y. M. C. A., established by the colored men of Atlanta. He is conservative and just on all public questions, and earnestly desires to give his best to his people, because he has great faith in the ultimate adjustment of the abnormal conditions that so fetter them.
In discussing questions of race building it is but just that we recognize the causes that have led up to the condition that may exist. If we are to suggest methods by which we may correct our weak points, we should first attempt to make plain what these are and then offer our remedy.
We have enterprises innumerable, enterprises of all classes and kinds, dignified and undignified, humble and pretentious, scattered all over this broad land. But these do not take on the sturdy growth of permanency and prosperity that usually attaches to the affairs of others. On the contrary we are surprised if they exhibit undue vitality and outgrow their long clothes.
Some of our businesses are lasting monuments to our commercial and professional ability, and stand out proudly against a background of restricted opportunities, while the unnumbered many fade into the shadow of the horizon and are lost to sight.
The questions that come to us are: Why is it so, and how may it be remedied? Are the causes for these economic conditions of commercial origin or social? Are they extrinsic or intrinsic? Are they the results of the unbusinesslike methods of our merchants, or the lack of appreciation of our buyers?
We glory that we are a full-fledged race. It is a splendid thing to glory over. But do we realize what we have missed in our sudden growth? Imagine a man, who has had no babyhood, no childhood, no youthhood; a man born into manhood, without the pleasures and experiences of boyhood; who has never fallen into a pond, battled with wasps, played truant, or done any of those innocent mischiefs that develop the boy both in body and in mind, and fit him for the strenuous duties of life. Imagine such a man and you have our race.
A nation in a day, is our record. We were born into cities, governments, laws, comforts, pleasures and schools. Aladdin's lamp has never accomplished anything so wonderful, and we rubbed our eyes and were amazed because everything had been prepared for us. Thisvery munificence has hampered us. We have not had that development as individuals and as a people that would best fit us to grapple with each succeeding obstacle. Therefore we must patiently though painfully start from the beginning and travel over the same road, that each race has traveled, because individuals and races develop alike, and the same conditions that attach to the growth of one race, attach to that of all others.
A nation in a day is a splendid record. But a nation that came out of the wilderness, constructed its own cities, builded its own roads, made its own laws, established its own schools, devised its own comforts and pleasures, and in the contest with nature and poverty, wrestled until it won a new name, that nation with its scars, its experiences, and its development has far more to be desired, and has far more resources upon which to draw in its after contests than the former.
We entered the lists with these natural handicaps, and other conditions imposed upon us. We have made mistakes, and the wonder is that we have not made more, and that we have shown such splendid powers of adaptability. Shunted to the right and left, with our path continually obstructed, and our ambition jeered at, we have kept quietly and persistently on, until we can now show a very extensive catalogue of enterprises, that have grown and grown, until they are sufficiently important to call forth discussions of this character.
We have no definite figures of the exact amount invested in our business ventures. Though it is small when compared with the vast amounts invested by others, yet it is enormous when compared with our actual resources. The Negro merchant and professional man, have ceased to be novelties, and in many sections are making serious impressions on the business of both city and country.
We may still regard our enterprises as pioneer. We can even see the visible signs of our endeavors to learn a business while conducting it. Yet it is quite gratifying to notice an improvement. Our ventures are taking on more and more the general character of business, and losing the less desirable ones of race peculiarities.
What are the causes of so many failures among our enterprises, especially those that gave promise of great success? This question like the historic ghost will not down, but walks at unseemly hours, both by day and by night, calling for an adjustment of our commercial and economic sins, that it may go to its rest.
Our men do not have that thorough grasp of business principles, that comes with years of experience. One cause for our mistakes is that we do not have the opportunity of apprenticeship. The white youth enters an establishment, and step by step learns a business before he starts in it for himself. He thereby places a large factor of success to his credit.
The Negro goes into business without that intimate knowledge that is so essential, and stumbles into success or into failure. But this condition is gradually changing. We have been in active life long enough to have somewhat of an apprentice class of our own. Here and there we find men, who have, through this system gained a knowledge that gives them a decided advantage. It is through these means that we hope to improve the personnel of our merchant class, the character of our enterprises, and increase our patronage because of the excellency of the service.
One great need of our enterprises is the freedom of location. Experience and capital are both seriously hampered by want of proper place to house business. I have seen a prosperous merchant move across a street and fail. I have seen a splendid business carried around a corner and utterly destroyed.
If this is so with those who have choice of places, how much more must it be so with us who must take what we can get, and what wonder is it that we utterly fail, or that we imbibe the squalor and shiftlessness of the miserable places we must occupy. All life is subject to the same general physiological influences. Man and plant alike flourish in the sunshine, and fade and weaken in the damp and dark. Our business languishes as much from environment as from any other cause. Trade is a sensitive thing and increases or decreases according to fixed laws, and there must be more than goods to attract active patronage. Grant us this freedom of location and our road to success through business ventures would be much shortened.
