living authorities in statistics and social science. The temper
of mind which he brought to this study may be judged from his own words:
"Being of foreign birth, a German, I was fortunately free from a personal
bias which might have made an impartial treatment of the subject
difficult."[1] There are other assurances that the author possesses no
personal animosity or repugnance against the Negro as such. But, freedom
from conscious personal bias does not relieve the author from the
imputation of partiality to his own opinions beyond the warrant of the
facts which he has presented. Indeed, it would seem that his conclusion
was reached from _a priori_ considerations and that facts have been
collected in order to justify it.

The main conclusion of the work is that the Negro race in America is
deteriorating physically and morally in such manner as to point to
ulterior extinction, and that this decline is due to "race traits"
rather than to conditions and circumstances of life. Not only do we find
this conclusion expressly set forth in connection with every chapter,
but it is also easily discernible in foot notes and quotations, in the
general drift of cited references, and between the lines. In order to
give the clearest possible statement of the author's position his own
words will be used.

"The conditions of life therefore ... would seem to be of less
importance than race and heredity."[2]

"It is not the _conditions of life_ but in _the race traits and
tendencies_ that we find the causes of the excessive mortality."[3]

"For the root of the evil lies in the fact of an immense amount of
immorality, which is a race trait."[4]

"A combination of these traits and tendencies must in the end cause the
extinction of the race."[5]

"It is not in the conditions of life but in race and heredity that we
find the explanation."[6]

"The mixture of the African with the white race has been shown to have
seriously affected the longevity of the former and left as a heritage to
future generations the poison of scrofula, tuberculosis, and most of
all, of syphilis."[7]

If the reader will keep constantly in mind the key suggested by these
quotations, he will peruse the book itself as well as this review with
greater ease and facility.

CHAPTER I.

_Subject._ Population.

_Gist._ "For some generations the colored element may continue to make
decennial gains, but it is very probable that the next thirty years will
be t