The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1884-05-15
The Labor Question.

Inc LABOR QUESTION.
The end of our troubles will not be
reached until the white men, as rule,
ceases to depend upon the black men for
their labor, and learn to use their heads
and hands at the same time, as white farm
ers do in all other sections of the country,
except that formerly covered by the
institution of slavery. Under that insti'
tuition the white man did all the brain
work, the black man all the manual labor.
One made no use of his bone and muscle,
the other no use of his mind, in the con-
duct of the plantation. Each class, there
fore, acquired a one.sided education, as
farmers. This institution lasted for
generations, and thereby this education
became deeply fixed and strongly forti'
fed. All of our people, white and black,
now over 30 years Of age were born and
reared under its influences. When the
revolution came in this system, how did
it come? AS changes of this kind
generally Gomez Not bit of it! It did
not work itself out among us-did not
grow up, so to speak, from causes within,
naturally and gradually, but it was
forced from without violently and sud-
denly. The consequences followed, "as
night the day." Neither blacks nor
whites could adapt themselves to the
changed relations between them, at once.
In fact, they could neither understand
fully the exact nature and extent OF an
order of things with which they were
totally unacquainted, much less judicious.
ly and promptly yield to its requirements.
Naturally enough, they both attempted
something like the old system under
which they had so long lived and worked,
whenever they attempted to work at all.
But one disaster has followed another,
thick and fast, whenever that system, or
ANYTHING distantly akin to it, has been
adopted. We have found, as in the days
of old, that we cannot safely put new
wine into old bottles. 'The generous
new wine" of freedom cannot be held in
the old bottles of slavery. And the more
quickly we discover this fact and act
upon it the better for us. That the lesson
will finally be thoroughly learned in the
hard school of experience there can be
no doubt. This system we cannot alter,
but we can greatly better our condition
under it by looking for its true import.
The black man, I fear, will never, as a
general rule, acquire habits of forethought,
Scare for the morrow" and intelligent
and economical methods of carrying on
his farming operations, and for these he
must now look wholly to himself His
failure or inability to do these has so far,
made him drag upon the State, and OF
little service to himself. Not having the
mind of the white man to direct and
control his labors, they have been in a
great measure wasted. The white man,
on the other hand, in many, many instan.
ces, has stubbornly resisted the force and
influence of the free system, and just so
far as he has resisted, he has suffered.
He has been wasting his mental and
moral energies in the vain attempt to
control and direct the negro labor. The
pains and penalties Of his non compliance
with the inexorable requirements of our
present industrial arrangements fall not
upon him alone, but upon his State.
His brain and moral forces have been CT
no more service TO him or to his country
since the war. The negro's muscle and
bone have been equally as unscrviceable
Is it surprising, then, that we hear the
cry of Poverty, ""Destruction, "Want,"
on every hand? It takes heads as well
as hands to make prosperity on farms.
And they must work together, to the
same end, or they had as we'll not work
at all. Now, the white mans head and
the black mans hands were permanently
divorced by Mr.. Lincoln's proclamation
of freedom some years ago; and no pow
er can ever unite them again. They
move wider and wider apart every day.
Rare instances of their union prove moth
ing; and our poverty will grow greater
and greater every day, until we recog.
nize the potency of the new order OF
things. Soon the negro will be driven
by want to seek employment anywhere
he can find it, and thereby be scatte' ID
to the four ends of the earth. White
men will then have to come down, with
out preparation, to what they might now
be fitting themselves for. The departure
of the negro will be no evil, but the
| greatest blessing of all blessings to our
country, because it will terminate finally
the unhappy effort to carry on the slave
system of labor under free institutions.
White men can do here as white men
have done in other sections of the globe
too numerous to mention. They can
work with their bodies and brains at the
same time, and have trained bodies and
trained brains belonging to one and the
same person. Southern minds are no
| whit superior to Northern and Western
minds, where this system of every farmer
working with his own hands as he directs,
and thereby much better directs others
how to work and what to do. Our young
men must be educated to work on their
farms with their own hands, or they will
assuredly have, in few years, to surren'
der those farms to those who have
learned to do just such work in other
States and other countries.
They had better address themselves at
once to the question of how to reduce
human labor their own personal labor
to a minimum, and raise machine work
to a maximum.
These "labor-doing machines" Jas
Daniel Webster once termed them, with
striking felocity) will "do" more tor our
prosperity than all the negro or immi-
grant labor that re can rake together.
I've are in a position (those of us who
nom occupy and own the splendid lands
of this State) to acquire unexamplled
riches, If We will only go 10 work ourseices
and make them. If We don't others are
coming who will. Our women should
seek and have every convenient ana
do their own household work, hiring
only "a little help" on wash days, &c.
Our men should have both eyes wide
open to find "labor. r.doing" "..machineS to
perform their field work, hiring only "a
little help" during harvest season; or by
combination. one farmer with another,