I do not lay our failures to external causes alone. There are other and as grave ones within. Certain economic exactions must be complied with before success is ever assured. Some do not choose the pursuits for which they are best fitted, but strike out boldly and confidently, forgetful that adaptability is always an essential factor in success. Some are unable to carry out their plans from lack of capital. This has also kept many from getting the business training that is sonecessary, and we therefore have less merchants and more storekeepers. We must know that business is progressive and demands an ideal. The whole system of Southern commercial life has been revolutionized, but the revolution is the product of a great evolution.
Under these conditions, have our business and professional men done their best to attract and hold the patronage of our people, or have they been content to drift along and catch whatever may come their way? Have they realized that they have obligations as well as those to whom they would sell? They have not done all of their duty, nor have they been as progressive as they might have been. Yet when we think of the severe handicaps they have had, we feel that they have done remarkably well. Life is a continual comparison, to-day with yesterday, this year with last. In the comparison we see better merchants, better stores, and higher business ideals among us. These appeal to us very sensibly, and we give more and more liberally of our patronage.
We are apt to forget the terrible handicaps that faced us as a people not so long ago, and the commercial ones that face our business men of to-day. We grow impatient with their mistakes and twit them because they are unable to display as large and as valuable a stock as some one else, or because of their shabby establishments. We are too exacting. We are not as generously inclined towards our enterprises as we should be, and it is only when we put ourselves in places that require patronage, that we can understand why so many fail. The power to discriminate between the useful and useless is born of experience and is of slow growth. The struggle between the right and wrong, the necessary and unnecessary is the heritage that came to us with our sudden birth of racehood. All fields of endeavor are new to us, and even when there are no restrictions, our adjustment must be slow.
For us to rally to our enterprises simply because they are ours, would bring temporary but not permanent success. The latter can only come by normal means. Abnormal conditions are not lasting. They may hold for a time and even prosper, yet they must ultimately fail, and then affairs will follow their natural tendency, and seek the normal. The restrictions that press us so, must in time yield to this law, and all efforts to rally to our enterprises from pride, and not from reason, must follow the same fate. There are a hundred cents in adollar but no sentiment. Lessen its purchasing value and you lessen the desire to purchase.
We may rally to enterprises simply because Negroes are the projectors, but we soon begin to cast about for reasons for our patronage, and if we find none to outweigh self-interest we soon drop off. But if we find good reason for our support, we soon lose the idea of race pride, in the greater idea that our merchant is a splendid business man.
The best agents for securing active support for our enterprises are the attractions that these enterprises hold within themselves. Our intelligent and thrifty merchants, with their well appointed stores, and enlarged stock are to settle this problem of patronage, because they have within their keeping, the means to develop the normal conditions of trade and to build up a demand for their wares.
WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF THE GREAT MORTALITY AMONG THE NEGROES IN THE CITIES OF THE SOUTH, AND HOW IS THAT MORTALITY TO BE LESSENED?
BY MRS. WARREN LOGAN.
Mrs. Warren Logan
MRS. WARREN LOGAN.Mrs. Warren Logan, whose maiden name was Adella Hunt, was born in a Georgia village after the close of the Civil War. When asked for this sketch, she said: "There is little to tell, as my busy life has been without romantic event. I was not born a slave, nor in a log cabin. To tell the truth, I got my education by no greater hardship than hard work, which I regard as exceedingly healthful."It is known that she has an inheritance of blood, tradition and history of which any American woman might be proud.Her early education was of a private nature. In 1881 she was graduated from Atlanta University as a bright member of one of its brightest classes.Two years of teaching in an American Missionary School in a South Georgia town, where she was also a city missionary, prepared her for more advanced work, which opened to her at Tuskegee, Ala.In 1883 Miss Hunt joined Mr. Washington, Olivia Davidson, Warren Logan and the handful of teachers who were the originators of the now famous Industrial School.From the first she fitted into the activities and spirit of the school and became Miss Davidson's right hand helper. She succeeded to the position of Lady Principal when Miss Davidson became Mrs. Booker T. Washington. In this position Miss Hunt emphasized the academic side of the school and also urged the physical development of the girls. Her own line of teaching was the normal training of student teachers. Her services were constantly in demand for Peabody and other teachers' institutes in Georgia and Alabama.In 1888 Miss Hunt was married to Warren Logan, treasurer of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. Since that time she has ordered her household, written a little, read much, completed the Chautauqua Course, and kept abreast with the times. While she has given her best thought to her husband and children, she has kept in touch with the school and has lent a hand to the Woman's Club.
MRS. WARREN LOGAN.
Mrs. Warren Logan, whose maiden name was Adella Hunt, was born in a Georgia village after the close of the Civil War. When asked for this sketch, she said: "There is little to tell, as my busy life has been without romantic event. I was not born a slave, nor in a log cabin. To tell the truth, I got my education by no greater hardship than hard work, which I regard as exceedingly healthful."
