A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro Part 3

The investigation of Dr. Gould as to circ.u.mference of head and facial angle are exhibited in the following table:

White. Mulatto. Black.

Circ.u.mference of head 22.1 inches. 22.0 inches. 21.9 inches.

Facial angle 72.0 69.2 68.8

A difference of one-tenth of an inch in head circ.u.mference and of four-tenths of a degree in facial angle affords a very slender physical basis on which to predicate intellectual superiority.

The author lays great stress upon the following table made out by Dr.

Hunt.

_Weight of the Brain of White and Colored Soldiers_.[42]

No. of cases. Degree of color. Weight of brain.

24 White 1424 grammes.

25 Three parts white 1390 "

47 Half white 1334 "

51 One-fourth white 1319 "

95 One-eighth white 1308 "

22 One-sixteenth white 1280 "

141 Pure Negro 1341 "

Twenty-four cases are taken to represent fifty million people, and the law of averages thus obtained is confidently relied upon. Nor are we informed as to what methods were employed to ascertain the exact composition of blood of the 22 cases that are rated as one-sixteenth white. But, supposing we accept this table, overlooking for the time being the fact that the brain weight of one white person is taken as typical of two million others, and also conceding the undisclosed method of Dr. Hunt in detecting homeopathic dashes of white blood, does it "clearly prove that there is an increase in the brain weight with an increase in the proportion of white blood?" If this table shows anything it is that the pure Negro and the Mulatto have about the same brain weight and that they are both superior in this respect to all degrees of mixture between them, but inferior to those of more than one-half white blood.

But it is rather unusual at this late day to base intellectual capacity upon the shape and size of skull. Investigations have shown that facial angle and capacity of cranium and cephalic index afford no certain criterion of thought power or susceptibility to culture. The latest word on this subject is given by Prof. Ripley, in a series of articles on "Racial Geography of Europe," in Appleton's Popular Science Monthly for 1897.

"An important point to be noted in this connection is that this shape of the head seems to bear no direct relation to intellectual power or intelligence. Posterior development of the cranium does not imply a corresponding backwardness in culture.... Europe offers the best refutation of the statement that the proportions of the head mean anything intellectual.... In our study of the proportions of the head, therefore, we are measuring merely race, and not intelligence in any sense.... Equally unimportant to the anthropologist is the absolute size of the head. It is grievous to contemplate the waste of energy when, during our civil war, over one million of soldiers had their heads measured in respect to this absolute size, in view of the fact that today anthropologists deny any considerable significance attaching to this characteristic. Popularly a large head with beetling eyebrows suffices to establish a man's intellectual credit, but like all other credit it is entirely dependent upon what lies on deposit elsewhere."[43]

A still more renowned authority tells us: "The development of the intellectual faculties of man is to a great extent independent of the capacity of the cranium and the volume of the brain."[44]

The question of the relative intellectual capacity of the different races is one of much speculative interest. I am giving the matter more attention than it would seem to warrant, because the author makes the supposed mental inferiority of the race the basis of the only practical suggestion which he has to offer, viz: that all of our educational and philanthropic endeavor so far has been based upon wrong principles, and a radical change in this regard is demanded so as to bring the treatment in harmony with the capabilities of the lower race. Several authorities will be cited which, I think, will be more than sufficient to offset Mr.

Hoffman's insistent opinion.

"There are hundreds if not thousands of black men in this country who in capacity are to be ranked with the superior persons of the dominant race; and it is hard to say that in any evident feature of mind they characteristically differ from their white fellow citizens."[45]

Prof. Shaler is himself a Southerner, a professor in Harvard University, and a noted student of current problems.

"Granting the present inferiority of the Negro, we affirm that it has never been proved; nor is there any good reason to suppose that he is doomed forever to maintain his present relative position, or that he is inferior to the white man in any other sense than as some white races are inferior to others."[46]

"Yet the Negro children exhibit no intellectual inferiority; they make just the same progress in the subjects taught as do the children of white parents, and the deficiency they exhibit later in life is of quite a different kind."[47]

Mr. Hoffman compels us once more to combat the arguments of the slave holding cla.s.s: that is, that the Negro is intellectually and morally an inferior creature (they did not, however, affirm physical inferiority) and that it is only by servile contact with the white race that his nature can be improved. The progress along these lines which the race has made even under the severest disadvantages is sufficient answer to this argument.

If I'm designed yon lordling's slave, By nature's law designed, Why was an independent wish E'er planted in my mind?

The Negro's intellectual and social environments hang as a millstone about his neck; and when he is cast upon the sea of opportunity he is reproached with everlasting inferiority because he does not swim an equal race with those who are not thus fettered. We are reminded of the barbarous Teutons in t.i.tus Andronicus who, after pulling out the tongue and cutting off the hands of the lovely Lavinia, upbraid her for not calling for sweet water with which to wash her delicate hands.

