Commenting on this subject Mr. Hoffman says: "This tendency if persisted in will probably in the end prove disastrous to the advancement of the colored race, since there is but the slightest prospect that the race will be lifted to a higher plane of civilization except by constant contact with the white race."[16] It is undoubtedly true that the Negro has not the initiative power of civilization. What race has? Civilization is not an original process with any race or nation known to history. The torch has been passed from race to race and from age to age. Where else can the Negro go? The white race at present has the light. This concession is no reproach to the Negro race, nor is it due to any peculiar race trait or tendency. There is a stretch of country extending from southern Pennsylvania to northern Alabama, containing sections of Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama, and embracing the Appalachian system of mountains. This section contains a population of nearly 3,000,000 souls. They belong for the most part to the most thrifty element of our complex population--an element whose toughness of moral and mental fiber is proverbial. The Scotch-Irish are famed the world over for their manly and moral vigor. And yet this people have sunken to the lowest depth of poverty and degradation--a depth from which, without the assistance of outside help, they can be lifted nevermore.[17] Is this condition of depravity and inability of self-initiative due to "race traits and tendencies?" Then, supposing the Negroes to be concentrated in the black belts, as seems inevitable, will they necessarily be shut out from wholesome contact with civilization? Not at all. Just how far personal and servile contact can elevate the moral and manly tone of a people is not quite evident. But the result of indirect missionary contact is, perhaps, the surest way to lift a race into civilization. I point to Japan as a recent, striking illustration of this argument. The black belts will afford the richest field for missionary and philanthropic endeavor. No section of this country can remain long in an uncivilized state or relapse into barbarism that has in its midst a Hampton Institute or a Booker T. Washington. CHAPTER II. _Subject._ Vital Statistics. _Gist._ "The vitality of the Negro may well be considered the most important phase of the so-called race problem, for it is a fact which can and will be demonstrated by indisputable evidence that of all races for which statistics are obtainable and which enter at all into the consideration of economic problems as factors the Negro shows the least power of resistance in the struggle for life."[18] DEATH RATE.