It is known that she has an inheritance of blood, tradition and history of which any American woman might be proud.
Her early education was of a private nature. In 1881 she was graduated from Atlanta University as a bright member of one of its brightest classes.
Two years of teaching in an American Missionary School in a South Georgia town, where she was also a city missionary, prepared her for more advanced work, which opened to her at Tuskegee, Ala.
In 1883 Miss Hunt joined Mr. Washington, Olivia Davidson, Warren Logan and the handful of teachers who were the originators of the now famous Industrial School.
From the first she fitted into the activities and spirit of the school and became Miss Davidson's right hand helper. She succeeded to the position of Lady Principal when Miss Davidson became Mrs. Booker T. Washington. In this position Miss Hunt emphasized the academic side of the school and also urged the physical development of the girls. Her own line of teaching was the normal training of student teachers. Her services were constantly in demand for Peabody and other teachers' institutes in Georgia and Alabama.
In 1888 Miss Hunt was married to Warren Logan, treasurer of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. Since that time she has ordered her household, written a little, read much, completed the Chautauqua Course, and kept abreast with the times. While she has given her best thought to her husband and children, she has kept in touch with the school and has lent a hand to the Woman's Club.
In these days of specialists among physicians and of specialists among students of social science it seems rather presumptuous for a teacher to attempt any formal discussion of causes and remedies for the high death rate among Negroes in the cities of the South. A few suggestions, however, may serve to draw more attention to this vital subject.
The sections of the cities inhabited by Negroes are generally the most unsanitary. The house in which the average Negro family lives is poorly built and too small. Frequently old houses are set aside as too far gone for any except Negro tenants. In many instances these dilapidated houses contain germs of disease which it is practically impossible for the young and the feeble to withstand. The food, fuel, clothing and general comforts of a family thus housed are insufficient. Food plays too large a part in the havoc made by death among Negroes. In many instances, there is great intemperance in both eating and drinking. With another large class there is actual scarcity of food and that, too, often of poor quality. Add to this, irregularity of meals and poor cooking and one can not wonder at the low state of health nor even at the excessive mortality.
One of the most serious phases of ignorance is criminal carelessness in regard to nutrition. Cooking is that part of household work which almost every woman undertakes and very few understand, and herein lies the foundation of disease.
The long death-roll among Negroes contains an excessive number of infants. Careful investigation shows that this slaughter of innocents is due in large measure to improper feeding. Some mothers must be away from their babies earning bread and shelter. Others leave their little ones for less worthy and less honorable purposes. Others neglect their offspring because they have a fancied or cultivated dislike of children.It is a sad day for a people when happy motherhood declines. Man has devised successful substitutes for natural food for babies, but these should be used only when the best good of all concerned can be subserved thereby. Nature's ways are wisest and best, and parents must try to walk in those ways if they would have their children have life and have it abundantly.
Far be it from us here to attempt a technical discussion of tuberculosis, but in plain simple language, let us cite a few facts in regard to lung diseases among Negroes.
The oft repeated statement that the Negro slave did not have consumption, cannot be verified, for lack of authentic records on the subject. The Negro free, however, is dying of consumption and kindred diseases in appallingly large numbers.
Many theories in regard to consumption have been exploded, but it is acknowledged by all, to be an infectious disease. As such, ignorant people do not understand how to escape it; indeed, until anti-spitting laws are more universal and more rigidly enforced, every one may be exposed to these deadly germs. They respect neither race lines nor intellectual grades. The Negro, however, seems to be peculiarly susceptible to this class of ailments. 1. Because of comparatively small lung capacity. 2. Because of general low nutrition. 3. Because of lack of bath rooms and their proper use. 4. Immorality. 5. General indifference to the incipient stages of the disease. Colds and coughs are passed by as matters of course with little or nothing done to prevent or cure them.
The physical life and death of man has a much more intimate connection with his moral life than is at first thought apparent. Too many children are robbed by Sin of a child's first right, viz.: the right to be well born. If parents have lived lives of shame and thereby weakened their bodies, the effects of this will be a sad legacy of weakness in the persons of their children. Men and women given to social impurity will hardly escape the notice of those about them. Their characters are imitated and shame and weakness, physical as well as moral, multiplied. "Sin conceived and brought forth Death."
Among people of low intellectual development and low moral standards, family love is below normal. With this defective class, there is much indifference to the life and death of their dependent relatives. The young and the aged are shamefully neglected. It is sufficientto be bereaved—better, the relieved, to say: "The Lord's Will be done." Remedies for these sad and unfortunate conditions are much more easily suggested than applied.
Better environment, greater comfort in the homes, come only as a return for money. Money will come as a return for labor. Money will come to those who earnestly desire it, because they will work for it. They will do whatsoever their hands find to do, accepting the pay such labor brings, but fitting and aspiring for something better. There is usually plenty of work for all honest, industrious Negroes in Southern cities.
