Chapter 27

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 sufficient to 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 of the 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.

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. No _legerdemain_ has 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 people concerning 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, 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 are _poverty_, _prejudice_, and _ignorance_. 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 from _poverty_ alone.

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 in _education_ and _money_. 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 with hereditary 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.