No, no, Mr. Hoffman, the philanthropists have made no mistake. They have proceeded on the supposition that the Negro has faculty for faculty and power for power with the rest of his fellow men, and that his special needs grow out of his peculiar condition. Any alteration in this policy would violate the dictates both of science and humanity.

MIXED MARRIAGES.

The remainder of this rather long chapter is devoted to the number and character of mixed marriages, with the conclusion that the number is on the decrease and the character of one or both of the contracting parties is usually unsavory, and that such unions can form no determining factor in the ultimate solution of the problem.

A study of the fertility of such marriages and the physical, moral, and intellectual stamina of the progeny would furnish valuable sociological data.

CHAPTER V.

_Subject._ Social Conditions.

_Gist._ "Immorality is a race trait."[48]

RELIGION AND EDUCATION.

Under the sub-heads of religion and education statistics are presented showing the progress of the race along these lines. A total church members.h.i.+p 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 the most wonderful evidences of progress which the world has ever witnessed on the part of a backward people. But not so with Mr.

Hoffman; the necessities of his theories compel him to explain away every apparent advantage in favor of the Negro. The author announces with an implied negative response to the suppressed question: "It remains to be shown whether the educational process which the race has undergone during the past quarter of a century and the additional efforts and opportunities for religious instruction have materially raised the race from its low social and economic condition at the time of emanc.i.p.ation."[49]

This statement needs no refutation, for it will fall beneath the ponderous weight of its own absurdity.

CRIMINAL RECORD.

The following table, if unexplained, tells a startling tale of the Negro's criminal propensity:

_Prisoners in the United States, 1890._[50]

Total. Male. Female.

White 58,052 53,519 4,433 Colored 24,277 22,305 1,972

Male, Female, per cent. per cent.

Proportion of Negro criminals to total (over 15) 29.38 30.79 Proportion of Negro population to total (over 15) 10.20 11.09

The Negro element, which const.i.tutes only 12 per cent of the population, commits 30 per cent of the crimes. Before concluding that this preponderance of crime is due to "race traits," let us examine more closely into the circ.u.mstances of the case. The discrepancy in the administration of the law in the South has undoubtedly some effect upon this relative showing. In order to escape the charge of slander, I will use the words of a distinguished Virginian who boasts of "my southern ancestry, birth, rearing, residence and interest."

"And is not the law the same for all, and does it make any distinction between rich and poor, white and black? Literally, the law is the same for all. Then what more can be desired? The trouble is not that the laws are partial, through some of its enactments, namely, the whipping-post, chain-gang, and poll-tax laws, were aimed princ.i.p.ally against the Negro; but the trouble is with the interpretation of the laws by the juries, who merely voice the public sentiment, which is superior to the law itself. The average jury is a whimsical creature, subject to all kinds of influences, though mostly of a sentimental character. In criminal matters where whites are concerned, it seems ever to lean to the defense; and the strongest arguments of the prosecution are easily offset and upset by appeals on behalf of youth, family, station, respectability, etc.; or, perhaps the whole family, weeping, is placed in full view of the jury, and the susceptible jury, sure at least in such cases to weep with them that weep, speedily brings in a verdict of acquittal where guilt is clearly manifest; or it says jail where it ought to say penitentiary; or one year where it ought to say ten; and ten years where it ought to p.r.o.nounce death. But the Negro has none of these sentimental advantages. Too poor to employ competent counsel, his liberty and life are necessarily committed to incompetent hands, when the proverb of 'poor pay, poor preach' becomes reality ... But are Negroes treated unfairly by juries and public opinion? Yes, and the experience and observation of every fair-minded man will confirm the a.s.sertion. One cardinal proof is that a white man seldom receives punishment for a.s.sault, however brutal, however unprovoked, however cowardly, be it maiming, homicide, or murder upon a Negro unless, forsooth, the a.s.sailant be some degraded creature, disowned by his own caste. Of the numberless instances--running into the thousands--during the past twenty-three years, of homicide and murder of blacks by whites, there is no single instance of capital punishment, and few, very few, instances of imprisonment beyond a few months in jail, or a slight fine.

The fact is the juries, which are the sole judges of the evidence, will accept testimony against a Negro that they would reject in the case of whites; and on the other hand they will frequently reject, or at least discredit, testimony of the Negro against the white man, however well supported it may be. But to compound for sins we are inclined to by d.a.m.ning those we have no mind to, in case of any difficulty between white and black, and the former is injured or loses his life, lucky is the latter if the homicide is not declared murder--when courts of justice, though sure to inflict the highest penalty in his case, are found to be too slow, and he is dragged forth and slain, unshrived and unshriven, as if he were a monstrous wild beast of whose presence earth could not be rid too quickly."[51]

The social degradation of the Negro is the greatest factor contributive to this high criminal record. We naturally a.s.sociate poverty, ignorance, and crime as being indissolubly connected. The Negroes represent the stratum of society which commits the bulk of crime the world over. If we exchange places the same story would be narrated of the whites. The census records nowhere show that there is any connection between crime and race, but between crime and condition.