Even money may not cause the old shanty to give place to a good house nor raise the standard of general comfort very materially, except as the demands of the family are enlarged as a result of education. No one factor will have such weight in the decrease of suffering and the reduction of the high death rate as enlightenment of mind.
The system of education in vogue in Southern cities will work slowly because up to the beginning of the twentieth century, school attendance has not been made compulsory. There are no truant schools, no reform schools. Idleness tends to vice. Idleness and vice are in no way conducive to health and longevity.
Many Negroes do not want education for themselves nor for their children. These people swell the death lists in Southern cities' health offices to such distressingly large numbers. They are often cared for and buried by funds from the city treasury. Would it not pay to try compulsory education? To try teaching them to help themselves, to save themselves?
To say that the home life of the masses must be improved is but another way of saying they must be educated.
Among the most potent forces in the uplift of a people are the school, the press, the courts and the church.
Under a system of compulsory education, the Negro would much sooner learn to observe the laws of health and thus to extend his life.
When newspapers in Southern cities are fairer in their attitude toward the black citizen, he will become a better citizen. It will increase his respect for others and greatly increase his self respect. He will then make more effort to live and to live well, because his life will seem more worth living.
Every state included under the "Land of the free and the home ofthe brave" should strive to make its criminal laws reformative rather than revengeful. A very considerable number of Southern Negroes come to their life's end in the prisons, which in no Southern state are all that prisons should be. From a health standpoint, most of them are all that prisons should not be.
It pays the municipality better to educate and reform its citizens than to convict and execute them.
A cultivated, spiritual ministry will emphasize the best teaching of the schools.
An active church will sustain a fair press; will uphold law and order; will supplement the work of the good doctor and in various ways try to reduce the number of funerals among the Negro population in Southern cities.
SECOND PAPER.
WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF THE GREAT MORTALITY AMONG THE NEGROES IN THE CITIES OF THE SOUTH, AND HOW IS THAT MORTALITY TO BE LESSENED?
BY HON. H. A. RUCKER.
Hon. H. A. Rucker.
MR. H. A. RUCKER.Out of the Southland—that awful crucible of prejudice and proscription,—like steel tempered by fire, and hardened for the practical uses of mankind, has come numerous valiant spirits, whose advent was so timely as to have seemed divinely inspired. Price and Cain, Elliott and Bruce, Cailloux, and others, who have joined the silent majority, did noble work and lived to see the race's redemption, but it has been left for newer and younger men to complete the structure on the foundation that was furnished by the "Old Guard." The modern age of politics and business in the sunny South—the home of nine-tenths of the Negroes—offers no brighter luminary than the Hon. Henry A. Rucker of Georgia. Young as years go, but mature in all the attributes that command success and popular esteem, the life of Henry A. Rucker is a priceless text-book for the aspiring Afro-American youth. Guided upward by nothing save the lofty counsel of a good mother and the inherent qualities of a true gentleman, he has scaled the heights, and for himself, has solved the problem of "how the fittest" may survive, and is giving to the whole race the key by which he wrought out so clear a solution. Nolegerdemainhas worked his upward flight. The ingredients that he has utilized are simple, even if rare, and are within the reach of the least favored of human beings—honesty of purpose, fidelity to every trust and adherence to the golden rule. He has always been able to secure what was justly his without encroaching upon the sacred rights or legitimate possessions of another. Harboring no malice in his own bosom he has softened the wrath of his neighbor and demonstrated how clever diplomacy and a manly appeal to the finer instincts of a possible enemy yields richer returns than all the force and invective that a century could bring to bear. If the battle is to be fought out on lines of mental competition and personal worth rather than by balls and bayonets, Mr. Rucker has grasped the situation and the best evidence of the wisdom of his policy of inter-racial coöperation is the results he has individually achieved, and the commendation freely offered by the white and colored people who greet him day by day in the routine of duty. Atlanta owes much to the indefatigable energy and inexhaustible public spirit of Henry A. Rucker. He has been active in promoting all of her interests and that his services have been valuable is cheerfully admitted in the Board of Trade and industrial circles. He was conspicuous in advancing the prospects of the famous exposition of 1895, and is now striving to round out the work of securing a commodious federal building for the enterprising Georgian capital. He bore the brunt of the fight against the "Hardwick bill" and was potent in defeating both that infamous measure and the "Payne resolution." He has been repeatedly elected a delegate to the national conventions of the Republican party.Since July 26, 1897, Mr. Rucker has been collector of internal revenue for the District of Georgia with headquarters in his own city, Atlanta. The receipts for the last fiscal year were more than double those of preceding years and exceeded in the same proportion the revenues gathered in any single year since the organization of the state. This marvelous showing is due partially to Mr. Rucker's prompt, thorough and painstaking plan of operation and of course in large measure to the national prosperity, growing out of President McKinley's shrewd financial policies. Brilliant as has been the past of this progressive Afro-American, the future holds out the promise of grander achievements. The race honors Mr. Rucker and holds him close to its heart, because he has proven himself a leader that can be trusted. When he commands "close ranks, steady, march," the Georgia populace goes forward in one conquering phalanx, determined, aggressive and undaunted, remembering that enduring power comes not by "fits and starts," but by clinching with mailed hand the rewards that have been won.
