Following the Color Line — Race Relationships in the South - part 2

_Keeping Negroes Poor_ This system has many bad results.

It encourages the Negro in crime.

He knows that unless he does something pretty bad, he will not be prosecuted because the landlord doesn't want to lose the work of a single hand; he knows that if he _is_ prosecuted, the white man will, if possible, "pay him out."

It disorganises justice and confuses the ignorant Negro mind as to what is a crime and what is not.

A Negro will often do things that he would not do if he thought he were really to be punished.

He comes to the belief that if the white man wants him arrested, he will be arrested, and if he protects him, he won't suffer, no matter what he does.

Thousands of Negroes, ignorant, weak, indolent, to-day work under this system.

There are even landlords and employers who will trade upon the Negro's worst instincts--his love for liquor, for example--in order to keep him at work.

An instance of this sort came to my attention at Hawkinsville while I was there.

The white people of the town were making a strong fight for prohibition; the women held meetings, and on the day of the election marched in the streets singing and speaking.

But the largest employer of Negro labor in the county had registered several hundred of his Negroes and declared his intention of voting them against prohibition.

He said bluntly: "If my niggers can't get whisky they won't stay with me; you've got to keep a nigger poor or he won't work."

This employer actually voted sixty of his Negroes against prohibition, but the excitement was so great that he dared vote no more--and prohibition carried.

A step further brings the Negro to the chain-gang.

If there is no white man to pay him out, or if his crime is too serious to be paid out, he goes to the chain-gang--and in several states he is then hired out to private contractors.

The private employer thus gets him sooner or later.

Some of the largest farms in the South are operated by chain-gang labour.

The demand for more convicts by white employers is exceedingly strong.

In the Montgomery _Advertiser_ for April 10, 1907, I find an account of the sentencing of fifty-four prisoners in the city court, fifty-two of whom were Negroes.

The _Advertiser_ says: The demand for their labour is probably greater now than it ever has been before.

Numerous labour agents of companies employing convict labour reached Montgomery yesterday, and were busily engaged in manoeuvring to secure part or even all of the convicts for their respective companies.

The competition for labour of all kinds, it seems, is keener than ever before known.

The natural tendency of this demand, and from the further fact that the convict system makes yearly a huge profit for the State, is to convict as many Negroes as possible, and to punish the offences charged as severely as possible.

From the Atlanta _Constitution_ of October 13, 1906, I have this clipping: SIX MONTHS FOR POTATO THEFT

COLUMBUS, GA.

, October 12 (Special) In the city court yesterday Charley Carter, a Negro, was sentenced to six months on the chain-gang or to pay a fine of for stealing a potato valued at 5 cents.

Serious crimes are sometimes compromised.

In a newspaper dispatch, October 6, 1906, from Eaton Ga.

, I find a report of the trial of six Negroes charged with assault with the intent to kill.

All were found guilty, but upon a recommendation of mercy they were sentenced as having committed misdemeanours rather than felonies.

They could therefore have their fines paid, and five were immediately released by farmers who wanted their labour.

The report says that of thirty-one misdemeanours during the month it is expected that "none will reach the chain-gang," since there are "three farmers to every convict ready to pay the fine."

[Illustration: A TYPE OF THE COUNTRY CHAIN-GANG NEGRO] Still other methods are pursued by certain landlords to keep their tenants on the land.

In one extreme case a Negro tenant, after years of work, decided to leave the planter.

He had had a place offered him where he could make more money.

There was nothing against him; he simply wanted to move.

But the landlord informed him that no waggon would be permitted to cross his (the planter's) land to get his household belongings.

The Negro, being ignorant, supposed he could thus be prevented from moving, and although the friend who was trying to help him assured him that the landlord could not prevent his moving, he dared not go.

In another instance--also extreme--a planter refused to let his tenants raise hogs, because he wanted them to buy salt pork at his store.

It is, indeed, through the plantation store (which corresponds to the company or "truck" store of Northern mining regions) that the unscrupulous planter reaps his most exorbitant profits.

Negroes on some plantations, whether they work hard or not, come out at the end of the year with nothing.

Part of this is due, of course, to their own improvidence; but part, in too many cases, is due to exploitation by the landlord.

_One Biscuit to Eat and no Place to Sleep_ Booker T. Washington, in a letter to the Montgomery _Advertiser_ on the Negro labour problem, tells this story: I recall that some years ago a certain white farmer asked me to secure for him a young coloured man to work about the house and to work in the field.

The young man was secured, a bargain was entered into to the effect that he was to be paid a certain sum monthly and his board and lodging furnished as well.

At the end of the coloured boy's first day on the farm he returned.

I asked the reason, and he said that after working all the afternoon he was handed a buttered biscuit for his supper, and no place was provided for him to sleep.

At night he was told he could find a place to sleep in the fodder loft.

This white farmer, whom I know well, is not a cruel man and seeks generally to do the right thing; but in this case he simply overlooked the fact that it would have paid him in dollars and cents to give some thought and attention to the comfort of his helper.

This case is more or less typical.

Had this boy been well cared for, he would have advertised the place that others would have sought work there.

