The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1893-09-12
CHEAP LABOR in THE SOUTH.
The Negroes n Great Source of the
SOuth's Observation-Disclosures Labor
Will Generate Millions of Capital.

H AoibcWthS tObSSE supOh VIC ldDOT
problem and the Industrial resources
of the South is from the pen OF Col.
John l.. Black, Of Greenville, and win
prove instructive II not convincing upon
the points he discusses:
The slave labor OF the South did not
compete directly with the white
labor OF the North prior to 1860, be-
cause the negro produced exclusively
cotton, sugar, rice and tobacco. That
portion OF he slave population used In
domestic service was not q producing,
but = consuming class, and barred
from work at the South the laboring
white man who aspired to as servile
q position as that Of domestic servant.
The sentimental crusade of so-called
philanthropy, directed against Afri-
q slavery, led to its downfall. AS q
Southern man and an ex-slaveholder,
the writer admits that the institution
was In many respects Objectionable,
and Its abolition Is not regretted when,
after the lapse of thirty years, it Is
plainly demonstrated that the labor of
the freed negro costs less than the
former labor of the slave. The negro
Ia now engaged In rearing himself,
pays his W doctors bills and funeral
expenses, as it were, carries his own
insurance and pays the parson to
minister to his spiritual comfort,
formerly took upon themselves to pay.
The price OF the free Negroes labor is
not owe one half of what it cost as q
slave.
Heretofore, since 1866, the great
mass OF this free negro labor has been
concentrated on the production of cot
ton, sugar, rice and tobacco, and from
the natural increase of this race too
much ~cotton-and perhaps too much
OF the other products ~named-is being
made, the natural result being low
labor is drawing itself from the cot
ton fields and is finding employment
In other lines, in manufacturing, min
ing, building railroads and other So
called public works. With cotton
under ten cents per pound the labor of
an ablebodied black man can always
be had in the South for fifty, sixty, or
at the highest seventy cents per day.
AS a patient laborer the negro has no
equal ha has no trades union or eight
hOur law notions, but consents and
does work ~cheerfully, ten to eleven
hours daily. His movements are not
as quick us those of the white man,
but his patient endurance is much
greater, and as he tolls he whites
away care with song.
In the colOred race exists the great
source of the South's future wealth.
The sentimental abolitiOnist of the
Olden time, little imagined that aboli-
ton successful and the negro eman-
olpated, he wOuld-not as a slave, but
as a free man and alongside of his old
master-become the fertile means OF
enriching the South. This senti-
ppnpfol nlocS In %h- h1xA - -
been clamOrOus for the elevation of
labor, and they now have the fruits
of it at home where the laborer has
been elevated until he will no labor,
but by trades unions and labor organi-
cations aspires to rule and govern and
control the capital he does not own.
Hence the elevated, educated and en-
l~ightened labor of many portions of
the North Is not labor, but a clamoring
horde OF bosses who must needs con-
troll their employers.
When the Irishman was no longer
available, the Immigration of Chinese,
Italians, Hungartans and such like
was encouraged in order to supply the
labor market in the No,:h. But for
n accession of these latter classys,
many sections of the rich North would
be In a collapsed condition now. But
mt the South no foreign immigration
finds its way there the freed negro is
present in sufficient numbers to supply
all demands on the labor market, and
he Is likely to keep on in the even
tenor of his way for q century yet to
come. The Italian and the Chinaman
In the North work cheaper han any
other race. Because they live on
cheap food. At the South the negro
gets such food as pleases him far
cheaper than an Italian or a Chinaman
can feed himself in the North. Hence
the negro in the South can and will
labor for less than either of the COM
peting classes referred to. The mild
ness of the climate and small cost of
fuel make his housing and his clothing
cheaper han the fuel and housing of
any other laboring man in the Union.
The cost OF such clothing as he gener-
ally wears is SO small that practically
1T amounts to nothing: One days
work per week will feed him, and the
wages of another day will, on an aver
age, clothe him. His wife, as a rule,
takes care of herself. Now this man
Is free n as a citizen of this great
country has a right to labor or not as
he pleases, and he both can and will
work more cheaply than ever that so
much talked Of pauper labor of the
Old Country.
Whatever free negro labor at the
south produces a be produced no
longer by the educated white labor of
the North, as the negro can underpro-
duce his Northern laboring brother by
forty to fifty per cent. Last October
the writer saw one hundred able-bodied
negro laborers, singing merrily at
their work, making bricks and hand
ling them for the erection OF a cotton
factory at Gaffney City in South Caro-
lima. They were paid weekly in cash,
sixty cents per day Of eleven hours.
In the same yard were thirty bricklay-
ers n as many rough carpenters
working on the mill building. Only
four OF these mechanics received over
$1.0O per day Inc none over 81. 25, the
others ranging from seventy five to
ninety cents per day. The bricks
were going into the walls of this
factory at a cost of less than SO per
thousand, including cement founda-
tions. In the yard were one and one
half million feet of Georgia pine, which
was delivered at q cost Of $3.50 per
thousand feet. This factory. with an
outfit of looms and the best modern
machinery, has been completed at a
cost of about 1880 per spindle.
Where else In the United States can
this be done except in the South?
The poor white people live, thrive
and keep fat at these wages, they are
patient and generally Industrious and
enjoy life to a greater degree than do
the majority of the similar class in the