MR. H. A. RUCKER.
Out of the Southland—that awful crucible of prejudice and proscription,—like steel tempered by fire, and hardened for the practical uses of mankind, has come numerous valiant spirits, whose advent was so timely as to have seemed divinely inspired. Price and Cain, Elliott and Bruce, Cailloux, and others, who have joined the silent majority, did noble work and lived to see the race's redemption, but it has been left for newer and younger men to complete the structure on the foundation that was furnished by the "Old Guard." The modern age of politics and business in the sunny South—the home of nine-tenths of the Negroes—offers no brighter luminary than the Hon. Henry A. Rucker of Georgia. Young as years go, but mature in all the attributes that command success and popular esteem, the life of Henry A. Rucker is a priceless text-book for the aspiring Afro-American youth. Guided upward by nothing save the lofty counsel of a good mother and the inherent qualities of a true gentleman, he has scaled the heights, and for himself, has solved the problem of "how the fittest" may survive, and is giving to the whole race the key by which he wrought out so clear a solution. Nolegerdemainhas worked his upward flight. The ingredients that he has utilized are simple, even if rare, and are within the reach of the least favored of human beings—honesty of purpose, fidelity to every trust and adherence to the golden rule. He has always been able to secure what was justly his without encroaching upon the sacred rights or legitimate possessions of another. Harboring no malice in his own bosom he has softened the wrath of his neighbor and demonstrated how clever diplomacy and a manly appeal to the finer instincts of a possible enemy yields richer returns than all the force and invective that a century could bring to bear. If the battle is to be fought out on lines of mental competition and personal worth rather than by balls and bayonets, Mr. Rucker has grasped the situation and the best evidence of the wisdom of his policy of inter-racial coöperation is the results he has individually achieved, and the commendation freely offered by the white and colored people who greet him day by day in the routine of duty. Atlanta owes much to the indefatigable energy and inexhaustible public spirit of Henry A. Rucker. He has been active in promoting all of her interests and that his services have been valuable is cheerfully admitted in the Board of Trade and industrial circles. He was conspicuous in advancing the prospects of the famous exposition of 1895, and is now striving to round out the work of securing a commodious federal building for the enterprising Georgian capital. He bore the brunt of the fight against the "Hardwick bill" and was potent in defeating both that infamous measure and the "Payne resolution." He has been repeatedly elected a delegate to the national conventions of the Republican party.
Since July 26, 1897, Mr. Rucker has been collector of internal revenue for the District of Georgia with headquarters in his own city, Atlanta. The receipts for the last fiscal year were more than double those of preceding years and exceeded in the same proportion the revenues gathered in any single year since the organization of the state. This marvelous showing is due partially to Mr. Rucker's prompt, thorough and painstaking plan of operation and of course in large measure to the national prosperity, growing out of President McKinley's shrewd financial policies. Brilliant as has been the past of this progressive Afro-American, the future holds out the promise of grander achievements. The race honors Mr. Rucker and holds him close to its heart, because he has proven himself a leader that can be trusted. When he commands "close ranks, steady, march," the Georgia populace goes forward in one conquering phalanx, determined, aggressive and undaunted, remembering that enduring power comes not by "fits and starts," but by clinching with mailed hand the rewards that have been won.
One who has never been taught to appreciate what health is and to understand hygienic laws can not become a safe guardian of his or her physical being. For when this being is attacked, as is constantly the case, by its millions of enemies, if all of its portholes have not been properly guarded it easily falls prey to disease and death.
As a race the Negro has had neither the time nor the opportunity to inform himself on the principles of health saving or in those of health getting—if there be such. Both prior to and since his emancipation his time, except nominally, has been the property of others from whom he has barely eked out an existence, and, from a humanitarian standpoint, has had but little interest in caring for his health.
During the years of his enslavement, his mortality, in proportion to his numbers and his environments, was no less than it has been since he became a free man—and the bald statement that his death-rate during the past thirty-eight years has greatly increased, may not be founded on facts. Fair play in discussing this phase of the subject demands careful and patient inquiry into the past history of a peopleconcerning whom little or no minute data of a national character was kept. However, this question may not properly enter into the subject, the contention being that the mortality among the race is excessive, which, if true, may be accounted for in part in the existence of certain acknowledged conditions.
Wherever the Negro has been cared for either by himself or by others he has enjoyed the same immunity from disease and death that those of other races have. And whenever neglected or abused, whether the failure or fault rests with himself or others, impaired health, decay of mind and body and death have ensued.