Such methods mean, of course, the lowest possible efficiency of labour--ignorant, hopeless, shiftless.

The harsh planter naturally opposes Negro education in the bitterest terms and prevents it wherever possible;

for education means the doom of the system by which he thrives.

_Negro with Nineteen Children_ Life for the tenants is often not a pleasant thing to contemplate.

I spent much time driving about on the great plantations and went into many of the cabins.

Usually they were very poor, of logs or shacks, sometimes only one room, sometimes a room and a sort of lean-to.

At one side there was a fireplace, often two beds opposite, with a few broken chairs or boxes, and a table.

Sometimes the cabin was set up on posts and had a floor, sometimes it was on the ground and had no floor at all.

The people are usually densely ignorant and superstitious; the preachers they follow are often the worst sort of characters, dishonest and immoral; the schools, if there are any, are practically worthless.

The whole family works from sunrise to sunset in the fields.

Even children of six and seven years old will drop seed or carry water.

Dr. W.

E.

B.

DuBois, himself a Negro, who has made many valuable and scholarly studies of Negro life, gives this vivid glimpse into a home where the Negro and his wife had nineteen children.

He says: This family of twenty-one is a poverty stricken, reckless, dirty set.

The children are stupid and repulsive, and fight for their food at the table.

They are poorly dressed, sickly and cross.

The table dishes stand from one meal to another unwashed, and the house is in perpetual disorder.

Now and then the father and mother engage in a hand-to-hand fight.

_Never Heard the Name of Roosevelt_ It would be impossible to over-emphasise the ignorance of many Negro farmers.

It seems almost unbelievable, but after some good-humoured talk with a group of old Negroes I tried to find out how much they knew of the outside world.

I finally asked them if they knew Theodore Roosevelt.

They looked puzzled, and finally one old fellow scratched his head and said: "Whah you say dis yere man libes?"

"In Washington," I said; "you've heard of the President of the United States?"

"I reckon I dunno," he said.

And yet this old man gave me a first-class religious exhortation; and one in the group had heard of Booker T. Washington, whom he described as a "pow'ful big nigger."

_Why Negroes Go to Cities_ I made inquiries among the Negroes as to why they wanted to leave the farms and go to cities.

The answer I got from all sorts of sources was first, the lack of schooling in the country, and second, the lack of protection.

And I heard also many stories of ill-treatment of various sorts, the distrust of the tenant of the landlord in keeping his accounts--all of which, dimly recognised, tends to make many Negroes escape the country, if they can.

Indeed, it is growing harder and harder on the great plantations, especially where the management is by overseers, to keep a sufficient labour supply.

In some places the white landlords have begun to break up their plantations, selling small farms to ambitious Negroes--a significant sign, indeed, of the passing of the feudal system.

An instance of this is found near Thomaston, Ga.

, where Dr. C. B.

Thomas has long been selling land to Negroes, and encouraging them to buy by offering easy terms.

Near Dayton, Messrs. Price and Allen have broken up their "Lockhart Plantation" and are selling it out to Negroes.

I found similar instances in many places I visited.

Commenting on this tendency, the Thomaston _Post_ says: This is, in part, a solution of the so-called Negro problem, for those of the race who have property interests at stake cannot afford to antagonise their white neighbours or transgress the laws.

The ownership of land tends to make them better citizens in every way, more thoughtful of the right of others, and more ambitious for their own advancement.

At this place a number of neat and comfortable homes, a commodious high school, and a large lodge building, besides a number of churches, testify to the enterprise and thrift the best class of our coloured population....

The tendency towards cutting up the large plantations is beginning to show itself, and when all of them are so divided, there will be no agricultural labour problem, except, perhaps, in the gathering of an especially large crop.

III

I have endeavoured thus to give a picture of both sides of conditions in the black belt exactly as I saw them.

I can now do no better in further illumination of the conditions I have described than by looking at them through the eyes and experiences of two exceptionally able white men of the South, both leaders in their respective walks of life, neither of them politicians and both, incidentally, planters.

At Jackson, Miss. , I met Major R. W.

Millsaps, a leading citizen of the state.

He comes of a family with the best Southern traditions behind it;

he was born in Mississippi, graduated before the war at Harvard College, and although his father, a slave owner, had opposed secession, the son fought four years in the Confederate army, rising to the rank of Major.

He came out of the war, as he says, "with no earthly possessions but a jacket and a pair of pants, with a hole in them."

But he was young and energetic;

he began hauling cotton from Jackson to Natchez when cotton was worth almost its weight in gold.

He received a bale for doing it and made ,000 in three months.

He is now the president of one of the leading banks in Mississippi, interested in many important Southern enterprises, and the founder of Millsaps College at Jackson: a modest, useful, Christian gentleman.

_An Experiment in Trusting Negroes_ Near Greenville, Miss. , Major Millsaps owns a plantation of 500 acres, occupied by 20 tenants, some 75 people in all.

It is in one of the richest agricultural sections--the Mississippi bottoms--in the United States.

Up to 1890 he had a white overseer and he was constantly in trouble of one kind or another with his tenants.

When the price of cotton dropped, he decided to dispense with the overseer entirely and try a rather daring experiment.

