The Truth About Lynching and the Negro in the South: In Which the Author Pleads That the South Be Made Safe for the White RaceCollins, Winfield H. (Winfield Hazlitt)
History
The Truth About Lynching and the Negro in the South: In Which the Author Pleads That the South Be Made Safe for the White Race
Collins, Winfield H. (Winfield Hazlitt)
African Americans; Lynching; Southern States -- Race relations
In 1860, there were in the neighborhood of 250,000 free Negroes in the
South and around 225,000 in the North. Then, if the free Negroes of
the South had nearly $40,000,000 it would seem a fair estimate that in
both sections the free Negroes had at least $60,000,000. Taking this
for granted, as money at six per cent compounded, annually, doubles
every twelve and one-half years, the $60,000,000 at interest until
the present (1917) would have amounted to about $960,000,000. If the
10,000,000 Negroes of the country at present had as large amount of
property in proportion, as the less than 500,000 free Negroes of 1860,
they would be worth more than $1,200,000,000.
However, in 1903, it was estimated by a committee of the American
Economic Association that all the taxable property in the United States
owned by Negroes in 1900 amounted to only $300,000,000. The $60,000,000
at six per cent would have amounted to about $400,000,000 by that time.
In 1913, in an address before the Negro Business League which met
in Philadelphia, Booker T. Washington said that Negroes pay taxes
on $700,000,000 worth of property. Many other students of the Negro
question both black and white have placed about the same estimate upon
Negro holdings. Even if true, the amount would be about $200,000,000
less than the $60,000,000 at interest to the same time.
Now, assuming that Negroes actually owned $700,000,000 worth of
property in 1913, what does it signify? The value of all property in
the United States is now estimated at almost $250,000,000,000. Now,
suppose that it was $210,000,000,000 in 1913, this would be just three
hundred times the estimated value of Negro property at the time. In
other words, 10,000,000 negroes owned one three-hundredth as much as
90,000,000 whites. Thus one white man on an average would have as much
as thirty-two Negroes.
Even were it true that the Negro race began with nothing after the War,
likely thousands of white men who became millionaires had just such a
start. One such white man, especially, is, no doubt, worth as much as
the 10,000,000 Negroes claim to be, even though he has given to charity
almost half as much more.
Indeed, the $700,000,000 in question is but little more than
two-thirds as much as the whites in the United States, according to
the _Chicago Tribune_,[128:5] gave to charity during 1916. Again, the
$700,000,000 lacks nearly $200,000,000 of being equal to the taxable
basis of Baltimore. It would be difficult to secure statistics in
reference to the matter, but there could be little doubt that the first
immigrants to the United States after the Civil War, including the
descendents of such to the number of 10,000,000,—immigrants who came
with practically nothing, no money in the majority of instances and
ignorant,—now are worth many times $700,000,000.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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