Compared with the masses but few Negroes at any time within the history of the life of the race in this country, have been properly guarded against exposure—the few who in ante bellum days were selected as house servants and to fill other kindred places, were measurably protected. And now the same classes and that of the more fortunate or business classes have limited protection from more than ordinary exposure.
The masses have always done the drudgery. And that too without knowledge or reference to health keeping. A common practice of employed Negroes is to go or be sent on short quick errands, leaving warm and, in this respect, comfortable places of employment without hat or wrap to breast chilling winds or atmospheric conditions many degrees removed from their places of services. In this practice is the exposure from sudden changes of temperature without preparation. The drayman, the cartman, the man in the ditch and others whose employment is in the open air are exposed not alone by the character of the work in which they are engaged but also by reason of the fact that six days of the week, those in which they labor, of necessity, their clothing is poor and shabby and their persons are ill kept. While the seventh day finds them as a rule well clad and well shod. Then their homes—no, their houses, partly because of circumstances beyond their control and partly on account of their improvident natures, are little more than shelters or huts.
These houses are built in what is known or accepted as Negro tenant districts, and those acquainted with the localities need no evidence to convince them that they are not sought as either health or pleasure resorts. They are the city alley ways and the low malarial districts where the noxious gases and foul vapors rise from emptying sewers.More than two hundred years' application has made the Negroes agriculturists; they have been accustomed to labor and to plenty of nature's fresh, invigorating air; they have, because of conditions not proper to treat here, drifted from the farms and fields into the crowded cities, thence into the slums, to be infected with disease.
They have been thrust into prisons where they were provided with the poorest of covering and meanest food for their bodies; where scurvy and other loathsome diseases have made their impress upon them and where incentive to cleanliness is as distant as the North and South poles. Freed from prison life they have gone forth mingling with a class of people infecting them with their scales and spreading disease and death.
Then again the race is without proper places to care for its unfortunate, aged and infirm; without orphanages, reformatories and homes for its friendless. Institutions which are potent factors in the efforts of a people to prevent neglect and cure criminal tendencies.
All of these conditions are breeders of ills and conductors of death which must be and happily are being abated.
The remedy suggested is a knowledge coupled with an appreciation of health. Both to embrace the science of health preserving and of health getting; better homes and better habits, even to being "temperate in all things."
Acquired, accepted and practiced the mortality of the race will be materially lessened.
THIRD PAPER.
WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF THE GREAT MORTALITY AMONG THE NEGROES IN THE CITIES OF THE SOUTH, AND HOW IS THAT MORTALITY TO BE LESSENED?
BY DR. JOHN R. FRANCIS.
Dr. John R. Francis
DR. JOHN R. FRANCIS.Dr. John R. Francis, physician and surgeon, was born in Georgetown, D. C., in 1856. He attended the private and public schools of Washington, D. C., until his sixteenth year. His academic education was received at Wesleyan Academy, Wilbraham, Mass. He began the study of medicine under the tutorage of Dr. C. C. Cox, at that time dean of the Board of Health, and one of the foremost men in the profession of medicine in the District of Columbia.His professional course was taken at the University of Michigan, from which he graduated with high honor in the class of 1878. Settling in the home of his boyhood, where he was well and favorably known, and where his parents before him were honored and respected, it is no wonder that he succeeded and stands as the leading Colored physician of Washington, D. C.Dr. Francis was appointed in 1894 by the Secretary of the Interior to the position of first assistant surgeon of the Freedman's Hospital, with a salary of $1,800. He instituted several needed reforms in the treatment of patients. He installed the present training school for nurses, and, indeed, was so active in his reformation of affairs in the institution that those who know the facts admit that Dr. Francis, more than any other man, is responsible for the opening of the new era of the Freedman's Hospital, which led to its present flourishing condition. He is now, and has been for several years past, the obstetrician to the hospital.He is the sole owner and manager of a private sanitarium on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D. C. This institution has proven to be a panacea to the best element of Colored citizens.It is a noteworthy fact that Dr. and Mrs. Francis have both served as members of the Board of Education of the District of Columbia.
DR. JOHN R. FRANCIS.
Dr. John R. Francis, physician and surgeon, was born in Georgetown, D. C., in 1856. He attended the private and public schools of Washington, D. C., until his sixteenth year. His academic education was received at Wesleyan Academy, Wilbraham, Mass. He began the study of medicine under the tutorage of Dr. C. C. Cox, at that time dean of the Board of Health, and one of the foremost men in the profession of medicine in the District of Columbia.
His professional course was taken at the University of Michigan, from which he graduated with high honor in the class of 1878. Settling in the home of his boyhood, where he was well and favorably known, and where his parents before him were honored and respected, it is no wonder that he succeeded and stands as the leading Colored physician of Washington, D. C.