In short, he planned to trust the Negroes.

He got them together and said: "I am going to try you.

I'm going to give you every possible opportunity;

if you don't make out, I will go back to the overseer system."

In the sixteen years since then no white man has been on that plantation except as a visitor.

The land was rented direct to the Negroes on terms that would give both landlord and tenant a reasonable profit.

"Did it work?"

I asked.

"I have never lost one cent," said Major Millsaps, "no Negro has ever failed to pay up and you couldn't drive them off the place.

When other farmers complain of shortage of labour and tenants, I never have had any trouble."

Every Negro on the place owns his own mules and waggons and is out of debt.

Nearly every family has bought or is buying a home in the little town of Leland, nearby, some of which are comfortably furnished.

They are all prosperous and contented.

"How do you do it?"

I asked.

"The secret," he said, "is to treat the Negro well and give him a chance.

I have found that a Negro, like a white man, is most responsive to good treatment.

Even a dog responds to kindness!

The trouble is that most planters want to make too much money out of the Negro; they charge him too much rent; they make too large profits on the supplies they furnish.

I

know merchants who expect a return of 50 per cent.

on supplies alone.

The best Negroes I have known are those who are educated; Negroes need more education of the right kind--not less--and it will repay us well if we give it to them.

It makes better, not worse, workers."

I asked him about the servant problem.

"We never have any trouble," he said.

"I apply the same rule to servants as to the farmers.

Treat them well, don't talk insultingly of their people before them, don't expect them to do too much work.

I believe in treating a Negro with respect.

That doesn't mean to make equals of them.

You people in the North don't make social equals of your white servants."

_Jefferson Davis's Way with Negroes_ Then he told a striking story of Jefferson Davis.

"I got a lesson in the treatment of Negroes when I was a young man returning South from Harvard.

I stopped in Washington and called on Jefferson Davis, then United States Senator from Mississippi.

We walked down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Many Negroes bowed to Mr. Davis and he returned the bow.

He was a very polite man.

I finally said to him that I thought he must have a good many friends among the Negroes.

He replied: "'I can't allow any Negro to outdo me in courtesy.'

" _Plain Words from a White Man_ A few days later on my way North I met at Clarksdale, Miss. , Walter Clark, one of the well-known citizens of the state and President of the Mississippi Cotton Association.

In the interests of his organisation he has been speaking in different parts of the state on court-days and at fairs.

And the burden of his talks has been, not only organisation by the farmers, but a more intelligent and progressive treatment of Negro labour.

Recognising the instability of the ordinary Negro, the crime he commits, the great difficulties which the best-intentioned Southern planters have to meet, Mr. Clark yet tells his Southern audiences some vigorous truths.

He said in a recent speech: "Every dollar I own those Negroes made for me.

Our ancestors chased them down and brought them here.

They are just what we make them.

By our own greed and extravagance we have spoiled a good many of them.

It has been popular here--now happily growing less so--to exploit the Negro by high store-prices and by encouraging him to get into debt.

It has often made him hopeless.

We have a low element of white people who are largely responsible for the Negro's condition.

They sell him whiskey and cocaine;

they corrupt Negro women.

A white man who shoots craps with Negroes or who consorts with Negro women is worse than the meanest Negro that ever lived."

At Coffeeville, where Mr. Clark talked somewhat to this effect, an old man who sat in front suddenly jumped up and said: "That's the truth!

Bully for you; bully for you!"

In his talk with me, Mr. Clark said other significant things: "Our people have treated the Negroes as helpless children all their days.

The Negro has not been encouraged to develop even the capacities he has.

He must be made to use his own brains, not ours; put him on his responsibility and he will become more efficient.

A Negro came to me not long ago complaining that the farmer for whom he worked would not give him an itemised account of his charges at the store.

I met the planter and asked him about it.

He said to me: "'The black nigger!

What does he know about it?

He can't read it.'

"'But he is entitled to it, isn't he?'

I asked him--and the Negro got it.

"The credit system has been the ruin of many Negroes.

It keeps them in hopeless debt and it encourages the planter to exploit them.

That's the truth.

My plan is to put the Negro on a strict cash basis; give him an idea of what money is by letting him use it.

Three years ago I started it on my plantation.

A Negro would come to me and say: 'Boss, I want a pair of shoes.'

'All right,' I'd say.

'I'll pay you spot cash every night and you can buy your own shoes.'

In the same way I made up my mind that we must stop paying Negroes' fines when they got into trouble.

I know planters who expect regularly every Monday to come into court and pay out about so many Negroes.

It encourages the Negroes to do things they would not think of doing if they knew they would be regularly punished.

I've quit paying fines; my Negroes, if they get into trouble, have got to recognise their own responsibility for it and take what follows.

That's the only way to make men of them.

"What we need in the South is intelligent labour, more efficient labour.

I

believe in the education of the Negro.

Industrial training is needed, not only for the Negro, but for the whites as well.

The white people down here have simply got to take the Negro and make a man of him; in the long run it will make him more valuable to us."

_PART TWO_

THE NEGRO IN THE NORTH

CHAPTER VI