The Meridional. (Abbeville, La.) 1856-1906, 1886-12-18
The Negro as Il Tenant.

There is one fact, however, that is
| daily growing more certain, and which
! in a few yeats will be an accepted fact,
! refer to the negro as a tenant. The
| negro tenant system is already a failure
if we would only acknowledge the fact.
We are slow to admit such things; in
in fact, we will not do so until the sledge
hammer blow Of no small force knocks
us into the admission The inaugural
addresses of our governors ascribe cuI
want of prosperity to the tariff and
various other theoretical causes. Farm
| er Tillman" and his followers cry "high
taxes" The press Of the country
strains itself in seeking theoretical
causes, and other men claim that Gould,
Vanderbilt and the other capitalists
have the money locked up, thus keep
ing it beyond our reach. This is all
bosh. Neither high tariff, high taxes,
Gould, nor anything else is making us
poorer every year. This is matter
that rests entirely and solely with our
selves. Individual exertions and a good
class Of laborars and tenants will pull
Us through and nothing else, twist as
you please. It is d we'll known fact
that will not admit OF contradiction,
that the negro will not work one half OF
his time, and that hp butchers the land
he cultivates most outrageously. Then
again, but few Of our farmers do much
more than plant, work and gather their
crops. The planting and working re-
quires about four months, and the rest
of the year is simply used in gathering
the crop and sowing a small quantity
cf grain. Your correspondent is no
politician, and therefore not afraid to
speak the truth about these matters.
As regards our write farmers, do not
propose to ascribe their want of success
to the tariff, high taxes, OF anything
else of like nature. For success rests
entirely upon their own power regard
less Of such agencies, and the sooner
this fact is realized the better it will be.
Negro laborers, tenants, planting SO
much cotton and not raising home sup
plies, and the fact that our farmers
only plant, in haphaZard way, their
crops and gather them are the real and
true cause of the hard times among
them. Then, again, we have been
reared to depend upon the negro, and
we still hold on to this idea, but this
must be put behind us, and our indi-
vidual eXertions must be relied upon, if
the success we desire is to be reached.
The incompetcncy of the negro as a
tenant has been more fully shown this
year than in aGJ previous ole, owing
to the peculiar nature of the amend
ment added to our old "Lien Law" ths
effect of which is to place the landlord
between the tenant and the merchant.
Year by year the tenant system is dy-
ing out, and the sooner it dies out the
better it will be for our State. This
option is based upon actual experience,
as your correspondent has charge of
some four thousand acres of land, upon
which there are none but negro tenants.
The system Of letting lands to negroes
must cease, and CUR large farms sold in
small tracts to good white men, before
the South will ever reach any great de-
gree of prosperity. Like every other
kind of business, there is 70 big money
in farming except by hard wc.F ard
close economy. A mere living is as
much as we can expect, but if the farm
ers would raise their own supplies at
home with cotton as % surplus crop,
they would be the most independent
set of men on the face Of the earth.
| Under the present system of farming
they are the slaves, not of the tariff and
high taxes, but of the merchants, the
negro and cotton.-Abbeville Is. c.
Correspondence Augusta Chronicle.