Dr. Francis was appointed in 1894 by the Secretary of the Interior to the position of first assistant surgeon of the Freedman's Hospital, with a salary of $1,800. He instituted several needed reforms in the treatment of patients. He installed the present training school for nurses, and, indeed, was so active in his reformation of affairs in the institution that those who know the facts admit that Dr. Francis, more than any other man, is responsible for the opening of the new era of the Freedman's Hospital, which led to its present flourishing condition. He is now, and has been for several years past, the obstetrician to the hospital.
He is the sole owner and manager of a private sanitarium on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D. C. This institution has proven to be a panacea to the best element of Colored citizens.
It is a noteworthy fact that Dr. and Mrs. Francis have both served as members of the Board of Education of the District of Columbia.
In the study of the causes and remedy for the great mortality among the colored people of Southern cities I shall not waste time and words in an attempt to prove, by much statistical evidence, that which is already too well known to us as an admitted fact, viz.: a mortality of colored people in cities of the South, very largely in excess of that of the white people of the same communities.
I am fully justified, in the face of our present enlightenment, in entering, at once, into the discussion as to its causes.
If it be true that the animal organism is intended by nature to pass through a cycle, and that natural death is not a disease, but a completion of the process of life, it follows that the organism, with exceptions, as to any particular class of people born in health, is constructed to pass through this cycle and is not of itself,—that is to say, by its own organism,—capable of giving origin to any of the phenomena to which we apply the term disease. We must, therefore, seek for origins of the phenomena in causes lying outside the body, and affecting it in such manner as to either render the natural actions and processes irregular, or to excite actions and processes that are altogether new.
Writing out in correct lists all the groups of phenomena that make up the term disease, we will find that they invariably come from without. From my point of view all the groups of diseases are in truth accidents; exposure to some influence or influences that pervert function or create new motion. I must first refer to the cause to which at various times has been ascribed the responsibility for this excessive mortality, viz.: that innate vital weakness exists in the colored population of this country as a result of amalgamation. On this theory the black race when mixed with the Caucasian is the only one which produces with the latter a progeny of weakened innate vitality. I have never seen this statement supported by any trustworthy knowledge or information. On the other hand it has always been accompanied by the most absurd arguments which invariably tend to expose the mind of the writer as being prejudiced to the intermingling and the intermarriage between the two races. It is among the possibilities that physiological peculiarities account for dispositions to disease belonging to typical classes of the human family. No one has as yet been able to determine what those peculiarities are. Whether they are primitively impressed on a race, or are acquired is a question that can be answered only when the exact relationships of diseases to race are discovered. My own view is, that acquired and transmitted qualities and specific existing social peculiarities are sufficient agencies for the production of all the known variations of vitality belonging to peculiar races.
I am now thoroughly convinced that the causes of this great mortality of the colored people of the cities of the South arepoverty,prejudice,andignorance. For obvious reasons I will submit them in the following arrangement:
1.POVERTY:
a. Contagious Diseases (close contact).—Diphtheria, scarlet fever, small-pox, tuberculosis, syphilis, etc.
b. Unsanitary Nuisances (11,705 abated in the District of Columbia for year ending June 30, 1900).—Filthy alleys, cellars, bad drainage, garbage, filthy gutters, hog pens, filthy houses, filthy lots, stagnant water, filthy privies, leaky roofs, sewers, filthy yards, filthy streets, wells, etc.
c. Unsanitary Homes.—Only those houses that are refused or abandoned by the white people are offered to the colored people for dwellings.
d. Impure Food.—The large quantity annually condemned in the District of Columbia is an indication of that to which the poor is subjected.
e. Impure Air.—Bad design and construction (small rooms) and unhealthy location.
f. Impure Water.—Unhealthy sources, cheap, shallow and unhealthy wells, etc.
g. Infantile Mortality.—Unusually large frompovertyalone.
2.PREJUDICE:
a. Idleness and Crime.—Late hours, broken rest, depraved association, tobacco, alcohol, syphilis, other diseases, etc.
b. A Destitute Laboring Class.—Prejudiced employers, poor pay, excess of work, deficient rest, worry combined with physical exhaustion, unsanitary rooms, etc.
c. Defective Homes.—Small rooms, poor ventilation, either no water supply, or a very bad one, neglect of sanitary measures by both landlord and agent, all the nuisances enumerated above, etc.
3.IGNORANCE:
a. Diseases from bad hygiene (public, home, and personal).
b. Induced diseases from physical strain.
c. Diseases from combination of physical and mental strain.
d. Disease from the influence of the passions.
e. Disease from sloth and idleness.
f. Disease from late hours and broken rest.
g. Disease from food.
h. Disease from water.
i. Disease from alcohol.
j. Disease from tobacco.
k. Disease from errors of dress.
l. Children of parents diseased or weakened from various causes.
The space allowed for this article will not permit the discussion of all the causes mentioned above. There are, however, a few that are worthy of our special consideration. For the purpose of condensation, I will attempt the elucidation of the importance of such causes as demand our most serious attention by incorporating them in the following discussion of the most important part of this article: "How is this great mortality to be lessened?"
In my opinion the remedy for this alarming condition exists ineducationandmoney. In other words our remedy is the same as that of other races. The only difference is that the barriers we must surmount are so very peculiar and so very much greater than that of other peoples we must do our best to, at once, recognize the fact and begin the work. I believe the goal is ours and if we will only struggle manfully and hopefully onward we will soon reach it. With
EDUCATION AND MONEY
as the remedy, the colored people must be taught that the first step towards the reduction of disease is to begin at the beginning, to provide for the health of the unborn. The error, commonly entertained, that marriageable men and women have nothing to consider except money, station, or social relationships demands correction.
The offspring of marriage, the most precious of all fortunes, deserves surely as much forethought as is bestowed upon the offspring of the lower animals.
It is well that we teach, in the school room and from the pulpit, about the condition that exists in the parental line, maternal and paternal. The necessity for such instruction is somewhat indicated, in the effect upon the prenatal state, of such conditions as scrofula or struma, of various forms of tuberculosis and syphilis, of epilepsy, of rheumatism, and of insanity. These are only a few. We have to contend even withhereditary proclivity to some forms of the acute communicable diseases, such as diphtheria and scarlet fever and also to immunity from the same.
We must furnish, by all available means and through every possible channel of information, persistent and systematic instruction in public, home and personal hygiene. We should utilize especially the power of the pulpit and influence the public school authorities to institute, in the colored schools throughout the South, special instruction on these subjects. The importance of such instruction is evident in the agitation which is now occurring among the educators in the schools of the Eastern states. If it is needed there then the need of it in the colored schools of the South must be urgent indeed.
We must give such education as will tend to a better general knowledge, especially of the two diseases which, I believe, more than any, should be the most dreaded as being the most prolific of injury to mankind and especially to the colored people on account of their ignorance of the communicability of disease combined with their poverty. I refer to the contagious maladies tuberculosis and the one called "specific" or syphilis, the moral as well as the physical blot on all civilized life. The former is well known nowadays to be one, if not the worst contagion to which the human family is subjected. In its various forms it is responsible, probably, for more deaths among the colored people than any one disease with a definite phenomenon. As less is known about the latter disease, syphilis, I must mention it a little more forcibly, however unpleasant and brief the utterance. The poison of the malady once engrafted into the living body, and producing its effect there, leaves, according to my professional experience, and observation, organic evils which are never completely removed. Various forms of disease of the skin; some forms of consumption; some phases of struma or scrofula; many forms of cachectic feebleness and impaired physical build—what are denominated delicate states of constitution—these and other types of disease are so directly or indirectly connected with the "specific" taint, it becomes impossible to be too careful in tracing it out, or in measuring the degree to which it extends in the field of morbid phenomenon, in our efforts to improve the vitality of the colored people and to enlighten them upon this class of diseases.
The widespread encouragement of thrift, industry and efforts among the colored people to gain a livelihood or, to put it more boldly, to getmoney and keep it, thereby obtaining the means with which to supply themselves with the necessaries of life, and possibly, with some of its comforts, will materially wipe out a large percentage of that class of diseases and death that proceed from such causes as worry, excess of work, physical and mental strain, late hours, broken rest, etc.
Washington, D. C., is considered a very clean city. It is, therefore, significant that the 11,705 nuisances, referred to in the foregoing, are an indication as to the great risk, from this source throughout the South. It is obvious at once that the colored people, who form the bulk of the poor class, are the principal victims to that which escapes official inspection.
Notwithstanding the fact that the colored population of the District of Columbia is less than one-third of that of the whites, in the year 1899-1900, there died in the homes located in the back alleys of the city 411 colored persons and eleven white persons, indicating to what extent these unsanitary homes are occupied by the colored people.
Space will not permit the further elucidation of the foregoing causes and remedies, which I have done nothing more than to touch upon. However, I cannot close without giving further emphasis to my views by offering in evidence the conditions, as to vitality, of the Jews. The facts are that this race, from some cause or causes, presents an endurance against disease that does not belong to any other portion of the civilized communities amongst which its members dwell. We do not have far to go to find many causes for this high vitality. The causes are simply summed up in the term "soberness of life." The Jew drinks less than the Christian; he takes, as a rule, better food; he marries earlier; he rears the children he has brought into the world with greater personal care; he tends the aged more thoughtfully; he takes better care of the poor; he takes better care of himself; he does not boast of to-morrow, but he provides for it; and he holds tenaciously to all he gets. It may be true that he carries these virtues too far, but I do most earnestly plead that if the colored people will only emulate the Jew, they, like the Jew, will win, like him they will become strong, and like him in scorning boisterous mirth and passion, will become comparatively happy and healthy.
FOURTH PAPER.
WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF THE GREAT MORTALITY AMONG THE NEGROES IN THE CITIES OF THE SOUTH, AND HOW IS THAT MORTALITY TO BE LESSENED?
BY JAMES RANDALL WILDER, M. D., PHAR. D.